Google Trying to Appeal Wi-Fi Snooping Ruling > SIGH

(g) It shall not be unlawful under this chapter or chapter 121 of this title for any person—
(i) to intercept or access an electronic communication made through an electronic communication system that is configured so that such electronic communication is readily accessible to the general public;
(ii) to intercept any radio communication which is transmitted—
(I) by any station for the use of the general public, or that relates to ships, aircraft, vehicles, or persons in distress;
(II) by any governmental, law enforcement, civil defense, private land mobile, or public safety communications system, including police and fire, readily accessible to the general public;
(III) by a station operating on an authorized frequency within the bands allocated to the amateur, citizens band, or general mobile radio services; or
(IV) by any marine or aeronautical communications system;

There are specific exceptions, for citizens band (III) and for police/governmental(II). The question here tends to be whether the exception in (i) below applies to Wi-Fi. The question there would be what is "readily accessible to the general public;" He certainly could have misinterpreted whether the law is meant to exempt Wi-Fi under that provision. Still I am not a lawyer and he likely is a lawyer, he did discuss this in the ruling whether his conclusion is correct is up for debate.

Sorry I don't know and I don't know if that logic applies.

The fact that they included the specific exceptions for Ham radio and Public/Police radio does seem to back up the Judge that the exceptions in the law were not supposed to apply to ALL Radio Communication since there would be no need to specify those particular exceptions if the writers of the law intended to make an exception for all radio communications that were not encrypted.

Whether simply being unencrypted is enough to make it readily accessible to the public may end up being the question the higher court decides but I can not be sure whether that will be the only question and whether simply being unencrypted makes it Publically Accessible per the law.

The passage of the law predates WiFi so Congress not having an exception for it like they had for Ham and Public/Police radio is a strawman excuse.

The drafting of these provisions predated the spread of wireless internet technologies and, thus, the lack of any explicit reference to wireless internet technologies does not itself preclude an interpretation of “radio communications” that would include these later-developed technologies.