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
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George A. Gleason -
henry strickland