 DavePR
join:2008-06-04
Canyon Country, CA
 ·DSL EXTREME
1 edit | reply to n1zuk
Re: Is listening illegal? Not unless the law says so... Federal Wiretap Act
Interceptions of electronic communications in “real time” come under the federal Wiretap Act. That Act provides that any person who intentionally intercepts an electronic communication is guilty of a felony and subject to a fine of up to $250,000 and imprisonment for up to five years.[10] The Wiretap Act defines an “interception” as the “acquisition of the contents of any electronic communication through the use of any electronic, mechanical or other device.”[11] So while some wardrivers may believe it is legal to peer into other people’s networks, so long as they do not record any of the information, this is not correct. Any “acquisition” under the Wiretap Act is unlawful, even if it only involves listening to or monitoring a communication.[12] Although no federal prosecutions of wardriving under the Wiretap Act have yet occurred, Wiretap prosecutions occur with enough frequency to make such a prosecution a possibility, even if an unlikely one.[13]
...
On the other hand, an innocent accidental interception of a wireless computer network can quickly become a criminal violation when someone, who realizes they have intercepted another person’s network, continues to do so at the other’s expense. Although there have been no published decisions involving wireless networks, this factual situation is closely analogous to a line of cases involving the interception of calls on cordless telephones that date from the mid-1990s. At that time, many individuals who purchased police scanners discovered that the scanners could also be used to intercept and monitor the telephone conversations of their neighbors’ cordless telephones. These individuals would have had no liability if they had stopped when they realized they had accidentally intercepted their neighbors’ telephone calls. When they continued to eavesdrop on their neighbors’ telephone conversations they were held by courts to have violated the Wiretap Act.[28] The interception of cordless telephone conversations appears closely analogous to the interception of insecure wireless computer networks. In neither case, does the fact that it is easy to conduct the interception provide a defense to liability under the Wiretap Act.
»www.lctjournal.washington.edu/Vo···07030429 |
