Aeagle.285 net.followup utzoo!decvax!harpo!eagle!karn Wed Apr 28 12:00:18 1982 Re: Watch It! (interception of satellite/pay TV signals) Another way of looking at this issue is by comparing it to the following: A drive-in theater springs up next to my property, with the screen in full view of my house. They do not put up any kind of fence on their property to keep me from seeing it; rather, they mount a legal campaign to make a mere peeking at their screen from my living room window punishable by a fine and/or jail term. The Communications Act and the Copyright Law already protect the owners of the movies being transmitted from loss by prohibiting further dissemination, which is relatively easy to enforce. There is no possible way, however, to enforce a prohibition against private use without the wholescale violation of personal rights and privacy. Once the photons from a theater screen or the RF from a cable TV satellite reach my property, I have a right to do whatever I wish with those signals as long as I do not distribute them past my property, e.g., by retransmission or distribution of tapes. If the originator of the signals wishes to keep me from seeing them, he is certainly entitled to keep them from ever reaching my property, or to encrypt them with whatever algorithm he chooses; he has NO right to control what I may do within my own house. I believe that this is only one of a larger class of activities that take place wholly within a person's property that certain people would like to prevent. Laws against these activities are inherently evil and extremely dangerous, as they are unenforceable without the creation of a police state. I urge anyone with feelings concerning HR 4727 should express them to their congressman. I'm curious why Wirth seems to be suddenly flooding the House with so many ill-conceived and dangerous proposals; he deserves to be booted out at the next election, if not sooner. Phil Karn ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.