FCC policy

Re Strick's item on "used to be legal to listen to anything that passed
through your airspace as long as you didn't (divulge or sell)..."  Yes this
used to be the case.  I'm not sure if ECPA is what changed it, but.... there
is some hope of getting it changed back again...

Bill Clinton just signed a piece of legislation which restored a pre-1990
standard with regard to religious freedom, overturning a more authoritarian
standard prmulgated by the Supreme Court in the last couple of years. The
critical case involved Native American use of peyote, a sacramental cactus
which is also a controlled substance.  Anyway, if Clinton is backing efforts
to return to older and more libertarian standards in one area, it's worth a
try he'd go for it in another area as well.  He made a decent statement
about how religious freedom is vital to the 1st Amendment, is foundational
in our country, and so on; one could make the same case around a freedom to
*hear* which is the necessary corrolary to the freedom to speak.  

-gg

# From: "George A. Gleason" <gg@well.sf.ca.us>
# 
# Re Strick's item on "used to be legal to listen to anything that passed
# through your airspace as long as you didn't (divulge or sell)..."  Yes this
# used to be the case.  I'm not sure if ECPA is what changed it, but.... there
# is some hope of getting it changed back again...

I agree that Clinton's shift to value individual liberties is a good thing.
(However his support for anything is always subject to change....)

However what we have now is a list of frequencies that it is illegal
for you to listen to -- 2600 published the list as a service to its
members :-).

The cypherpunk platform here should be not merely for more liberty to
use electronic gadgets, but for relying on technology rather than laws
to assure privacy.  This argument could be made regardless of whether
an administration wanted to see more or less liberty/privacy -- as long
as it wants there to be some liberty/privacy.

I'm sure you already know these, I think it's important to distinguish
the arguments.

						strick