From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: []  Cordless phone users gain some privacy rights
Followup-To: alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.privacy
Originator: kadie@eff.org
Organization: The Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 15:24:25 GMT

[A repost - Carl]

Date: Wed, 18 Nov 92 11:26:21 EDT
From: Jerry Leichter <leichter@lrw.com>
Subject:  Cordless phone users gain some privacy rights

Cordless telephone users, whose conversations have been easy prey for
electronic eavesdroppers, finally won a degree of privacy in a federal
appeals-court ruling.

The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a criminal case, said that when
such phone users reasonably expect their conversations to be private, the
government can't listen in.  But the court said the Fourth Amendment privacy
right must be evaluated case by case, depending on such factors as whether the
phone user had sought privacy by purchasing devices intended to foil
eavesdroppers or by using phones known to be more difficult to tap.

The ruling is apparently the first in which a federal court has allowed
cordless-phone users any privacy rights.  Previously, other appeals courts have
said the phones are so easy to eavesdrop on - with an AM/FM radio or even with
another cordless phone - that any expectation of privacy was ridiculous.

The Eight U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the late 1980s that
eavesdropping was allowed, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the
decision.

The New Orleans court noted that the previous opinions are all several years
old, and that the technology has since advanced in the $1.39 billion
cordless-phone market.  Some phones on store shelves now, for instance, come
with scrambling devices made to combat high-tech eavesdroppers.  Other phones
work within shorter ranges, so their frequencies can't be as easily intercepted
as they were in the past.  More than 18 million cordless phones are expected to
be sold this year....

"The reasonableness of expectations of privacy for a cordless phone
conversation will depend, in large part, upon the specific telephone at issue,"
the court said.  It declined to spell out the technological features it
considered most relevant.

[The actual drug conviction, based on information recorded by a neighbor, was
upheld since no evidence about the phone had been introduced.]

Privacy-rights lawyers applauded the broader ruling, which they said is a step
toward preventing eavesdropping by private citizens as well as police.  The
lawyers noted that cellular-phone conversations already are protected [though
technically they are as easy to intercept.] ...

[N]ow that cordless phones are more secure, they should be treated the same as
cellular phones, Ms. [Janlori] Goldman [of the ACLU] said.  "People who use
these different kinds of phones do not make these kinds of distinctions," she
said.  "One circuit is willing to recognize that this might be an absurd
distinction." ...

[For those interested, the case citation is U.S. vs. David Lee Smith, Fifth
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, New Orleans, 91-5077.

Can we expect future Willie Horton's who beat the rap to get hired by the maker
of their phone to tout it as "private - and a court agreed?"]
						         	-- Jerry
-- 
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
 =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
Newsgroups: alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.activism,alt.politics.usa.constitution,soc.history,talk.politics.theory