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From: wa263@sdccs7.UUCP (bookmark)
Newsgroups: net.legal
Subject: Intercepting TV, Search and Seizure
Message-ID: <1292@sdccs7.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 24-Aug-84 02:06:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdccs7.1292
Posted: Fri Aug 24 02:06:30 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 23-Aug-84 00:16:30 EDT
Distribution: na
Organization: You See Sandy Eggo
Lines: 74

<- bug snack

	[Regarding interception of pay-TV signals without paying]

	Though it is true that ill-filtered local oscillators will emit
some tell-tale radiation which others can pick up without necessarily entering
your house, this is almost irrelevant.  Just as bootleg frequency-conversion
equipment may be manufactured and sold, appropriate filters (perhaps used with
frequency converters that put all channels into VHF channel 4) can also be
obtained and used by people of small technical sophistication (people like us
can probably *build* 'em).  Thus, enforcement of laws against recievers still
requires invasive search techniques.

	If you want to argue about super-duper-sensitive monitoring equipment
(no doubt the NSA can come through with the know how for the FBI), I wish you
to consider that this is *in itself* a rather invasive technique (not to 
mention really expensive).

	Besides, as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Katz vs. United States
(1967) (a fascinating wiretap decision, which I will post in a few days when
I've had time to type the relevant parts), such a method of investigation,
though it violates no physical barriers, IS a search/seizure under the law,
and subject to the restrictions of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments,
including the warrant requirement.  And how, I ask, will they get a warrant
to sweep your house for the emissions of well-shielded local oscillators
when they don't know you have one?  Informers!  Window Peeping!  Fishing
Expeditions!  Pliant Judges helping cops search with otherwise unjustified
warrants under the "reasonable belief" exception the Burger Court
just gave us!  Wheee!!!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

	I remain unconvinced by intellectual property arguments.  Analogies
to housebreaking, assault, car theft, etc, which note that the law doesn't
require that you go to extreme lengths to protect your self or property 
(analogous to good encryption) are flawed in a basic way.

	No man is required to ignore or refuse anything which invades his
peace (his *mund* for all you who want the ancient icelandic concept-name).
If you are sitting in your backyard a block from the college ampitheatre
where the Grateful Dead are playing a concert, you are not required to
refrain from listening because you didn't buy a ticket.  If you look out
and see someone sunbathing nude on his front lawn, you are not a peeping
tom unless you've deliberately circumvented some otherwise sufficient barrier
in order to view the sight.

	Radio waves (carrying intelligence or not) which enter the precincts
of your private property unasked are like other uninvited sensory stimuli.
You should be able to interpret them without shame.  (No, I don't think that
the fact you need a radio makes them special.  A radio is a tool, JUST LIKE
A WRITTEN LANGUAGE.  If someone throws a note over your backyard fence, you
can pick it up and read it, right?  Well, you had to go to use an artificial
(if nearly universal) construct called a written language to do that.  A
radio isn't any worse than an OCR hooked to a voice-synthesizer would be.)

	When a mugger bashes someone over the head, he's invading the other
person's space.  When ON-TV broadcasts their shows, they're invading yours.

	The pay TV services are in the position of someone who communicates
with others via the medium of a giant billboard in their front yard.  If they
don't want others to read their sign, then they should put the message in
cipher so those "others" won't be able to understand the message.  They
shouldn't go around demanding that all the "others" wear blinders (and be
whipped if they don't) to protect the contents of their sign.

AS I SAID BEFORE, I'M AGAINST THEFT && REPRODUCTION OF BROADCAST MATERIAL
FOR PROFIT (LIKE VIDEOTAPING MOVIES FROM HBO AND SELLING COPIES).  But that
kind of thing can be dealt with without searching for unauthorized antennae.




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