From: CRAMPTONJ@csovax.portsmouth.ac.uk (jeremy)
Newsgroups: comp.society.privacy
Subject: Re: Phone Tap in Murder Case Ruled Illegal
Date: 28 Jul 92 08:47:00 GMT
Organization: Computer Privacy Digest
X-Submissions-To: comp-privacy@pica.army.mil
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X-Computer-Privacy-Digest: Volume 1, Issue 067, Message 6 of 7

>From: Graham Toal <gtoal@gem.stack.urc.tue.nl>
>Subject: Re:  Phone Tap in Murder Case Ruled Illegal
>Date: 25 Jul 92 16:35:39 GMT
>Reply-To: gtoal@stack.urc.tue.nl
>Organization: MCGV Stack, Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands
>
>
>In article <comp-privacy1.63.3@pica.army.mil> MPA15AB!RANDY@trenga.tredydev.unisys.com writes:
>>[I can understand it being illegal to tap one's own phone, and also
>>that evidence received through government (police) misconduct should
>>be suppressed.  It also makes sense to me that if you illegally tap
>>your phone, you shouldn't be able to profit from it, such as by using
>>the tapes in a civil suit.  But if the government had no hand in
>>making the tape (didn't put you up to it, etc.), then the tape should
>>be usable in a criminal case. -- RCG]

[...]

>The question relevant to this thread is would evidence gleaned by
>a hotel employee hold up in court?

[...]

>This guy I met told me he was a senior employee of Howard Johnsons -
>not a manager, but a worker.  He said that he and his staff regularly
>listened in on guest's telephone calls, and that they had a way of
>monitoring all calls at once.  He reckoned his hotel was often used
>by drug dealers, and that several well publicised drug busts had
>come through info he and his staff had passed on to police.
>
>He gave the impression that his hotel was no exception - that police
>forces in many places use hotel staff to monitor hotel phones for
>them and report anything suspicious.  It isn't an organised operation
>I should add - they don't do this *all* the time - just (it sounded
>to me) when they're bored.
>
>Still, it's chilling to think that when you use a hotel phone you're
>more likely to be monitored than not.  And the thought that H-J's
>phone system has special features to allow all lines to be ganged
>together for simultaneous listening, followed by a way of scanning
>through them to find a particular call amongst the 'cocktail party
>effect', is a bit worrying...

Here is some news on this issue from the UK. Contrary to the US position
(stated above) that tapping your own phone is illegal, (and that you can't
profit from it) there has been a recent incident over here which would 
suggest that in the UK it is still legal (warning: I'm not a lawyer, but I 
saw one on TV once..)

The girlfriend of a senior minister in the government was staying in a flat
where she talked on the phone with said minister (David Mellor). Unknown
to either of them, she was renting the flat from a guy who was working in
conjunction with a tabloid newspaper which wanted to get some info on the
rumored affiar. He bugged his flat (though he was not living there; this
girlfriend was) with a listening device hidden behind a picture frame (shades
of 007) and, more relevant to us, he ran a second phone off the main one out
the back and into a back patio, where a journalist from the tabloid had a
novelty no-ring phone (a jaguar car which flashed its lights when a call
came in).  Said journo then recorded the conversation between Mellor and lover.

In effect, and this may be his argument, he was only running an
extension of his own phone. Nevertheless, he profited from it, in that he sold
the story to the press etc.  (For details, see _Sunday Times_, July 26, 1992).

It seems to me that this should still be illegal, given that he was renting out
his flat to someone else, and that he showed intent to surveil by hiding a bug
in a picture frame.  

What do my American colleagues think of this?  How much have you heard about 
this affair? Would this behavior stand up in court in the US?

I should add that one other worrying thing for freedom and
democracy in the UK is that the first reaction was, oh, we've got to muzzle
the press from printing these stories, let's have some 'privacy' laws (ie
more government secrecy laws).

__
jeremy..		cramptonj@csovax.portsmouth.ac.uk   [internet]
		  or..  cramptonj@uk.ac.portsmouth.csovax   [janet]