On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 3:23 PM, Bruce Perens <br...@perens.com> wrote: > I looked briefly over the U.S. law on this issue since 1927. I think I could > make a pretty good case that the justifications in 47 CFR 97.1 and the right > to listen implicit in the 1st amendment to the U.S. constitution imply a > right to monitor Amateur communications.
A right to monitor doesn't imply a right to understand, unless you think you have an obligation to explain your jargon to any neophyte who comes asking. :) I think "First amendment implies a right to monitor" is an unwise approach to take to the issue— especially because in many context where private data is handled the use of encryption is an incredibly essential freedom and free-speech _enabler_ without which the users of technology are far more exposed to exploitation by powerful interests. It's also unlikely to be successful, considering that the first amendment does not constrain private parties. Instead, the prohibition against encrypted communications on amateur bands is justified for a different and highly pragmatic reason: For many good reasons commercial usage of the amateur bands is prohibited and that prohibition can not be effective, especially considering how enforcement works, if communications are encrypted. Likewise, community spectrum management also requires transparent communication to be maximally effective. Though I do also wonder if arguing this is wise more generally: The loss of relevance of the amateur service comes in part from a mismatch between how people use communications technology today —as an increasingly personal and intimate part of their lives— and the rules and norms of amateur radio. I think the amateur rules and norms are generally good for HF/VHF/UHF ... But for SHF+ the ham spectrum is almost universally underutilized and between wide spectrum and spacial reuse (due to the possibility of highly directional P2P signals) there is technically a lot of potential to do things like have communities further the public interest by building backbone infrastructure for third party access to the Internet, coordinated by and in the spirit of amateur communications— but the regs don't practically permit it. At some day in the future we may need them to, or risk losing that spectrum. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Symantec Endpoint Protection 12 positioned as A LEADER in The Forrester Wave(TM): Endpoint Security, Q1 2013 and "remains a good choice" in the endpoint security space. For insight on selecting the right partner to tackle endpoint security challenges, access the full report. http://p.sf.net/sfu/symantec-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Freetel-codec2 mailing list Freetel-codec2@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freetel-codec2
