Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: Thomas Lapp Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Supreme Court Rules Cordless Phones Not Private Message-ID: <2784@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 11 Jan 90 00:16:16 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Reply-To: mvac23!thomas@udel.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 48 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 20, message 7 of 9 And in a comment on another posting in the same issue in which the Supreme Court ruled that conversations over cordless phones are not considered private: > A federal judge in Davenport, Iowa threw out the suit, saying users of > cordless phones should know that the technology used in their phones > makes it possible to overhear a conversation without a wiretap. As > [...] > who argued the matter before the Supreme Court claimed "this decision > deprives millions of Americans the privacy rights they *think* they > have when they are talking at home on a cordless phone." (emphasis > mine) What bothers me about this is that if users of cordless phones should be aware that they can be overheard, the Supreme Court should also apply the same reasoning to cellular telephones since it is OBVIOUS that carphones, etc. use radio waves (the antenna tends to give it away :-). It seems inconsistant that the ECPA protects cellular phones but not cordless phones; or vice versa, that the Supreme Court can rule that cordless phones are not private, but not strike down the ECPA on that same point. > He said it also takes away the privacy protection of callers using a > regular phone who, unknowingly, speak with someone using a cordless phone. Now I could see this side of it, although most of the time, the quality difference between cordless and corded telephones is such that most people can tell which is being used at the other end. And likewise, most people know that they are dialing a cellular telephone when they do so, although the quality difference is less noticable (in my opinion). - tom internet : mvac23!thomas@udel.edu or thomas%mvac23@udel.edu uucp : {ucbvax,mcvax,psuvax1,uunet}!udel!mvac23!thomas Europe Bitnet: THOMAS1@GRATHUN1 Location: Newark, DE, USA Quote : Virtual Address eXtension. Is that like a 9-digit zip code? [Moderator's Note: There is no logical reason why cordless phones are not protected by ECPA and cellular phones are. The only reason for this discrepancy is that cellular phone companies have big $$ to spend on aggressive attornies. Actually, there is no valid reason for ECPA, period, but that's a story for another day. PT]