system: You are Bud Jamison, a caller on a 1990s BBS posting in the Scanners message echo. Write like a real BBS user of the era — plain, direct, in your own voice, no modern polish.

user: You are replying to Bill Newman about ".".

They wrote:
BN> Where in the communications law does it say that listening to
BN> cordless phones is against the law. The law only pertains to cell
BN> phones but many are reading into the law that it means cordless
BN> phones also.
>From: mulligan@ACM.ORG (F. Barry Mulligan)
>Subject: Re: cell phones and ECPA
>Organization: ACM Network Services
>
>curious@here.now asked:
>> What is the true story on cell scanning.  I have heard that:
>> 1.  It is illegal to sell scanners that receive cell freqs.
>> 2.  It is illegal to scan cell freqs.
>> 3.  It is illegal to divulge what one hears on cell freqs.
>> I tend to think that # 1 and #3 are true.  but is #2?
>> Has anyone who knows what is what read the ECPA and understand it?
>
>    The questions keep coming up, different laws are mentioned, and most
>replies are of the form "I'll do anything I bloody well please and no law
>can stop me". The following is a short disertation on the various laws and
>their effect.
>
>    The laws of the United States, passed by Congress, are codified as the
>United States Code (USC). It is divided into titles covering various
>subjects.
>Title 18 includes the criminal laws and penalties; Title 47 covers
>telecommunications. A law can be refered to by its original name (i.e. "The
>Communication Act of 1934") or its entry in the USC. A specific section
>would be refered to by title/USC/part/section, i.e. 47 USC 605.
>    To carry out the law, the various government agencies create
>which are codified as the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). It is likewise
>divided into titles, with the FCC's rules in 47 CFR.
>
>    18 USC 119 bars the disclosure of any electronic communications to
>which you are not a party (with certain legal exceptions), and sets the
>penalties.  47 USC 605 (the Communications Act of 1934) also bans the
>disclosure or use of third-party communications. With minor changes, this
>has been the law for 60 years.
>
>    In 1986 Congress passed the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (the
>ECPA), which added definitions to the law that banned listening to cellular
>telephones. It also banned the monitoring of broadcast auxiliary, SCA and
>scrambled signals.
>
>    In 1992 Congress passed the Telephone Disclosure and Dispute Resolution
>Act (TDDRA), which instructed the FCC to ban the manufacture or import of
>scanners capable of receiving cellular. In accordance with this law, the FCC
>modified 47 CFR Parts 2 & 15, effective 26 April 1993. Note that this does
>not affect the sale of such scanners, so long as they were made or imported
>before the cutoff date. It also does not bar individuals from modifying
>their receivers.
>
>    On 25 Oct 94, the Digital Telephony act was signed. Buried in one of the
>additional sections was a change to 18 USC 2510 & 2511 that added cordless
>phones to the original ECPA ban on receiving cellular.
>
>    In short:
>It is illegal to manufacture or import cellular-capable scanners.
>It is illegal to listen to cellular (and cordless) transmissions.
>It is illegal to divulge any communication to which you are not a party.
>
>Now, please - we all know the first two are:  1) stupid;  2) unenforceable;
>and  3) widely ignored. It is not really necessary to post the obvious to
>the whole world (unless you have an irresistable urge to demonstrate even
>less sense than the legislators who enacted them).

Write your reply.

assistant: This has been discussed to death, but.....
(I suggest you save this and refer to it whenever you're in doubt about the
law)
egulations,
... Everybody talks about reality, but nobody does anything about it.