On Friday, November 15, 2002, at 07:48 PM, Dave Emery wrote:
And software-defined radios, which are now coming from at least two sources, will make this even easier. Indeed, "trespassing" into the Big Brother-owned frequencies will be even easier.I might hasten to add that as I am sure Declan knows, this addition to the Homeland Defense Act also includes the CSEA provisions that turn hobby listening to certain easy to receive but off limit radio signals from an offense with a maximum penalty of a $500 fine to a federal felony with 5 years in prison as penalty.When this legislation is signed into law ANY violation of the radio listening bans in the ECPA will be a serious felony, no lesser penalty for the first offense or because the intercept was done out of curiosity or the desire to experiment with radio gear. And no lesser penalty because the offense was not for private financial gain or commercial advantage or in furtherance of a crime as the current law allows. What this means is that while one would have been hard pressed to do more than commit a federal offense with a $500 fine by purchasing a scanner or receiver from Radio Shack and tuning around just to see what one hears, one can now commit a serious felony by doing this extremely easily.
We may even see SDRs outlawed from the outset as "terrorist tools."
(Inasmuch as tuning an SDR is nothing more than entering numbers, or running simple programs, we may also see "coding as speech" arguments resurrected. All for naught, though, as Camp Liberty in Guantanamo Bay has room for 12,000 more Thought Criminals.)
"All your frequencies are belong to us."
Welcome to the Total State. Clinton and Bush have succeeded where pikers like Adolf failed.
--Tim May
