| I heard a talk this past week [...] | | Basically, every phone in the government buildings is subject to being | listened in on. Everyone there knows this and knows beforehand that | their calls are most likly being taped. There is no privacy in calls | from these buildings and since one party knows this (ie the gov. individual) | it is leagal to tape and and listen in. Of course the other person | is not necisarily aware of this but that's his/her- problem (according to law). | | Now when governement individuals start carrying cell phones, I suspect | that the sames rules will apply. (?) | | I also heard (I may be wrong) that there is a law that says people should | expect that their cell phones will be overheard but that any information | obtained from such a converstation can not be used in court. The government (as do most businesses) asserts it's ownership of its property. Among this property are the phones && phone systems that it has purchased. Since our government is concerned about how our tax dollars are spent, it has regulations forbidding personal use of its property by it's employees. Since this is the government, these regulations take the form of law - both civil and criminal. Since they have outlawed personal use, it follows that the only legitimate use will be that dealing with government business. And there is nothing wrong with a business being concerned with how its operations are being conducted. Consider taping of E911 calls, listening in on IRS help lines to ensure no useful information is divulged, compiling statistics on just how long people will wait on hold for someone in the DMV, and the like ... :-) (As an aside, government people who deal in security usually answer their phones with "Hello, Mr/s Smith speaking, this channel is not secure" to alert the caller that the connection may be monitored) Contrary to Lile's fears, while the government reserves the right to listen to its employees' phone calls, it most certainly does not routinely tape all such calls. (hmmm, several hundred thousand employees times ?? hours phone use per day == how many tons of audio tape? :-) The laws of this land (USoA) also state that it is illegal to record phone conversations unless at least one of the parties is aware of the action (or there is a court warrent authorizing a wiretap). Since all gov't phones are subject to monitoring, all gov't employees are told this, and thus the law is adhered to. Still no reason for paranoia. With today's cell phones there is *no* security - anyone with a scanner can listen to (at least one half of) your phone calls. Phone Encryption Devices (like the device that used to be called Clipper before Intergraph objected) will at least get rid of these casual eavesdroppers - never mind the other problems it has. The FCC has laws that regulate what you can do with information gathered from "private" radio transmissions - any conversations that are not directed at *you*, but that you happen to overhear. One of these regulations states that while it is not illegal to receive these transmissions, but it is illegal to _divulge_ information about it. It is still somewhat of an open question as to whether a cellphone user has an expectation of privacy, or whether the phone's transmissions are somehow "public". If the later, then no warrent would be needed... This issue happens to be the "enhanced security" being proposed in the FBI's Digital Telephony Bill - in an effort to cover up the gaping erosion of privacy mandated by this proposed bill, it offers to make divulging a cordless phone's calls illegal. Thanks, but no thanks. -John