Steps to Restrict Americans - Part 1
Steps to Restrict Americans - Part 2
Steps to Restrict Americans - Part 3

Jump to Bad Ideas of Restricting Airwaves from American Citizens
Jump to Other Cellphone Issues

Some of you readers do not share the radio hobby so you could careless about it, but that would be your mistake. That is if things like this affect this hobby then your interest and freedoms will be attacked sooner or later.

The bottom line is they are trying to reduce and eliminate things that can empower the common people. Radio electronics, computers, the Internet, among other things are great empowering tools until they decide to make them less affordable to most people and to cripple them. They want to restrict them with laws and by engineering the hardware and software in electronic devices to reduce your power and control over them, while making it more about controlling you to a future totalitarian psychopathic technocracy. You know that slaves were not allowed to have guns, so the next thing to being a slave is restriction of things by various means that can empower you.


For the record I have never done illegal drugs and prefer to avoid prescription drugs. I have never bought alcohol for myself and do not want to drink alcohol. I have always been a nonsmoker. I am not gay and I believe that unnatural sex with others is a gross perversion. It simply should not be made as if it is normal like they are trying to make it in America's media, but I do not hate gays and recognize there will always be those few. I say this with all honesty and sincerity.

With that said, you should be for legalizing drugs and against the "War on Drugs" because it would be better prevented by treating drug abuse as a mental problem not as a crime problem. The "War on Drugs" makes drugs more valuable on the black market. The "War on Drugs" created the federalized police-state we have today that does target the innocent and that it is used to take peoples property. The "War on Drugs" crowds the prison with many that were nonviolent offenders. The "War on Drugs" preoccupies law enforcement when they are needed for much more important responses. The "War on Drugs" encourages government corruption because of the powers and profitability from enforcing it. The "War on Drugs" is all about putting more controls on all of you.

The "War on Drugs" that started in the 1980s is what expanded the abusive federal and state civil asset forfeiture laws. Those new civil asset forfeiture laws meant that law enforcement agencies can seize and permanently keep your cash, vehicle, home, or other personal property without you being charged or found guilty of a crime and with an extreme burden on you to get it back! Civil asset forfeiture laws corrupted law enforcement into policing for profit.

http://www.ij.org/about/3114

When George Herbert Walker Bush (Bush senior) was made Vice President of the United States of America in 1981 was when they began accelerating us into a surveillance/police-state for their so-called "War on Drugs" (but it started when Bush was inside Nixon's administration) by slowly federalizing and militarizing all state and local law-enforcement with federal money and federal training. This was equivalent in history when Alcohol Prohibition in the 1910s just increased lawlessness, corrupted police, and gave the government more powers over the innocent!


The moral of these webpages is that they [your rulers] are destroying your life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness just for their personal greed and lust for more power, unless you fight to win them back. You have been warned!

America's rulers and unfair global-elitist have sold you out by signing international treaties and agreements [usually made in secrecy] to usurp the U.S.A. Constitution. If they [your elected, appointed, nonelected, and obscure rulers] do not honor the United States of America's Constitution and Bill of Rights, that was purposely written to protect you from tyranny, then they easily become tyrants against you.

Their plan has been to build an unfair global-international police and justice [injustice or "just for us"] system that will bypass the laws of the U.S.A. Constitution for the unfair global-banking-corporate oligarchies that want to remain unaccountable to anybody. They developed an obsession to censor government communications and data from its citizens so there is less oversight. They also began moving away from serving the public to just serving their unfair global-banking-corporate-government masters and themselves, like fascist have done in the past.

Their police-state is encouraged to use violence against its citizens but citizens are discouraged from using violence against them. They will always try to take you down before you take them down, since they have their surveillance/police-state grid in place to play their direct role in their unfair monetary control-grid. It is for the very few top-percentile because they know that they are committing crimes in what they are doing and need their surveillance-police-military state to keep it that way so they can remain above the law. They want to consider you guilty until proven innocent and so that you will always submit to them. Their surveillance/police-state was not so much designed to protect its citizens [like they fool you into believing] but is to be used against its citizens.

Both the majority of those in the Republican and Democrat parties are working for the same unfair global-banking-corporate-government-military complex, not for you. That complex uses its money to buy off governments and tyrants to work for them instead of you. They are the ones that are really affecting your life for the worse, but at their benefit. The two-party duplicity is just part of a false paradigm of opposite views but really part of the same developing one-world banking-government control system. This is just one of their many schemes that could be stopped by making any political party illegal and by making any political lobbying by corporations illegal.

They [your elected, appointed, nonelected, and obscure rulers] love it at the top of the pyramid-ponzi power-scheme and laugh at you. Others near the top of the pyramid-ponzi power-scheme love being part of the evil thinking they can never be touched or hurt. They keep a hidden shadow government to stay in control and so they can getaway with their crimes. That is a reason they want secrets and to hide in the shadows of seemingly good governments. Departments are compartmentalized below the pyramid to hide the evil above so it seems like the good are helping the good above them, not knowing they are working to support the evildoers. But you have nothing to worry about because you try to do nothing wrong, except those that are above the law, even though there are so many laws to break that everybody will break some laws no matter what. Just do what they tell you to do, not as they would do. Be happy and accept living at or just above poverty so they can live like kings and queens. Accept being their indentured servant. You may complain but only if you do not produce any real effect or if you do not politically oppose them, then they may not selectively punish you. They will do whatever it takes to make you feel guilty and make you feel powerless. They still call it freedom, fools do too.

Their unfair global game of promising more money buys it only on their rules so they get to contol you and money devalution or inflation is their favorite weapon against you. In other words the central banking money-changers hope to keep their power to rule the planet Earth by playing monopoly games to help their corporate-government-military complex takeover competition and if they cannot take it over then they will try everything to destroy it.

The best way to stop them is to dismantle the Federal Reserve central bank, which is the private Federal Reserve created in secrecy [that said in their own words] back in 1913, and give money control back to the governmnet and for added competition create state-owned banks. Another way to stop them is to redo the 14th Amendment in the U.S.A. Constitution that took away "We the People" from citizens and gave it only to the people working for the corporation of the District of Columbia. Also, the states could use the 10th Amendment in the U.S.A. Constitution. Since your current rulers will never allow that to happen, how about turning their military against them with a coup to bring back the U.S.A. Constitution that will restore its wording to make U.S.A. citizens "We the People" again. Nevertheless, those at the top of the banking-corporate-military-government complex definitely need to be arrested, convicted, and imprisoned plus seizure of their assests given back to a people's government. They should be tried for high treason that includes the death penalty amongst other charges, such as conspiracy, racketeering, abuse of power, obstruction of justice, etc.

http://www.dirtyunclesam.com/learn-documents.php
http://www.dirtyunclesam.com/learn-videos.php
http://www.dirtyunclesam.com/learn-audio.php
http://www.dirtyunclesam.com/learn-links.php
http://www.google.com/search?as_q=unconstitutional&as_epq=14th+Amendment&num=100

The mainstream media, of course, works for the rulers so their job as always been to carefully manipulate you to their favor. They are grossly overpaid so they will be loyal to their rulers. They are good at mixing half truths with half lies to make things seem absolutely true. Another thing they push at you is sports and entertainment like it should be priority number-one in your life to distract from noticing the real evildoers. So, the best thing you can do is to turn off the mainstream media and make it your first priority to research, watch, confront, and change their wrongdoing against freedom.

Government's arrogance increased starting in 1967 when the U.S. Supreme Court opened the door for people with certain dual citizenship to hold high-level U.S.A. government positions. Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas [Lyndon Johnson's former attorney and one of the most powerful Jewish Americans] helped overule Section 401(e) of the 1940 Nationality Act thus allowing dual Israeli and U.S.A. citizenships. That and the Kennedy assasinations [now beyond a reasonable doubt a government coverup with the latest evidence from insiders] by rogue elements inside government was a coup d'etat on the United States of America, which means if they gotaway with that then they think they can getaway with anything. Then international globalist started there big move after America was flying high with the success of the Apollo moon missions in 1969 and next the globalist got complete influence inside the U.S.A. in the early 1970s so they could start exporting America's jobs to deindustrialize America as stated in their own plans.

A few people knew their plans to social engineer U.S.A. society toward tyrannous control going back much further in history than the Kennedy assasinations. That along with the unethical creation in 1913 of the Federal Reserve and their federal enforcement arm to tax your income the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) [A private central bank of bankers/financiers that is not federal with no reserves unfairly regulating themselves and that always profits, while using economic depressions to globally consolidate more power over money], CFR, CIA, RAND Corporation and other think-tanks, World Bank, IMF, Bank of International Settlements, United Nations, Rockefeller Foundation and other foundations, Brookings Institute, Ivy League, other institutions, and other organizations that are destroying America's sovereignty should be dismantled. You can trace it all the way back to the late 1800s when British-European nobility with their enormous wealth aquired from global trade of the British East India Company got their influence inside of U.S.A. governments by joining with the powerful few in the Industrial Revolution cartels that continues today.

It was the great wealth [including opium drug dealing] from the old British East India Company global traders and European aristocratic powers along with the Rothschild's family of international financiers that continue trying to rule the world today. The British elite developed social engineering and brainwashing from the Tavistock Institute. Its network now extends from the University of Sussex to the U.S. through the National Education Association, Institute of Social Research at the National Training Lab, Stanford Research Institute, Wharton School of Finance and Commerce, Esalen Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Hudson Institute, Heritage Foundation, Center of Strategic and International Studies, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), US Air Force Intelligence, the Research and Development (RAND) Corporation, Mitre Corporation, and many others. They also branched into the Royal Institute for International Affairs, the insidious Club of Rome, the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), the Mont Pelerin Society, the Ditchley Foundation, the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission, and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) that are influencing America's elected rulers.

There are diabolical people at the top that pretend to care about you to get your trust in them [just like a psychopath] so they can cover their population-reduction plans and other diabolical deeds. They slowly take away your freedoms incremently to make it difficult to notice, resist, and stop it. They create artificial scarcity of oil, power, food, medicine, and other things so they can profit more and so you cannot afford to have it. They use fear to get more funding and to make you give up freedoms. They use disinformation by media mouth-pieces to turn the truth into lies and to make lies the truth thus making people that disagree seem as a crazy or dangerous conspiracy theorist. They make any opposition always look bad so they appear to be the good ones when they are the bad ones. They use false-flag attacks and provocation to start wars. They conduct secret deadly experiments on its own citizens and avoid liabilty. They allow trace amounts of toxins or poisons [harmful enough to slowly kill] to be put into the water, drinks, foods, pills, drugs, vaccines, and the air that they themselves can avoid with their great wealth to have their own organic farmlands with their supplies with them at all times wheresoever they travel. Those and many other dirty tactics and tricks are used to achieve their diabolical plans. Research it yourself and you find there is more truth to this than you would want to believe! They want to be the superhumans using transhuman DNA genome sciences under a scientific-technology dictatorship to make you a subhuman and to dehumanize you. The scientific-technology elite is what former President Eisenhower was warning us about in his farewell speech. The ruling scientific-technology elite can use it to benefit themselves, while using it to abuse, enslave, and kill you.

Former President Eisenhower warned us about the military/industrial complex. The U.S.A. military/industrial complex has incorporated a satanic deathcult mentality in its top-secret black projects. "If I tell you, I will have to kill you" is their motto to secrecy. It is quite obvious in the District of Columbia, the Pentagon, and military symbolisms in their building architecture, uniform patches, etc. A complex cloaking to defend and protect you while daggering to abuse and kill you! The military/industrial complex definitely wanted a "9/11" to happen so they could profit from it plus circumvent law so your rulers can allow the U.S. military along with foreign troops to be used against the American people inside the U.S.A. in the future.

The unethical corporations that produce products restricted for only the government/military complex to use in their surveillance/police-state love making profits from enslaving you! That is like Rockefeller's quotes and other U.S.A. and European rulers admiring Mao Tse-tung's ability to control and kill millions inside China's society under their harsh unelected rulers without opposition till their natural death. This is for monopolistic Rockefeller-capitalism, oligarchies, feudalism, and communism combined to make authoritarian rule that neither support freedoms, rights, and justice for the common people.

It is simple, our current rulers want to use China as a global model for authoritarian rule over all societies so they can have a big part in ruling the whole planet Earth. A New World Order with a one world currency so just a few ultra-rich with hereditary powers can rule over most all of the people on the planet Earth.

You better do something instead of doing nothing or they will continue to turn you into slave labor, legally steal your property, and in the near future when they fully establish a global government they will use their surveillance/police-state with a no-buy/no-sale/no-work cashless system to make you become useless-eaters for their big dream to eliminate you to reduce the world population by over fifty percent.

Researchers and "whistleblower" insiders got the undeniable proof of their diabolical plans. Do your research because you will find the monarchical elite, intermarried relatives, and aristocratic friends bragging about it in their own words and writings.

Just remember this. After the World War II trials against Nazi enforcers their excuse for being innocent was they were just following orders from the authorities, but they were still charged and executed. So, if you enforcers think it is always right to respect authority and be obedient by following orders from authority then you are dead wrong. When your authorities are doing wrong you should do what is right and be disobedient by not following their orders, or true justice will catch up to you in time.

Freedom is not free. You always have to fight for your freedoms because it is always a struggle against constant tryanny. That is why the Constitution of the United States of America along with the Bill of Rights was written for. So, it is long overdue that you fight to restore the "Spirit of 1776" from our American Revolution against enemies of liberty (foreign and domestic) for a better United States of America for all of its citizens.

There is always hope because truth wins in time and evil can be defeated! You must fight to win the war between liberty and tyranny because tyranny is taking the lead in the U.S.A.

http://www.google.com/search?as_q=Alan+Watt&as_epq=new+world+order&num=100
http://www.google.com/search?as_q=Alex+Jones&as_epq=new+world+order&num=100
https://www.youtube.com/TheAlexJonesChannel
freq/unnatural.html#order

YOU HAVE NO PRIVACY,
BUT THEY (YOUR RULERS) HAVE THEIR PRIVACY PLUS SECRECY!

The best way against abuse of power by people ruling over your life is for them to have little privacy or transparency for checks and balances. Today, there are less ways to check due to government's overuse of encryption, corporate proprietary laws, and decreasing freedom of information to block you out. Thus, it is out of balance since the government wants to have its privacy, secrecy, and anonymity because government is paid-off by mega-global private corporations of a few unelected profiteers who also wants to control you. That is just one of many reasons why it is a big deal to have transparency of government with abilities of its citizenry to monitor government operations and their radio/data communications.


You have no privacy because they are allowed to get information about you without warrant. Plus, there are criminal charges if they tell you they gave away your [so called] private information to them.

They get to know all about you by accessing:

- bank account statements
- credit card purchase statements
- stock market, mutual fund, and investment statements
- IRS tax filing records
- store clerk purchase records
- credit reporting agency information
- landline, cellphone, and telephone bills including all dialed and received numbers on all phones the past 3 years
- realtime and archived telephone or computer conversions and data transfers
- gasoline credit card statements
- cellphone tracking location records including cellphone tower handshakes
- easypass travel statements
- medical records with DNA if available
- criminal and court records
- arrest records
- law enforcement check records
- military records
- driver license records
- satellite surveillance on anyplace
- backdoors into personal computers
- cable TV program charges and uses
- vehicle electronic data including OnStar and sat. terminals plus covert hidden GPS trackers attached under your vehicle
- Internet browsing records and searches
- passport and travel databases
- business or private camera surveillance
- employer records from employees
- unemployment benefit records and food stamp records
- many other consumer and corporate databases
- on and on, virtually anything electronic and computer databased.

That is 99% about you or more than you could ever remember about yourself!

What is more shocking is in this day and age is that they can access your information remotely anywhere on the planet Earth. In the past it was much more difficult because it took a team of people that had to go out in the field to certain locations to access your information and surveyal you. It is so easily or too easily done nowadays.

http://www.eff.org/issues/privacy

No Privacy with New Technologies

Sun Microsystems Inc., Chairman and CEO Scott McNealy said "You have no privacy, get over it." In order to have a fair balance, government and corporations should give up more of their privacy when they take more of your privacy. Today the opposite is happening! The terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 is really resulting in the death of privacy. Privacy is becoming only for those who are in control and a luxury for the rich and powerful.

Government began collecting private data from corporations after 911. The leader in the field of what is called "data mining," is ChoicePoint, which has over a billion dollars in national security contracts. They hope to build a DNA database.
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=ChoicePoint+data-mining
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=government+data-mining

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=cashless-society

The Death of Privacy
Americans' Privacy Exposed by New Technology Congress was told in 1985 before the public Internet
The congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) closed its doors September 29, 1995. For 23 years, the nonpartisan analytical agency assisted Congress with the complex and highly technical issues that increasingly affect our society.
http://www.wws.Princeton.EDU/~ota/ or http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/ota/default.html

http://www.pfir.org/ People For Internet Responsibility
http://forums.pfir.org/
http://www.factsquad.org/radio

http://www.vortex.com/
    http://www.vortex.com/privacy
    http://www.vortex.com/pfr PRIVACY Forum Radio
    http://www.vortex.com/vortexscan
    http://www.vortex.com/reality/

While current RFID antennas can pickup signals within a couple of dozen feet, newer technology could track people and goods in a radius of miles maybe globally in the future.

Consumers against Privacy Invasion and Numbering
http://www.nocards.org/
    http://www.nocards.org/press/
http://www.stoprfid.org/
http://www.spychips.com/

The Age Of Total Microchip Control Is At Hand
http://www.rense.com/Datapages/RFIData.html

http://www.rfidjournal.com/

Consumer Report on Privacy and Data Warehousing
Online privacy
Web-surfing snoops
Financial privacy
Privacy: Selling is getting personal
Privacy, health, and medical records

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse
Federal Trade Commission Privacy Initiatives

Spyware in your software or hardware is used to invade your privacy!
http://grc.com/default.htm
    http://grc.com/oo/news.htm
http://komando.master.com/texis/master/search/?s=SS&q=privacy for newbies

The Federal Communications Commission said it would decide how to regulate Voice over IP (VOIP) Internet phone calls, which bypass at least part of the conventional phone network. Among the issues to be discussed is whether such calls should be subject to the same fees as regular telephone service. Also to be decided is whether these new services need to pay fees to local telephone companies to complete calls to conventional phones. Separately, the FCC said it would later develop rules concerning law enforcement, such as making sure that the new VOIP technology that allows Internet calls also allows government to tap and trace them.
http://www.fcc.gov/voip/

Encryption and privacy software defeated by government with a Key Logger System (KLS). The government surreptitious enters and installs software/hardware and/or firmware components to hide and imbed them in a suspect's computer. How FBI 's Magic Lantern Internet program works is being kept secret they say for national security reasons.
http://www.google.com/search?q=FBI+Magic-Lantern
http://www.google.com/search?q=key-logger
http://www.epic.org/crypto/

Philip R. Zimmermann, a creator of free privacy software with open source codes.
EPIC Online Guide to Practical Privacy Tools

It seems ironic that the Members of the Online Privacy Alliance (which includes Microsoft, AOL Time Warner, IBM, AT&T, BellSouth, and Sun Microsystems) are against certain privacy laws. They sit on both sides of the table to argue for laws dealing with copyrights and then argue against laws dealing with privacy. It is foxes guarding the chicken house. They refuse to put their source codes in the public domain.

Bill Gates, who became the richest man in the world, created Microsoft from being business smart but he had the benefit of his father being a business attorney. He stole software ideas from the CP/M operating system by using legal loopholes. It is not a rag to riches story.
http://www.pbs.org/nerds/
    http://www.pbs.org/nerds/transcript.html

Bill Gates arrest and mug shot.
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=Bill-Gates+Albuquerque+police

http://www.cc.jyu.fi/~otto/bill-bashing/

The new Microsoft XP, "Microsoft may automatically check the version of the Product and/or its components that you are utilizing and may provide upgrades or fixes to the Product that will be automatically downloaded to your Workstation Computer." It illustrates Microsoft's approach to security by granting themselves remote-access to your system and write-access to your hard drive. They have created yet another fundamental security vulnerability.

Instead of Microsoft being liable for their software security, Microsoft has been asking lawmakers for new global cyber laws. Howard Schmidt is the Chief Security Officer of Microsoft who is deeply involved with the U.S. government, G8, United Nations, Australia bilateral meetings, and state & local cyber-security initiatives. They want tougher global penalties, such as civil forfeiture of personal property. They want an international law enforcement framework that establishes common global liability and penalty rules, and common procedures for intergovernmental cooperation.

Microsoft does not normally publish security advisories until forced to by exploits or by others who announce MS vulnerabilities, and Microsoft does not normally announce the vulnerabilities of third party applications.

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=Windows+Refund+Effort

Reliance On Microsoft Said Risk To US Security By Reed Stevenson
AtStake CTO loses job after Microsoft report By Elinor Mills Abreu

http://news.yahoo.com/fc?tmpl=fc&cid=34&in=tech&cat=microsoft_antitrust_trial
Watching Microsoft Like A Hawk
http://www.infowarrior.org/articles.html
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=Bill+Gates+Personal+Wealth+Clock

Computer & Communications Industry Association promoting open barrier-free competition in the offering of computer and communications products and services worldwide.
http://www.ccianet.org/

Linux bears the scrutiny of code writers from everywhere, all over the world. Microsoft products run from source code seen only by the High Order of Microsoft.
http://www.msfree.com/ Information and Technology Alternatives to Microsoft's Monopoly

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=Linux Use Linux instead of Microsoft
http://www.debian.org/ Debian is a free operating system (OS) for your computer that uses the Linux kernel
http://www.openoffice.org/ Use OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office
http://OpenGroupware.org/
http://www.mozilla.org/ Use Mozilla instead of insecure Microsoft Internet Explorer

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=anti-Microsoft

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=open-source+multimedia
http://www.xiph.org/ instead of MP3 prohibitive license fees
http://www.mpeg.org/
http://www.projectmayo.com/
http://www.divx-digest.com/software/

Keep in mind the federal government has to have source codes for software to comply to their strict security ratings. Thus, they can find vulnerabilities of trusted software, modify it for their own use, and take advantage of vulnerabilities against those without source codes.

Trust but you need open source to help verify!

http://www.opensource.org/site_index.html
http://www.gnu.org/ Free Software Foundation
http://www.openbsd.org/ a FREE, multi-platform BSD-based UNIX-like operating system

Use free open source software instead of costly and insecure closed source software such as Microsoft software
http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Open_Source/
http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Software/Open_Source/
http://dmoz.org/Computers/Open_Source/Software/

Computer Security links

Electronic Monitoring by the Government

We must have the right balance between protecting our liberty and protecting our security. If we fail in this effort by drawing the line in the wrong place then the terrorists win and your liberty is lost.

Law enforcement electronic searches implicate not only the US Constitution's Bill of Rights Amendment IV privacy interests, but also Amendment V. After all, the purpose of traditional law enforcement activity was to put criminals behind bars.

The NSA has the best tools to monitor all communications. President George W. Bush (R-TX) wants to justify NSA spying inside the USA, foreign or not.
NSA.htm
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=Bush+NSA+spying

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=Total-Information-Awareness

FBI Carnivore (DCS1000) Program
The government has approved more use of DCS1000 and wiretapping.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c107:H.R.3162.ENR: USA PATRIOT ACT of 2001
http://www.house.gov/judiciary/ashcroft061302.htm A letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft asking detailed questions about how the USA Patriot Act has been used by agents in the field.
http://www.house.gov/judiciary/patriotresponses101702.pdf Letters back to Congress.

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&as_q=+DCS-1000&as_epq=FBI+memo
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=DCS-1000+Carnivore

http://www.epic.org/privacy/carnivore/foia_documents.html Carnivore FOIA Documents

http://www.fednet.net/ram/sju0906.ram
http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate/senate14ch106.html
    http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=106_senate_hearings&docid=f:74729.wais Text version
    http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=106_senate_hearings&docid=f:74729.pdf PDF version
September 6, 2000 - The Senate Judiciary Committee Carnivore hearings

http://www.house.gov/judiciary/cons0906.htm
http://www.fednet.net/ram/hju0724.ram
July 24, 2000 - House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution
http://www.house.gov/judiciary/con07241.htm Part of the documented comments of the above. Oversight Hearing on "Fourth Amendment Issues Raised by the FBI's 'Carnivore' Program".
http://www.house.gov/judiciary/corn0406.htm

http://flashcommerce.com/articles/00/07/13/174258030.htm

Information Censorship with the Power of High Technology

http://www.opennetinitiative.net/ Documenting Internet Content Filtering Worldwide

Motorola was an American icon that has long been one of the biggest providers of radio communications to America's government, industries, and consumers since World War II. Motorola now has become the largest foreign investor in China by moving its manufacturing there. Thus, they have created fewer jobs for Americans and given away some of America's best technologies while repression in China keeps increasing.

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22CLINTON+PROFITEERS+SELL+HIGH-TECH+TO+RED+CHINA%22
http://www.softwar.net/reds.html PROFITEERS SELL HIGH-TECH TO RED CHINA
http://www.softwar.net/azhtml.html

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=Motorola+China+encryption

http://web.amnesty.org/library/eng-chn/index
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china/
http://www.dit-inc.us/press.htm
http://openflows.org/index.pl?section=analysis

Microsoft In Human Rights Row
Gates's Firm Supplied Technology Used To Trap Chinese Dissidents, Says Amnesty

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=China+Internet+filtering
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=China+Microsoft+censorship
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=China+Cisco+censorship
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=China+Yahoo+censorship
http://search.yahoo.com/search?n=100&va=China+Goggle+censorship

continues at stepstopartb.htm

Open Government Information Awareness

"Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives. A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps both." - James Madison (Fourth President of the United States)

In the United States, there is a widening gap between a citizen's ability to monitor his or her government and the government's ability to monitor a citizen. Average citizens have limited access to important government records, while available information is often illegible. Meanwhile, the government's eagerness and means to oversee a citizen's personal activity is rapidly increasing.

As the government broadens internal surveillance, and collaborates with private institutions to access data on the public, it is crucial that we maintain a symmetry of accountability. If we believe the United States should be a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" it is of central importance to provide citizens with the power to oversee their government. At least as much effort should be spent building tools to facilitate citizens supervising their government as tools to help the government monitor individuals.

http://opengov.media.mit.edu/

The system will start by offering standard background information on politicians, but then go one bold step farther, by asking Internet users to submit their own intelligence reports on government officials.

It is partly based on technology used to create Internet indexes such as Google. Software crawls around Internet sites that store large amounts of information about politicians. These include independent political sites like opensecrets.org, as well as sites run by government agencies. The site also takes advantage of round-the-clock political coverage provided by cable TV's C-Span networks. The result is a one-stop research site for basic information on key officials.

All of the information currently on the site is available from public sources. But GIA will go one step farther. The site will allow the public to submit information about government officials, and this information will be made available to anyone visiting the site. No effort will be made to verify the accuracy of the data.

http://www.opensecrets.org/ Money in politics data
http://www.politicalmoneyline.com/

Radio Scanner (Scanning Receiver) Listeners

The manufacturers call it a radio scanner but the government calls it a scanning receiver, so it is the same thing.
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/radio-scanner.htm How Radio Scanners Work by Gary Brown

Radio scanner listeners are law enforcement's best friends. The people who listen to radio scanners are supportive of law enforcement for the most part.

The bottom line is that real-time government information from government sources is better than government information relayed from the corporate-commercial TV and radio sources. That is why I make a big deal about a citizen's ability to monitor real-time public-safety services by using a radio scanner. Also, there is a great need to provide real-time and previous crime information with some detail of what, where, when, who, how, and why by law enforcement on their websites. Plus, there is a need for real-time and previous detailed information from other public services on emergency incidents. Proof for all of this reasoning is weather data at weather.htm where sharing the data with public has proven to be more than just a good idea; it has saved lives.

Some people use the bad argument that a closed radio system would prevent crime suspects from hearing law enforcement tactics. Crime suspects actually have a better chance of being caught if they are listening to law enforcement. Hearing police doing their duties can be a deterrent to criminals as seeing a cop is. Using a radio scanner is a preoccupation, a distraction, and there are complexity and technicalities making it an undesirable tool for criminals. The police have had the capability to use discreet radio tactics and radio encryption even before the age of radio scanners or digital radios. Every news story about criminals using a radio scanner during a crime ends with the criminals being caught anyway. However, many journalists and government officials have used bogus presumptions and distortions that criminals effectively eluded police because of a radio scanner. Organized criminals that have contacts or connections within law enforcement can get inside information to elude capture that no radio scanner could ever give. Citizens can not be on alert to help stop the criminals thus criminals get the upper hand if you close radio communications.

Other bad arguments for a closed radio system is to prevent onlookers from cluttering up a crime or accident scene impeding police, fire or other emergency personnel in doing their job. Most of those cluttering the scene are journalist applying this right. Other people cluttering the scene can be citizens who are ready to help authorities or citizens in their neighborhood and it has nothing to do with them having a radio scanner. In fact, people are more likely to stay away from a scene if they can get the details from hearing it on a radio scanner.

Another bad argument for closed radio systems is privacy of personal data on individuals that is transmitted when they are victims of crimes or during medical responses. In the case of crime victims, their name is not transmitted and reports are shielded until settled in court. Any information being transmitted is public information to begin with. In the case of medical response, the patient's name is not transmitted. It should not be transmitted even if it is encrypted. Only the patient's current condition and brief medical history that relates to immediate medical treatment can be transmitted.
 
 

Federal law enforcement first began using digitally encrypted radio communications in the early 1980s although a lot of it is none sensitive with no need for communications security. Non-federal law-enforcement communications has been mostly open since the invention of radio. But it is becoming harder to monitor your public servants when they use digital radios because of proprietary decoding restrictions in copyright laws and laws that make decryption illegal. Closing it is bad for citizens and it should be stopped with new laws.

By the way, decoding/encoding and decrypting/encrypting are not the same thing. Nevertheless, the news media tries to make them the same. Digital communications uses encoding with the option to use encryption. Digital has to be encoded then decoded to convert from analog to digital back to analog but it does not have to be encrypted and decrypted. Encryption and decryption is an option only for extra security in digital and analog communications.
 
 

All citizens should object to law enforcement and other government agencies using digital radios that radio scanners can not receive. Americans should have the right to know what government is doing around them if this is still the real America.

Radio scanners and open government radio communications are invaluable information tools during emergencies. Radio scanners are used to fight crime and for personal protection. Services can instantly be heard regarding emergencies, crimes, accidents, hazards, etc. This is the fastest way a citizen can get time-critical information. Thus, citizens can better protect themselves and better assist government. For volunteers and government workers, the radio scanner hobby is used on-duty and off-duty to keep up with on their own services and as a mutual-aid tool for listening to surrounding services outside of their jurisdiction.
Some valuable uses of radio scanners:
_Volunteer Firefighters -- who may hear news of an emergency before official notification.
_Police Officers -- to learn of potential emergencies.
_Wrecker Operators -- to learn of disabled vehicles.
_Journalists and Photographers -- to receive first notice of emergencies.
_Motorists -- who want to avoid accidents and know weather and road conditions.
_NASCAR Fans -- to monitor talk between drivers and pit crews.
_Consumers -- to instantly learn of emergencies and criminal activities in their area.

Radio scanners can serve a genuinely useful function in matters of local, or even national, emergency. As one manufacturer points out, when the nuclear power plant crisis occurred at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island, local authorities themselves bought hundreds of scanners. They supplied them to people living in the vicinity in order to keep them alerted to any important news or instructions.

Radio scanners help save lives:
A news story example from the past, a St. Louis helicopter pilot listening on a scanner heard police describing a man holding onto a bridge above a river. Police worked with the helicopter pilot to save the man’s life.

Many lives were saved during the World Trade Center disaster with help of radio scanner listeners. A trainmaster for the New York City subway system (PATH) said he was monitoring the police scanner and heard reports about the World Trade Center explosion. The decisive actions that proceeded saved more than 5,000 lives from the World Trade Center terrorist attacks.
http://www.hudsoncity.net/tubes/quickthinkingsaves5000.html
http://www.trainweb.org/espa/espa1201.htm scroll to PATH's Heroic Effort

Regarding the rescue of the two abducted teenagers in California, an animal control officer was listening to her radio scanner and heard the police transmissions regarding the suspect vehicle and learned it was in the area where she was working. She spotted the vehicle and notified the Sheriff's department. If the police were using a digital radio system that the public could not monitor, those teenagers could be dead because a law enforcement spokesperson said the suspect was within ten minutes of killing his teen captives.
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0208/02/se.04.html Police Discuss Rescue of Kidnapped California Girls

The news media is a big user of radio scanners because it is used for most of their newsgathering. However, government's use of digital and encryption during emergencies severely limits information the news media and the public should know.

Keep in mind that the news media is usually slow at getting information to the public, can be deceptive and show out of date information, and may not report or may censor stories you would consider important to you. Overall they usually do a fair job reporting news but can not report it all. Therefore, it would be dreadful to have closed government radio communications making radio scanners useless and having to get news or no news only from the limited and controlled news media. That is just one reason why all citizens need open government radio communications and useful radio scanners to get the news from government services instantly without having to totally rely only on press releases.
 
 

Government will serve us well only if the citizens are well informed.
Scanning receivers can be used to assist in Homeland Security

A quote from a Congressperson, "The American people have a right to know what government is doing around them." Government is supposed to be under an obligation to share information with the public. These are reasons why Americans need to put a stop to closed government communications that continues to increase.

In 1929, the very beginning of police radio systems, the public was able to eavesdrop on police calls and developed an interest in continuing to listen in. This continued for 60 years until the 1980s when certain politicians, corporations, and technologies began to threaten the end of citizen's ability to listen in. It is just not right to end the ability of Americans to monitor their government in operation.

History of citizens listening to police radio communications.
http://www.qsl.net/n6uru/calling.htm
http://users.snowcrest.net/marnells/kma367-1.htm

POLICE SCANNERS IN THE DIGITAL AGE
http://www.rtnda.org/foi/scanner.shtml

Closing radio communications creates a powerful tool to hide and organize wrongdoing. How can you trust government if they restrict more of what you hear or see them do? Do not be fooled by excuses in the name of safety, security, or privacy as reasons to close government information from public access!

There is no public safety in public ignorance. Reject secret policing!
openness/contenta.html
 
 

Some public servants want to use digital communications to lock out law-abiding citizens because it is so easy to do with digital encryption and that is not right!

Digital radio encryption (non-military use) by some departments of federal government and by government contractors became available in the early 1980s and the later 1980s to local governments. Today, "high-level encryption" is available for all government radios and government cellphones. High-level encryption is allowed only for government and government contractors and illegal for citizens to use unless it is low-level encryption.

More local, state, and federal governments are using digital cellphones during their time on public service duty. Nextel (iDen TDMA) is more than just a cellphone. It also has "push-to-talk" capabilities that allow law enforcement to connect directly to each other or to groups. CDMA and GSM cellphones are also getting new "push-to-talk" capabilities. These push-to-talk cellphones are like a walkie-talkie and are being used to police in secrecy.

In many cases government communication secrecy is not warranted.

Keep in mind that government has the power to eavesdrop and privacy laws do nothing about it. It is called intelligence gathering. Government has very expensive equipment that is custom-made (spy tradecraft) to monitor and decrypt your digital or analog communications.
 
 

We need laws that provides a right of law-abiding citizens to monitor real-time police, fire, and other public-safety radio communications and that requires public-safety transmissions to be open for public oversight.

State and local governments have been proposing new laws to keep the news media away from certain police operations. News media helicopters have been ordered away by Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) air traffic controllers per police commanders at police scenes. It can be used as information censorship. The police stay well protected without these laws. What you see government really doing and what you hear government really doing is becoming illegal.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press includes taping or recording government
 
 

In many respects analog is better than digital. But they want to fool you. Digital was really pushed in America because of its compression ability to save frequency bandwidth in the limited and valuable radio spectrum controlled by corporate greed and the FCC.

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=analog+better-than-digital&n=100

• Weak signals work better using analog compared to digital. With digital signals it is all or nothing while analog signals still give you something.
• Analog signals are more jam proof compared to digital signals when constant noise is modulated (no silent spots in the carrier) from a jamming signal.
• Japan uses analog for its HDTV.

Government radio networks are upgraded to digital at great expense to you the taxpayer. They can waste money by replacing their radio systems with new digital technologies that can be less reliable than their old analog radio systems.
http://www.davidschoenberger.net/monroe/

Bad Ideas of Restricting Airwaves from American Citizens

"Trust but verify," a quote from former President Ronald Reagan (R-CA). Citizens use to be able to monitor government operations because of open radio communications since the invention of radio, until it began to slowly close starting with the Reagan administration and the 98th Congress. Today, it continues to become more difficult for citizens to verify what your government is really doing because of closed radio communications.

Note: R = Republican, D = Democrat; plus the Two-letter State ID where their political career began

Steps to restrict Americans' access to the airwaves began on November 8, 1982. President Ronald Reagan issued Executive Order 12356, classifying as "Confidential" the Government Master File (GMF) of Federal radio frequency assignments by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). At that time, Bernie Wunder, Assistant Secretary for the Committee of Communications and Information, developed a classification guide for members of the Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee (IRAC). Federal radio frequency assignments were available if the public wanted to know for as long as I could remember but not any longer after Reagan's Executive Order.
Classified Government Frequencies
   

President Ronald Reagan signed the Cable Act of 1984 into law after the 98th Congress passed it. Public broadcast (including satellite TV) were previously required to be free to the public paid for by advertisements, but this law allowed encryption to be used by satellite TV broadcasters to force the public to pay for it. If you buy your own satellite receiver, you pay them to have decryption electronically activated by them so you can receive the broadcast. Cable companies do the decryption of broadcast for you then sell it as a cable connection. This created a bonanza for those in the movie, entertainment, and media business.

The National Cable Television Association (NCTA) largely wrote the Cable Act of 1984. Tom E. Wheeler was president of the NCTA until 1984. He battled against the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB). You will read more on this webpage about Tom Wheeler who later joined the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA).

The Cable Act of 1984 was created for the greed of Hollywood and cable TV companies. It became law in 1984 then on January 15, 1986 HBO became the first to scramble their satellite signal followed by plans of others to encrypt their satellite feeds under the authority granted to them by the 1984 Cable Act. It put most Satellite TV dealers out of business. Consumers wanted to rightfully receive free signals with their own satellite dish system (which they had to self maintain) instead of the limited package of pay channels distributed by cable TV companies that monopolized areas and provided poor service and poor maintenance to customers.

Remember that Ronald Reagan started in sport broadcasting. He became an actor in Hollywood films, joined the board and later became president of the Screen Actors Guild. In 1941 and 1947 Reagan testified about Communism in Hollywood. He starred in television shows, was a spokesman for the General Electric Company, was Governor of California, had a radio commentary program, was married twice both who were actresses, and had plenty of Hollywood family and connections. It seemed like a conflict of interest, considering Reagan's past, to be a President who signed laws in favor of Hollywood and big media corporations.
More Reagan and Reagan search and Reagan and terrorism and Reagan media

The Cable Act of 1984 created the liberal Ted Turner's media empire and later Rupert Murdoch's politically right-wing slanted media empire. It created plenty of unwanted garbage TV programs your forced to buy with the others channels you want, and high priced cable TV bills.

The continuing Abuse of Market Power By the Cable Industry: Rising Prices, Denial of Consumer Choice and Discriminatory Access to Content by the Consumer Federation of America
http://www.consumerfed.org/backpage/telecom.cfm#two
    http://www.consumerfed.org/mpcableindustry.pdf

Many people believe it was when cable TV became nationwide that a serious decline of America's youth started, especially in rural America.
http://www.parentstv.org/
http://www.chuckharder.com/bulletin.htm Petition for Enforcement of Anti-Trust Laws Re: Cable-TV and Direct Satellite
 
 

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986 was passed by the 99th Congress and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. The ECPA early in its creation had wording that could have banned radio scanners. The bad wording was removed with the help of American Radio Clubs (ANARC). Unfortunately, the ECPA has been and will continue to be modified as another way to restrict airwaves from American citizens and a way to take more of your liberties unless you try to stop it.
 
 

A legislative proposal H.R.1964 was stopped that would have lead to the elimination of radio scanners, as well as the scanning receiver portions of commercial and amateur radio transceivers. The attempted sanctions came from the only sponsor, Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-MA) in the 105th Congress. He forewarned that we would "see scanner sales drop precipitously" and tried to make his promise good. Fortunately for the citizens of the United States of America his attempt failed. Be forewarned there will be future attempts by others!
 
 

The Wireless Privacy Enhancement Act was signed into law by President William Clinton (D-AR). It began as H.R.2369 in the 105th Congress sponsored by W. J. "Billy" Tauzin (R-LA). This law forced radio scanners sold in the United States of America to have a radio band restriction, which is a very un-American idea. This law is wrong and really unneccessary!

Cellphone privacy could have been done without creating laws forcing radio-band blocking of scanning receivers because the cellular companies should have secured their cellphone systems in the past. However, their significant growth and profiting from selling you their airwaves gave them superior lobbying powers to certain greedy people in Congress.

In reality, radio-band blocking of scanning receivers does not protect your cellphone privacy. Other electronic devices besides scanning receivers can receive the cellphone radio band and it would require a repressive state, which America seems to be headed, to restrict them.

Jump to other cellphone issues!

In the amateur radio hobby we find other radio systems creating interference, listen for violations of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules, and conduct radio experimentation. We must have unblocked test equipment to make sure there is compliance with FCC radio rules and regulations. What we look for are radio communications, i.e. cellphone tower sites, causing interference to other parts of the radio spectrum including our amateur radio spectrum. We need to use unblocked test equipment for checking our amateur radio equipment to make sure amateur radio equipment does not cause interference to the cellphone radio spectrum or other parts of the radio spectrum.

Do you think the Congressmen and Senators just do not want anyone eavesdropping as they call their mistresses and hookers on cellphones? :) Funny, but they definitely want to hide their corruption!

The only reason for this law was because of news stories about a concerned citizen disclosing wrongdoing overheard from a cellphone call by Congressman Newt Gingrich (R-GA). The New York Times reported (Jan. 10, 1997) that Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA) was heard in a telephone conference call to other prominent Republicans (on Dec. 21, 1996) plotting strategy on how to deal with the ethics case against him. This despite his promise, made the same day to the ethics subcommittee by his lawyer, that he would not use his office or his allies to orchestrate a counter-attack to the charges.

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1997/gen/resources/infocus/gingrich/ go to page 3 http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/177crm.htm concerned citizen charged by already existing laws before H.R.2369

A court ruled Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) violated a pre-existing federal law by turning over an illegally taped telephone call to reporters. McDermott leaked to The New York Times and other news organizations a tape of a 1996 cellphone call. The call included discussion by Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA) and John Boehner (R-OH) [who became House Majority Leader himself] and other House GOP leaders about a House ethics committee investigation of Gingrich.

A lawyer for McDermott had argued that his actions were allowed under the First Amendment, and said a ruling against him would have "a huge chilling effect" on reporters and newsmakers alike. Lawyers for 18 news organizations - including ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, The Associated Press, The New York Times and The Washington Post - filed a brief backing McDermott.
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=McDermott+Gingrich+Boehner+ethics

When making H.R.2369, the House Committee on Commerce admitted that existing laws, such as the ECPA, protected your privacy. The House Committee on Commerce admitted digital encryption would result in wireless privacy. The new digital phones are solutions that stops eavesdropping but the governemnt can still eavesdrop on them too.

Members of the 105th Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade, & Consumer Protection that started H.R.2369:
http://www.house.gov/commerce/telecom.html

The Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA) was trying to cover their irresponsibility of not having secured cellphones in the past. Cellphones were left totally unsecured by cellphone companies on purpose for over 20 years when it was developed in the 1970s until the change over to digital in the 1990s. Cellphone companies knew the phones they were selling you were not secure and cellphone companies were not willing to put warning labels about eavesdropping on cellphones just because it might reduce their profits. Cellphone companies knew it but did not want to tell you.

Bob Grove, President of Grove Enterprises, argued against scanning receiver restrictions in the hearing. Tom Wheeler the President of Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA) argued for restrictions. The argument against it did not stand a chance because the CTIA gives lots of money to House and Senate members and presidential candidates.

http://www.house.gov/commerce/telecom/hearings/020597/grove.pdf
http://www.house.gov/commerce/telecom/hearings/020597/groveattach.pdf

Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association Political Action Committee (CTIAPAC)
Follow the money and you will find the politicians supporting them!
Follow the money of the CELLULAR TELECOMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION POLITICAL ACTION
COMMITTEE Corporations giving to the CTIA PAC
Corporate Executives giving to the CTIA PAC
Other Cellular Political Action Committees Committee Name: Cellular

http://www.wow-com.com/industry/industry_links.cfm current CTIA Member Organizations

Tom Wheeler and the CTIA was not at all against government's Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) allowing government eavesdropping on cellphones. In fact, Tom Wheeler and the CTIA help provide technical assistance to make government eavesdropping work on cellular telephone networks.
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&q=%22CALEA%22+communications

From 1976 to 1984, Tom E. Wheeler was associated with the National Cable Television Association (NCTA), where he was president from 1979 to 1984. He was President and CEO of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA) from 1992 till November 2003. He also was responsible for CTIA's Internet offerings: www.wow-com.com and The Daily Wireless. He is also a director of Tech Corps, Community IMPACT USA, Aether Systems, OmniSky Corporation, SmartBrief.com, Cibernet Corporation and Telephia, Inc.

Tom Wheeler lobbied for the cellular and cable TV corporations to get anti-consumer radio-scanner laws and anti-consumer cable TV laws passed in Congress. After more than 30 years in the nation's capital, his Rolodex is filled with names of political and corporate elite because of his reputation as a successful lobbyist.

Did Lobbyist Tom Wheeler and Congressman Billy Tauzin getaway with corruption?
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=corrupt+lobbyist+Congress

H.R.2369 [became law] was sponsored by 105th Congress House of Representatives:
Mr. W. J. "Billy" TAUZIN (R-LA) - 7/31/1997 http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&q=Tauzin+watch
Mr. Edward J. Markey (D-MA) - 7/31/1997
Mr. Michael G. Oxley (R-OH) - 7/31/1997
Mr. Paul E. Gillmor (R-OH) - 7/31/1997
Ms. Anna G. Eshoo (D-CA) - 7/31/1997
Ms. Karen McCarthy (D-MO) - 7/31/1997
Mr. Thomas J. Manton (D-NY) - 9/3/1997 (not a current member)
Mr. Dan Burton (R-IN) - 10/7/1997
Mr. Albert Russell Wynn (D-MD) - 10/7/1997
Mr. Collin C. Peterson (D-MN) - 10/7/1997
Mr. Nathan Deal (R-GA) - 11/9/1997
Mr. Tom Campbell (R-CA) - 11/12/1997

Some organizations that favored the horrible idea of restricting scanning receivers:
Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA)
AT&T Wireless Services, Inc.
Bell Atlantic Mobile, Inc.
Motorola, Inc.
The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT)
Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association (CEMA) or Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)
   

Once they start making restrictions on scanning receivers they may never stop. Look at what the House and Senate Committees on Commerce and the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA) was trying to do. They were proposing new laws that require more radio-band blocking of scanning receivers although there are the currently unnecessary laws doing this.

The 106th Congress was trying for more restrictions with H.R.3489 (Sec. 5 and Sec. 6, formerly H.R.514) and S.2326. These similarly worded bills add hidden bad restrictions by requiring even more of the radio band to be removed from scanning receivers. It would remove the radio band in scanning receivers used by commercial Specialized Mobile Radio (SMR) and Personal Communications Service (PCS) and it attacks legitimate decoding. This would remove the same radio band used by government for public safety because SMR is mixed in the same radio band.

Scanning receivers can not listen in on PCS or SMR because PCS or SMR (e.g. Nextel) uses digital audio. In addition, PCS has a much shorter reception range than cellular and thus requires micro-cells or many more cells compared to original 800 MHz cellular systems. In fact, Jay Kitchen, President, and CEO of the Personal Communications Industry Association (PCIA) said, "Quite naturally, therefore, some have called for more laws and more regulations. But certain pioneers in the wireless industry have found a technological alternative, one that offers the desired privacy without need for further federal government intervention. Enter digital personal communications services. Like a personal computer, PCS technology transforms spoken words into a complex binary algorithm of 1's and 0's, representing meaningless static to the "ears" of a scanner. In addition, there are infinite different combinations that PCS companies use for breaking up and reassembling the codes. This factor alone eliminates the casual hacker, but even if a determined eavesdropper attempted to intercept a PCS phone conversation, the sound they would pick up would be much like the squeaks and squeals that you hear when you log on to the internet or send a fax. Although nothing is absolute, it would take extremely sophisticated, expensive computers and devices, much like those used by the CIA and top law enforcement agencies, to possibly decode a PCS signal. Furthermore, in some PCS technologies, the coding scheme is changed from call to call, so even if a sophisticated eavesdropper was able to break one of the codes to intercept a call, he would be back to square one with the next call he targeted." Proof why H.R.3489 and S.2326 have unnecessary wording and are mostly ludicrous laws.
http://www.house.gov/commerce/telecom/hearings/020597/kitchen.pdf

Comments against these laws:
http://www.grove-ent.com/mt514ed.html
http://www.popular-communications.com/insider.html
http://www.dimensional.com/~efricha/HR514/
http://www.qsl.net/kc4iyo/hr2369.htm
http://members.aol.com/TomSCT/HR2369.html
Search Newsgroups Comments (i.e. 514, HR514, HR 514, etc.)

H.R.514 [did not become law] was sponsored by 106th Congress House of Representatives:
Ms. Heather WILSON (R-NM) - 2/3/1999
Mr. W. J. "Billy" Tauzin (R-LA) - 2/3/1999
Mr. Edward J. Markey (D-MA) - 2/3/1999
Mr. Michael G. Oxley (R-OH) - 2/3/1999
Ms. Anna G. Eshoo (D-CA) - 2/3/1999
Mr. Nathan Deal (R-GA) - 2/3/1999
Mr. Albert Russell Wynn (D-MD) - 2/3/1999
Ms. Barbara Cubin (R-WY) - 2/3/1999
Mr. Bill Luther (D-MN) - 2/3/1999
Mr. James E. Rogan (R-CA) - 2/3/1999
Mr. Tom Sawyer (D-OH) - 2/3/1999
Mr. Charles "Chip" Pickering (R-MS) - 2/3/1999
Mr. Paul E. Gillmor (R-OH) - 2/3/1999
Mr. Roy Blunt (R-MO) - 2/11/1999
Mr. John Shimkus (R-IL) - 2/11/1999
Mr. Christopher Cox (R-CA) - 2/11/1999
Mr. Vito Fossella (R-NY) - 2/11/1999

H.R.3489 [did not become law] included sections 5 and 6, formerly H.R. 514, was sponsored by 106th Congress House of Representatives:
Mr. Charles "Chip" PICKERING (R-MS) - 11/18/1999
Mr. Edward J. Markey (D-MA) - 11/18/1999
Ms. Heather Wilson (R-NM) - 11/18/1999
Mr. Steve Largent (R-OK) - 11/18/1999
Mr. W. J. "Billy" Tauzin (R-LA) - 11/18/1999
Mr. John D. Dingell (D-MI) - 3/16/2000
Mr. Vito Fossella (R-NY) - 3/16/2000
Mr. Michael G. Oxley (R-OH) - 3/16/2000
Mr. John E. Sununu (R-NH) - 3/16/2000
Ms. Barbara Cubin (R-WY) - 3/22/2000
Mr. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) - 4/5/2000
Mr. Paul E. Gillmor (R-OH) - 4/13/2000
Mr. Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. (R-MD) - 4/13/2000
Ms. Karen McCarthy (D-MO) - 4/13/2000
Mr. Roy Blunt (R-MO) - 4/13/2000
Mr. Christopher Shays (R-CT) - 4/13/2000
Mr. Rick Boucher (D-VA) - 4/13/2000
Mr. Albert Russell Wynn (D-MD) - 5/4/2000
Mr. Nathan Deal (R-GA) - 5/4/2000
Mr. John M. McHugh (R-NY) - 5/4/2000
Mr. John E. Sweeney (R-NY) - 5/9/2000
Mr. Tom A. Coburn (R-OK) - 5/15/2000
Mr. Charles A. Gonzalez (D-TX) - 6/28/2000

S.2326 [did not become law] was sponsored by 106th Congress Senators:
Mr. Ron WYDEN (D-OR) - 3/29/2000
Mr. Conrad R. Burns (R-MT) - 3/29/2000
 
 

Key points why scanner laws are not good for Americans:
(1) Other countries have restricted reception laws and many of those countries greatly violate human rights.
(2) Foreigners and citizens of adjacent countries and other countries have the freedom to own unblocked scanners.
(3) A government employee or cellular company employee can buy an unblocked scanning receiver.
(4) It is to the criminals disadvantage if law-abiding citizens can listen to government radio communications because it lets us be quickly on alert to help catch the criminals and stop their crimes.
(5) Radio communications is a very powerful and effective tool that makes government more powerful. To keep us a true democracy citizens need to monitor government radio communications for government oversight. Government can misuse radio privacy or encryption to cover their wrongdoing.
(6) The FCC has provisions allowing government to eavesdrop on your communications including cellphones and the Internet.

Recommended changes to the Communications Act of 1934:
(1) Remove the restrictions that force radio-band blocking of scanning receivers manufactured for Americans.
(2) Radio technology is going from analog to digital, which means easier encryption of public services and a need for laws to keep a more open government for the public. Government is supposed to be under an obligation to share information with the public. Make new laws to provide law-abiding citizens the right and ability to monitor government services, even if they use digital radio systems.
(3) Add provisions that overrule any state or local law that prevents the news media from showing live or taped government operations to the public.
(4) Restrict the use of radio encryption by Federal and non-Federal government services. Allow encryption only for special operations and personal data. No radio encryption allowed for emergency and routine service by Federal and non-Federal government services.
(5) Protect the existing Amateur Radio and non-commercial radio spectrum use from commercial reallocations. The radio spectrum has always been a limited resource. It begins and ends in a band of frequencies limited by the law of physics. Maintain fairness because new commercial wireless services are rapidly increasing. The CTIA and others will try to influence Congress and the FCC to take the limited radio bands used by non-commercial wireless users.

You should note that H.R.783, to protect the amateur radio spectrum was not enacted by the 106th House Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade, & Consumer Protection. Also, note that S.2183, to protect the amateur radio spectrum was not enacted by the 106th Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

American Radio Relay League Government Relations
http://www.arrl.org/govrelations/
 
 

There is no way to make an electronic device totally tamperproof from the interception of cellular telephone frequencies, or any other frequency. A case in point, if a technically competent individual wants to modify a device to listen to other telephone calls the unit better suited for this purpose is the cellular telephone itself. Cellular telephones can monitor telephone calls if properly programmed by the actual user.

The Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA) created the definition of "readily altered" for scanning receivers that is overly restrictive, burdensome, and not required to accomplish the purposes of the "Wireless Privacy Enhancement Act." After they got Congress and the President of the United States to make it law, the Federal Communications Commission was again required to redefine scanning receivers that can be sold to Americans.

In bold are FCC's main changes, in red are comments from others:
Scanning receivers redefined by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)

The FCC does annual reports for outdated FCC rules. Since 1998 and as of today, they have not removed the restrictions that require radio-band blocking of scanning receivers sold to people in the United States of America.
 
 

Help stop and remove laws that restrict your rights of owning unrestricted scanning receivers, unrestricted from government enforced radio-band blocking.

Privacy laws use the wrong approach to cellphone privacy by enacting something never done in America before, that is the dangerous idea of taking your rights of owning scanning receivers with unblocked radio-bands.

Amend the "Wireless Privacy Enhancement Act of 1998" and amend the "Wireless Eavesdropping Protection Act of 2000" to remove scanning receiver restrictions because unblocked scanning receivers can not be used to listen in on today's digital cellular systems. The cellphone companies are finally securing their cellphone systems making the un-American idea of radio-band blocking of scanning receivers totally unnecessary. So, revise the law to remove the restrictions that force radio-band blocking of scanning receivers manufactured for Americans.

Scanning receivers with cellular frequency coverage are sold only to local, state, or federal government; to cellular or paging service providers; to technical service organizations qualified to own such equipment as part of their legally authorized duties; and to customers ordering from outside the United States and possessions. Citizens of other countries have the freedom to buy unrestricted scanning receivers except United States of America citizens.

Canada has more sensible and reasonable radio laws than the United States of America for now.

USA
1. Illegal to monitor cellular phone transmissions
2. Illegal to monitor cordless phone transmissions
3. Illegal to monitor scrambled/encrypted signals
4. Illegal to monitor SCA signals
5. Illegal to monitor voice paging signals
6. Illegal to monitor remote radio-TV broadcast signals
7. Illegal to monitor outside residence in a few states
8. Illegal to monitor by convicted persons in a few states
9. Illegal to monitor in vehicles in some states
10. Illegal to manufacture cellular-capable receivers
11. Illegal to modify to receive cellular signals
12. Illegal to import cellular-capable receivers
13. Illegal to use as an aid in commission of crime in most states
14. Illegal to use information heard for personal gain
15. Illegal to disclose or publish information heard to third party (for signals that are NOT "readily accessible to the public")

Canada
1. Illegal to disclose information heard to third party
2. Illegal to make use of or divulge radio-based telephone communication
3. Illegal to receive or decode an encrypted subscription programming signal
4. Illegal to "intercept and make use of, or intercept and divulge, any radiocommunication, except as permitted by the originator of the communication or the person intended by the originator of the communication to receive it" except for publicly accessible broadcasting services

Other Cellphone Issues

Private investigators are wise enough not use cellphones. They know the use of cellphones in many ways takes away your privacy. Records on the use of your cellphone can be used against you to incriminate you.  

Cellphones are used as spy tools. The newer cellphones now have software and Internet connections with Sun Micro Java and GPS location built into them. That means your cellphone can be easily hacked by government to turn it into an excellent surveillance tool to spy on you.
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=cell-phone+spy
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=cell-phone+spying
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=cell-phone+bugged
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=cell-phone+tracking

Here is a tip the cellphone companies do not want to tell you!

You can use a cellphone for an emergency without having service from a cellphone company if you were a former subscriber. They are required by the FCC to allow you access to 911 even if you are not a current subscriber to a wireless or wired company but digital-only cellphones could be a problem.

Will your cellphone reach 911?

When your phone is in digital mode, it can work only with your home carrier (the company you use for service) for any call--including those to 911--unless the home carrier has a roaming agreement with another carrier.

Phones that can work in both digital and analog modes give you more options. Analog provides that safety net for emergency calling. Indeed, the principal FCC regulation governing wireless 911 recognizes the importance of the analog mode.

The regulation, which took affect in 2000, says that whenever a wireless phone dialing 911 in analog mode can't get through via its home carrier, that phone must seek another signal, even if it's from a competing carrier, to quickly establish a voice connection.

The FCC concedes its rule is only a small step toward improving 911 service. Multinetwork phones, which are normally in a digital mode, aren't required to switch to analog to make a 911 call. There are no regulations for digital-only phones, such as the kind offered by T-Mobile and Nextel.

The 911 system needs fixing. The FCC's 911 regulation is out of date for today's wireless phones, which increasingly depend on digital--not analog--technology. When the rule was written, fewer than half of the wireless customers used a dual-mode phone; that has now surpassed 87 percent.

The FCC's regulation also defies "general common sense," says Roger Hixson, technical issues director for the National Emergency Number Association, the nonprofit umbrella organization for U.S. emergency call centers. Hixson explained that phones that can't connect in a digital mode or don't automatically roll over to analog for an emergency call "subvert the idea that any call dialed to 911 has to be handled by the wireless carrier and brought into the call delivery network."

The FCC needs to impose higher standards for the wireless 911 system. A reasonable way to start could be to change the current regulation to apply as well to multinetwork phones dialing 911 in digital mode. If the call can't be quickly completed through the home carrier, the phone should seek another signal.

Manufacturers and carriers need to invest in safety. Carriers should make the existing 911-system work more effectively, which may require some reprogramming of the phones.

The FCC must ensure that digital phones are more compatible. The FCC voted fall of 2002 to phase out its requirement that some wireless providers offer an analog backup signal. That was a mistake because the agency did not also require companies to make their digital technologies talk with one another. Simply allowing analog to fade away removes the principal common wireless language. In the end, you will have less assurance than you do now that your phone will get through to 911.

The industry needs more diligent oversight. The FCC has the industry on an honor system. The agency does no testing to monitor compliance with its 911 rule, says Steven Dayhoff, an electronics engineer at the FCC labs. Of wireless companies and 911, he says, "We assume that they have the software or firmware for call-handling that they're supposed to have." He noted, however, "We have not tried it out."

At a minimum, the FCC should run its own tests to see that phones perform as they should--and as manufacturers have certified--when dialing 911.

November of 2002 the Wireless Consumers Alliance filed a series of class-action suits in federal and state courts against various wireless phone manufacturers and service providers, maintaining that they knowingly sold phones that did not comply with the FCC's regulations. The suits seek injunctions against the sale of the phones, as well as monetary damages.
http://www.wirelessconsumers.org/

WHAT YOU CAN DO

• Do not dial 911 to test the system. In many areas it is illegal. They are required to allow 911 access even if you are a former subscriber no longer using their service.
• Test a cellphone by calling the wireless customer service number.
• Avoid digital-only phones or carriers if you want a cellphone for emergencies.
• The user can force some phones that use the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) digital format into analog. Check the user's manual.
• If you don't use your cellphone every day, make sure that its battery stays charged.
• If you have trouble connecting to 911 from inside a car, get out if possible, and call from the side of the road; that may help you get a better signal.
• In an emergency, ignore a "no service" message on the phone's display. Try the call anyway.
• Tell the FCC what you think of the present wireless 911 system. To register a complaint or voice your opinion, contact the agency at 1-888-225-5322.

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=emergency+cell-phone+911
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=wind-up+charger
   

Nearly one in three (30%) adults say the cellphone is the invention they most hate but cannot live without
http://web.mit.edu/invent/n-pressreleases/n-press-04index.html
   

Interference from Nextel endangers Public-Safety communications!

Interference from Nextel (which uses the monopolistic proprietary Motorola iDEN technology) and other cellphone companies has become a real danger to lives of police officers and public-safety communications. The iDEN downlink signals at the cellular base stations significantly degrade performance of other 800 MHz base-station receiver systems. It results in loss of coverage and channel quality to public-safety and other types of cellular communications causing the inability for them to communicate.
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=nextel+interference+safety

Interference to 800 MHz Public Safety Radio Systems
http://www.apcointl.org/frequency/project_39/index.html

The 'so called' privacy advocates in Congress, Congressman W. J. "Billy" Tauzin (R-LA) and the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade, & Consumer Protection favor FCC laws that force mandatory cellphone location and tracking. It requires cellular companies to indicate the precise location of wireless phone users and without your consent it will be used by government to track you. Many citizens consider cellphone location and tracking to be an invasion of privacy.
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=cell-phone+location+tracking

Signals from cellphone masts can be used to track aircraft, monitor traffic congestion and spot speeding motorists without tipping them off that they are being watched. A radar-like system, which is still being developed, has provoked reports of the start of a huge extension of Big Brother-style surveillance - privacy campaigners have complained that it could be used to track individual people.

Celldar works out the position of objects in the area by comparing the signals reflected from them with those it receives directly from a base station, whose positions are known. From the Doppler shift in the signal it can also calculate the target object's speed. Because the system is passive, drivers will have no way of telling whether they are being monitored. Another advantage of passive systems is their ability to spot "stealthy" aircraft and ships, which are designed to fool conventional radar systems by absorbing signals or reflecting them away from the source. To passive radar, these objects show up as shadows that can be spotted. Civil liberties groups are concerned that the system could be adapted or combined with other technologies to produce a device for tracking people. A technical document stated that it could be used in this way, "can detect vehicles and even human beings at militarily useful ranges."
 
 

Cellphone towers and cellphones cause cancer!
It is a proven fact that broadcast engineers that had to spend a lot of time at transmitting sites would get leukemia and/or cataracts. This was before the new cellphone system of higher frequencies that are in the dangerous microwave range that now almost totally saturate the globe with microwave radiation. This constant microwave saturation from cellphone towers is something the people on Earth never had to deal with before the 1980s.

A constant microwave radiation will cause cancer. It can cause fibromyalgia, auto-immune thyroiditis and acute nerve degeneration, brain and lung damage, partial paralysis, muscle tremors, bone pain, DNA damage, tumors, and sarcoma. It is feared that microwave radiation may be a major factor in the nation's phenomenal epidemics of dementia and autism.

It is identical to those suffered by Japanese victims of gamma wave radiation after nuclear explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Five decades of studies confirm that non-ionizing communications radiation in the RF/microwave spectrum has the same affect on human health as ionizing gamma wave radiation from nuclear reactions. The identical damage resulting from both radioactive gamma waves and high frequency microwaves involves a pathological condition in which the nuclei of irradiated human cells splinter into fragments called micronuclei. RF/microwaves from cell phones and cell tower transmitters cause micronuclei damage in blood cells. Micronuclei are a definitive precursor of cancer.

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=microwave+radiation-poisoning
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=cell-phone+tower+radiation+cancer
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=cell-phones+cancer+-no

Gangs and organized criminals use cellphones to advance their crimes!
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=cell-phone+gang-members
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=cell-phone+organized-criminals

Cellphones are used by terrorist to communicate!
Cellphones are used by terrorist to remotely detonate bombs!
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=terrorists+cell-phone
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=terrorist+cell-phone
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=bomb+cell-phone

In a terrorist attack your cellphone will be useless like what happened after the WTC attack!

After the World Trade Center disaster or during other disasters, cellphones became useless for a long time because the site either got destroyed or overloaded with callers. No telecommunications network can be designed to handle dramatic surges in traffic. That is why the Amateur Radio Service is so important because they are still able to communicate during disasters.
http://www.google.com/search?q=WTC+attack+cell-phones+useless

Congressional laws are making FCC rules that prioritize cellphone callers and private radio networks!

That means if there is a major emergency the government will have priority cellular access, priority private radio access, and priority paging access. Use by ordinary citizens of cellphones and other personal radio communications will become totally useless because you will have no priority when it is needed the most during major events or major emergencies.
Priority users can only be personnel and those individuals in national security and emergency-response leadership positions. Priority will not be given to all emergency service personnel.
Priority Hierarchy:
1. Executive Leadership and Policy Makers
2. Disaster Response/Military Command and Control
3. Public Health, Safety and Law Enforcement Command
4. Public Services/Utilities and Public Welfare
5. Disaster Recovery

Drivers using cellphones while driving cause accidents and deaths!
http://www.nsc.org/issues/drivsafe.htm National Safety Council scroll to Cellphones and driving
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=cell+phones+driving+accidents+deaths

Study: Cellphones put planes at risk!
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=cell-phones+on+planes

Old cellphones will contribute to growing waste problems!

U.S. consumers will throw out millions of cellphones, creating a huge pile of waste containing dangerous pollutants. Cellphones have large amounts of highly polluting metals including lead solder used on the internal circuit board, and arsenic and cadmium, and create toxic dioxins when incinerated in garbage dumps.
INFORM
    http://www.informinc.org/wirelesswaste.php

Cellphones can be easily made useless by jamming them!

In hostage situations, cellphone jammers can be used to ensure that the hostage taker has no access to the outside world via a cellphone. However, it is illegal in America to use cellphone jammers except by government. Cellphone jammers use wideband noise generators that can also interfere and jam [more so for digital than for analog] adjacent public-safety frequencies.
http://www.sfweekly.com/issues/2000-07-05/bayview2.html

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=cell-phone+detector
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=cell-phone+jammer

Telecommunications Industry Control of the FCC

http://www.openairwaves.org/telecom/

http://mediareform.net/

A 3-2 vote on June 2, 2003, by FCC Chairman Michael Powell and the Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission would allow companies to buy television stations and to own newspaper-broadcasting combinations in the same city, changing rules against media consolidation.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-LA) has said he supports the FCC's new rules.
http://news.google.com/news?q=tauzin+FCC&scoring=d

The Good and Bad ECPA

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA) was partly created to protect citizens from government electronically invading your privacy but it has many ambiguities so government can get around it. The government also has begun enforcing the ECPA to stop citizens from electronically monitoring their government.

For the record, this law (H.R.4952, H.R.3387 & S.2575, S.1667) began in the 99th Congress. Sponsored by Rep. Robert W. Kastenmeier (D-WI) of the House Judiciary and passed the House. Reported by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary and sponsored by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT). It passed the Senate and President Ronald Reagan (R-CA) signed it into law on October 21, 1986.

On March 1, 1990, the U.S. Secret Service improperly conducted an early morning raid at Steve Jackson Games (SJG). A company that produced fantasy books and games. SJG used the ECPA against the U.S. Secret Service with the help from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). In the final verdict, the judge ruled the agents violated the ECPA because of seizure of stored electronic communications on SJG's computers. However, the judge ruled that U.S. Secret Service agents did not violate the ECPA when agents seized the Illuminati BBS at SJG. The raids occurred during President George Bush's (R-TX) administration.
http://www.sjgames.com/SS/

Title: "SMOKING GUN" PROOF THAT ILLUMINATI PLAN TO ATTACK ON 9/11 AND BEYOND WAS WELL KNOWN AS FAR BACK AS 1995?
http://www.cuttingedge.org/news/n1753.cfm

Did President George Bush use abuse of power just because he was being exposed as a New World Order Illumnati?
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=George-Bush+%22abuse+of+power%22+Executive-Branch
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=New-World-Order+George-Bush
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=Illumanti+George-Bush

In the 1980s, President Reagan (R-CA) and the 98th Congress gave the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) and the FBI new power and authority to investigate Computer and Telecommunications cases. The passage of the Omnibus Crime Control Act of 1984 created the Electronics Crime Branch of the U.S. Secret Service. The Electronics Crime Branch (ECB) provides technical assistance to the special agents in the development of their cases involving electronic storage devices, hardware, software, and new technologies. In 1986 the 99th Congress revised Title 18 of the United States Code to include the U.S. Secret Service in investigation of fraud and related activities concerning computers that were described as "federal interest computers," as defined in Title 18, United States Code, Section 1030. The U.S. Secret Service then established the Electronic Crimes Special Agent Program (ECSAP), that trains agents to conduct forensic examinations of computers used in criminal endeavors. So trained, these agents can preserve any investigative leads within the computer, as well as any evidence needed for subsequent prosecutions. To date, the Secret Service has trained 175 ECSAP agents and placed at least one in all of their field offices across the country.

Because of the new powers given to the U.S. Secret Service a web site was created about abuses during hacker crackdowns, although bad hackers need to be stopped there was abuse of power. These crackdowns occurred during the President George Bush, Sr. (R-TX) Administration.
http://www.2600.com/secret/

The FBI has jurisdiction over computer crime cases involving national security, terrorism, banking, organized crime, and interstate fraud and thus had jurisdiction in the famous FBI case against federal fugitive Kevin Mitnick.

It involved:
FBI's National Computer Crime Squad, at the Washington Metropolitan Field Office
FBI and United States Attorneys' Offices in the Eastern District of North Carolina (Raleigh)
Central District of North Carolina (Greensboro)
Southern District of California (San Diego)
Central District of California (Los Angeles)
Northern District of California (San Francisco)
District of Colorado

Legal and technical assistance in the Mitnick case was provided by the Criminal Division's Computer Crime Unit in Washington, D.C.

It was an organized alliance of corporations and government to punish Kevin Mitnick and to let other citizens know that outsiders are not allowed insider knowledge of the powerful.

To understand the Kevin Mitnick hacker story check these links:
http://www.kevinmitnick.com/ or http://www.freekevin.com/
    http://www.kevinmitnick.com/willy/crimes-toc.html
TAKEDOWN, The Movie Review by Emmanuel Goldstein
http://www.kevinmitnick.com/review.html and http://www.kevinmitnick.com/review2.html
http://www.takedown.com/ Tsutomu Shimomura and the 'Cyber Trackers'
http://www.gulker.com/ra/hack/ The Kevin Mitnick/Tsutomu Shimomura affair compiled by Chris Gulker
http://www.google.com/search?as_q=Mitnick&num=100&as_sitesearch=2600.com

To add to the story, it was believed Shimomura purposely left the computers without security fringing on a frame-up because there were at least three Unix security programs anyone of which would have stopped Mitnick.

Keep in mind Shimomura is a hacker or computer security researcher for the government and corporations. It is better to look at both sides of this story because Mitnick hacked mainly for passion of technology, the intellectual challenge, pursuit of knowledge, to understand proprietary technology, and for self-preservation from those that did not like his hacking. Mitnick never used a virus or worm and did not hack to destroy data. And most notably is that Mitnick did not hack to steal money or for profit gain. But the New York Times and other news media made highly exaggerated claims that totally sided with the government and corporations to make him notorious.

During the 1995 Mitnick case, the "Cyber Trackers" cellphone monitoring could have violated the ECPA because of publicly reported conversations of others that called Mitnick on his cellphone. In relation to this, it was ironic that Shimomura testified in 1992 before a Congressional Committee chaired by Representative Edward Markey (D-MA) about the lack of privacy and security using cellphones.

Somebody reported that Mitnick copied from Shimomura a stealthy program custom-designed for use by the U.S. military and Federal government. A government program that was designed to be as stealthy as possible so it could pick up packets of data and send them to any other computer on the network. Another program reportedly copied was software designed to reverse-engineer Shimomura's Oki 900 cellphone. The software, co-developed by Shimomura and Bay Area hacker Mark Lottor, turns a cellphone into a cellphone-scanning receiver. Possession of this software maybe interpreted from the ECPA by some as a crime, making for another ECPA violation against the "Cyber Trackers" in the Mitnick case. But the "Cyber Trackers" were never charged with violating the ECPA. Kevin Mitnick served five years from 1995 to 2000 in a federal prison for wire fraud, computer fraud and intercepting communications.
http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,57338,00.html

The U.S. Government grossly exaggerated the monetary losses caused to companies by Mitnick's alleged computer hacking and copying of source code. The federal indictment handed down on September 26, 1996 lists the following companies that supposedly suffered these extraordinary losses: Motorola, Fujitsu, Nokia, Sun, Novell, and NEC.
http://www.kevinmitnick.com/cory.html

https://members.tripod.com/~empallin/Free_Kevin_Mitnick/ some archived Mitnick-Digest from the 2600 mailing list

In 1995 AT&T Wireless Services Security noticed ads selling electronic surveillance devices on the Internet and tipped the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). The U.S. Secret Service used the first e-mail wiretap in the United States to eavesdrop. Undercover DEA agents agreed to purchase a sophisticated piece of equipment that intercepts wireless messages. The joint investigation included AT&T and the New York Electronic Crimes Task Force. The task force included USSS, DEA and the New York Police Department. The devices were developed and were being sold by a talented, well-educated German engineer. He was arrested and later convicted by the U.S. government to stop these devices from being available to the public.

In August of 1997, the New York Electronic Crimes Task Force jointly with the New York Police Department and the U.S. Secret Service used the ECPA against the Breaking News Network. It is believed to be the first case of government using the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986 against citizens. BNN owners were charged with intercepting government service messages of the New York Police Department, New York Fire Department, Office of Emergency Management, Emergency Medical Services, and other government services.

Note that the Breaking News Network was credited as the first to publicize the story of the TWA Flight 800 crash. The secretive Federal investigation that followed and the information the government released to the public remain a controversy.
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=TWA+800

The New York City Mayor at that time was Rudolph Giuliani (Republican), The New York Police Commissioner was Howard Safir, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York was Mary Jo White and the Magistrate Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York was Leonard Bernikow [resigned November 2, 1998].

Note that Mary Jo White was appointed US Attorney in 1993 by President Clinton (D-AR). She served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from June 1, 1993 until January 7, 2002 then joined the international law firm Debevoise & Plimpton to chair the litigation group.

Journalist quickly began saying the crackdown was part of a larger effort by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R) and his allies to exert more control over the New York media. A spokesperson for the mayor countered, noting that this was a federal prosecution, not a city action. City police commissioner Howard Safir said that because of the intercepts, the city has changed its private communications system. He declined to say exactly how the new system worked, but added that BNN's alleged interceptions had not "compromised" the city's police work.

Journalist said BNN was little more than a tip service. Associated Press New York City bureau chief Sam Boyle said the service monitored the areas many police radios and beeped clients with news about anything that might look interesting. "It all had to be checked out before it could be used," Boyle said.

BNN said one former volunteer was "a former city official with ties to the U.S. Secret Service, who for months has publicly vowed to destroy this company." BNN also accused federal law-enforcement officers of "heavy handed conduct" and suggested that the charges were motivated by government's own embarrassment and was a frame-up. The company is outraged at what appears to be a crude and blatant attempt by the NYPD Intelligence Division to embarrass and intimidate a respected news gathering organization," said a defense attorney for BNN. Prosecutors refused to say whether the interceptions had damaging effects. That says the interceptions were not damaging which means the prosecution could be called malicious.

U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White and other law enforcement officials would not identify the officials whose pager messages were intercepted or the contents of the messages.

The intercepted messages were not scrambled or encrypted messages. The program used "Message Tracker" is also used by law-enforcement for government to intercept private messages of citizens.

In the year 1999, again the New York Electronic Crimes Task Force jointly with the New York Police Department and the U.S. Secret Service use the ECPA. It involved a data slicer and government communications that use Mobile Data Terminals (MDT). Data slicers have many legal uses in the radio hobby.
United States Government v. Bill and Cindy Cheek

Some question whether open radio communications would help prevent government corruption. Mobile Data Terminals (MDT's) have been a closed method of government radio communication. MDT's usage by local police departments began in the 1980s with funding help from Federal government. Currently most major police departments use MDT's. It is considered a closed method of communications with their own departments controlling public transcript records. Some headline stories of police corruption involved police departments that use MDT's. A past examination of Police Department's MDT messages revealed hundreds of insensitive and racially biased remarks. In scores of messages, officers talked about beating suspects, expressed their eagerness to be involved in shooting incidents, and made other comments indicative of an orientation toward the use of violence. No question, if you close government radio communications from law-abiding citizens it will allow more government corruption.

On November 10, 2000, the U.S. Customs Service raided electronic stores to stop them from selling certain electronic devices to the public. This was during President Clinton's (D-AR) administration.
United States Government v. Ramsey Electronics

Note: Robert "Bob" Weaver was Group Supervisor, New York Electronic Crimes Task Force (NYECTF), New York Field Office, United States Secret Service from 1995 to 1997. He was Assistant to the Special Agent-in-Charge (ATSAIC), NYECTF from 1997 to 2000 and Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge, NYECTF from 2000 to 2002. He became Deputy Special Agent-in-Charge, NYECTF starting in July 2002.

Mr. Bob Weaver
Deputy Special Agent-in-Charge
New York Electronic Crimes Task Force
New York Field Office
United States Secret Service
32nd Floor
335 Adams Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201
Telephone: 718-625-7135
Pager: 877-777-3605
Cell: 914-584-6174
Email: rweaver@usss.treas.gov
 
 

It seems that Electronic Crimes Task Forces are using their new powers to keep high-technology devices capable of monitoring government out of the hands of the law-abiding citizens. Sounds like Big Brother because the government does not want you to electronically-monitor your government but the government wants to electronically-monitor you.
http://www.privacyinternational.org/reports/ BIG BROTHER INCORPORATED
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&q=big-brother+government
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&q=1984+Orwell

The U.S. Secret Service becomes more powerful or too powerful!

The U.S. Secret Service has developed what they and many experts believe is a model for law enforcement in the information age. In 1995, the U.S. Secret Service formed a nationwide Electronic Crimes Task Force based in their New York field office. What separates this task force from all others is its unprecedented membership. It is composed of more than 250 individuals, including 50 federal, state and local law-enforcement agencies, 100 private companies and 12 universities.

The Secret Service's corporate partners represent the top of the banking, telecommunications and computer industries, including Microsoft, AOL-Time Warner, Intel, Citibank, MasterCard, American Express, Chase Manhattan Bank, MBNA, AT&T, Sprint, Prudential Securities, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Merrill Lynch.

With the help of Congress and their corporate and academic partners, the U.S. Secret Service is expanding this task force model to other cities across the United States. Eight cities, including the founding city of New York, have been selected to begin regional branches of the Electronic Crimes Task Force (ECTF). As the task force grows, more cities will be added.

Here are the cities where you can find them:

New England Electronic Crimes Task Force (NET)
Tip O'Neil Federal Building
10 Causeway Street Room 791
Boston, MA 02222
Assistant to the Special Agent in Charge (ATSAIC) David Curran
Special Agent (SA) Peter Manning

Bay Area Electronic Crimes Task Force
345 Spear Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
Special Agent (SA) Erik Enos

Los Angeles Hi Tech Crimes Task Force (HTCTF)
255 E. Temple Street
17th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Assistant to the Special Agent in Charge (ATSAIC) Donald Masters

Chicago Electronic Crimes Task Force (CECTF)
300 S. Riverside Plaza
Chicago, IL 60606
Assistant to the Special Agent in Charge (ATSAIC) Paul Wattay
Special Agent (SA) Darrin Kimes

Miami Electronic Crimes Task Force
8375 NW 53rd Street
Miami, FL 33166
Assistant to the Special Agent in Charge (ATSAIC) Alex Echo

Las Vegas Electronic Crimes Task Force
600 Las Vegas Blvd. South
Las Vegas, NV 89101
Special Agent (SA) Robert Jones

Metro-Charlotte Electronic/Financial Crimes Task Force
One Fairview Center
6302 Fairview Road
Charlotte, NC 28210
Assistant to the Special Agent in Charge (ATSAIC) Ignacio Marino

Washington Field Office Electronic Crimes Task Force
1100 L Street NW
Washington, DC 20003
Assistant to the Special Agent in Charge (ATSAIC) Kevin Farrell

New York Electronic Crimes Task Force (NYECTF)
335 Adams Street
32nd Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11201
Assistant to the Special Agent in Charge (ATSAIC) Robert Caltabiano

BEST PRACTICES FOR SEIZING ELECTRONIC EVIDENCE
http://www.secretservice.gov/electronic_evidence.shtml

A February 2001 Treasury inspector general's report faulted the Secret Service for resisting accountability, citing its failure to track certain misconduct allegations and its administering discipline inconsistently.
http://www.ustreas.gov/offices/inspector-general/

A June 2002 U.S. News & World Report titled "Secrets of the Service" catalogued tawdry and sometimes illegal activities by Secret Service agents over 25 years, involving sex, drugs, theft, brawling, inebriation and corruption.

Pressures and problems confront the police agency that protects the president
Secret Service boss: It's lonely at the top
Many African-American agents are seeing red
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/020617/
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/search/magazine_search.htm search "Secret Service"

How the Secret Service became cybercops
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-939425.html

A bill to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and for other purposes became law. It expands the National Electronic Crime Task Force initiative for terrorism and for other purposes and more.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c107:H.R.3162.ENR:

H.R. 3482 passed in the 107th Congress.

The Cyber Security Enhancement Act was slipped into the Homeland Security Act passed the Senate and was signed into law by President George W. Bush (R-TX).
More Steps to Restrict Americans

http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/20020802_eff_csea_analysis.html
http://www.monitoringtimes.com/html/CSEA.html
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-852767.html

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Cyber+Security+Enhancement+Act%22
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=%22Cyber+Security+Enhancement+Act+of+2002%22

http://news.google.com/news?q=%22Cyber+Security+Enhancement+Act%22

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c107:hr3482:

H.R.3482 was sponsored by 107th Congress House of Representatives:
Mr. Lamar SMITH (R-TX) - 12/13/2001
Mr. Sherwood L Boehlert (R-NY) - 12/13/2001
Mr. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) - 1/24/2002
Mr. Jay Inslee (D-WA) - 1/24/2002
Mr. Kevin Brady (R-TX) - 1/24/2002
Ms. Melissa A. Hart (R-PA) - 1/24/2002
Mr. J. Randy Forbes (R-VA) - 1/24/2002
Mr. Phil English (R-PA) - 1/29/2002
Mr. Michael G. Oxley (R-OH) - 2/7/2002
Mr. Felix J.Grucci, Jr. (R-NY) - 2/7/2002
Mr. Sam Johnson (R-TX) - 2/7/2002
Mr. Mark Green (R-WI) - 2/13/2002
Mr. Darrell E. Issa (R-CA) - 2/13/2002
Mr. Randy (Duke) Cunningham (R-CA) - 2/13/2002
Mr. Jerry Weller (R-IL) - 2/27/2002
Mr. Ken Calvert (R-CA) - 3/12/2002
Mr. Larry Combest (R-TX) - 3/12/2002
Mr. George W. Gekas (R-PA) - 3/12/2002
Ms. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) - 3/12/2002
Mr. Pete Sessions (R-TX) - 4/17/2002
Mr. Elton Gallegly (R-CA) - 4/17/2002
Mr. Adam B. Schiff (D-CA) - 4/18/2002
Mr. John J. Duncan, Jr. (R-TN) - 4/24/2002
Mr. Ciro Rodriguez (D-TX) - 5/1/2002
Mr. Charlie Norwood (R-GA) - 5/1/2002
Mr. Roy Blunt (R-MO) - 5/23/2002

It broadens an Internet Service Provider's abilities and responsibilities when it comes to reporting suspicious activity and allows them to be Internet "snoops" for Federal authorities. The act is a real threat to Internet privacy.

Buried in an otherwise draconian bill that raises penalties for computer hacking (that causes death or serious injury) to life in prison and allows government monitoring of communications and email without warrants in even more circumstances is the following seeming obscure language:

It could be another blow to the radio hobbies and American freedoms and a big one indeed!

What this law does is change the penalty for the first offense of intercepting an unscrambled and unencrypted radio communication from a misdemeanor (one year or less prison time) to a federal FELONY (5 years prison time). This my include AMPS cellular calls, commercial pagers, cordless phones, common carrier communications for hobby purposes, which is not a tortuous or illegal purpose or for direct or indirect commercial advantage or private commercial gain.

(1) Section 2511.--Section 2511(4) of title 18, United
States Code, is amended--
(A) by striking paragraph (b); and
(B) by redesignating paragraph (c) as paragraph
(b).
(2) Section 2701.--Section 2701(b) of title 18, United
States Code, is amended--
(A) in paragraph (1), by inserting ``, or in
furtherance of any criminal or tortious act in
violation of the Constitution or laws of the United
States or any State'' after ``commercial gain'';
(B) in paragraph (1)(A), by striking ``one year''
and inserting ``5 years'';
(C) in paragraph (1)(B), by striking ``two years''
and inserting ``10 years''; and
(D) by striking paragraph (2) and inserting the
following:
``(2) in any other case--
``(A) a fine under this title or imprisonment for
not more than 1 year or both, in the case of a first
offense under this paragraph; and
``(B) a fine under this title or imprisonment for
not more than 5 years, or both, in the case of an
offense under this subparagraph that occurs after a
conviction of another offense under this section.''.

And further this changes the status of the specific offense of listening to a cell call, cordless call, a pager, or a public land mobile radio service communication (e.g. a telephone interconnect) from a minor offense for which one can be fined a maximum of $500 to a federal FELONY for which one can be imprisoned for up to 5 years.

In effect this removes a safe harbor created during the negotiations over the ECPA back in 1985-86 which ensured that first offenses for hobby radio listening were only treated as minor crimes - after this law is passed simply intentionally tuning a common scanner to the (non-blocked) cordless phone frequencies could be prosecuted as a felony for which one could serve 5 years in jail.

And in case any of my readers have forgotten, a federal felony conviction (even without any jail time) deprives one of the right to vote, to own firearms, to be employed in a number of high level jobs and professions, to hold certain professional licenses and permits, and important for certain readers of these lists absolutely eliminates for life the possibility of holding any kind of security clearance whatever (a recent change in the rules) - something required for many if not most interesting government and government related jobs.

So merely being stopped by a cop with the cordless phone frequencies in your scanner could conceivably result in life long loss of important rights and privileges.

For some of you out there, this may seem small potatoes and irrelevant since it merely changes the penalties for an already illegal act (which you are not supposed to be engaged in) and does not make anything-new illegal. But this is a rather naive view.

The federal government was certainly not going to prosecute a hobbyist for radio communications interception under the old version of the ECPA if the worst penalty that could be levied was a $500 fine - there simply is not the budget or the staff to prosecute people for what would be a very minor offense (equivalent of a speeding ticket). And even prosecuting hobbyists for more serious interception (e.g. not cellular, cordless or pagers) was still a misdemeanor offense prosecution with jail time unlikely.

So in practice the only prosecutions were of people who clearly had a commercial purpose or otherwise engaged in egregious and public (e.g. the Newt Gingrich call) conduct. And this was doubtless the intent of Congress back in 1985-86 - it would be illegal to monitor certain radio traffic but only a minor offense if you did so for hobby type personal curiosity or just to hack with the equipment or technology - and a serious felony if one engaged in such conduct for the purpose of committing a crime or gaining financial or commercial advantage (e.g. true spying or electronic eavesdropping).

But after this bill is signed into law (and clearly it will be), it will be quite possible for a federal prosecution of a hobbyist for illegal radio listening to be justified as a serious felony offense worth the time and effort and money to try and put in jail even if the offense is not for a commercial purpose or part of an illegal scheme. Thus, "radio hacker" prosecutions have now become possible, and even perhaps probable.

And federal prosecutors and law enforcement agents get career advancement and attention from senior management in their agencies in direct proportion to the seriousness of the offense they are investigating and prosecuting - nobody ever advances to senior agent for going after jaywalkers, thus by raising the level of less than legal hobby radio monitoring offenses from a jaywalking class offense to a serious felony for which there can be real jail time, it becomes much more interesting from a law enforcement career perspective to prosecute people in the radio hobby.

Such prosecutions would be shooting fish in a barrel type things given that many individuals are quite open on Internet newsgroups and mailing lists about their activities.

And of course this MAJOR change in the ECPA also has the effect of making the rather ambiguous and unclear meaning of "readily accessible to the general public" much more significant, since intercepting something that isn't readily accessible to the general public is now clearly a serious crime even if done for hobby purposes as a first offense. Thus, one has to be much more careful about making sure that the signal is a legal one. Further than all of this and perhaps even MUCH more significant is the radio on Internet scanner lists.

This seems to have changed the status of revealing as part of a hobby list any hint of the contents of a radio communications that might or might not have been legally intercepted from a potentially minor misdemeanor offense or less to a serious felony. Thus if a court finds that any communication reported on an Internet list was not legally intercepted, felony penalties apply for publishing the information even if the interception was for hobby purposes (which of course most scanner list intercepts are).

Most significant for many of us, the section 18 USC 2510 exceptions to the prohibitions on intercepting radio communications in 18 USC 2511 are pretty silent about military communications - not prohibited, or specifically allowed except as "governmental communications". So it is possible that military communications might be found to be illegal to intercept and thus passing around information about them a potential felony, even though of course the military has complete access to the world's best communications security (COMSEC) technology for anything they consider sensitive. But in a paranoid age (post 9/11) anything goes and your freedom goes and if the government wants to go after scanner lists (like Milcom) it might now be able to do so with prosecutions with real teeth and jail time.

Thus the legal climate has fundamentally changed, and one can assume that since the Bush administration has been pushing for the passage of this bill that they perhaps intend to start prosecuting at least some category of radio under the new provisions - no doubt as an example meant to scare the rest of us into handing our radios in at the nearest police station.

We should be protecting Americans ability to monitor our government communications in a hobby. The fact of the matter is that to the average American, who hears a blurb on the news about making it illegal to monitor government or military radio communications will think it is a good idea. However, Americans should take time to think about it and ponder the many good sense arguments that anyone in the radio-monitoring hobby would put forth on the issue, even if our arguments never get on the nightly news.

The Information Technology Association of America is for H.R. 3486 although it has the bad sections in the law.

The Microsoft Corporation wants it passed and more!

The International Business Software Alliance and the politicians they support for their global agenda to pass these types of laws.
BSA Cyber Champion Awards:
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX)
Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA)
Rep. Howard Coble (R-NC)
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) & Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA)
Rep. David Dreier (R-CA)
Sen. Spencer Abraham (R-MI)
Secretary of Commerce William Daley
U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshevsky
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA)
Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-LA)
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT)

Tauzin Watch

A good reason why America needs term limits for every member of Congress!

http://www.termlimits.org/ U. S. Term Limits

W. J. (Billy) Tauzin (Republican-Louisiana)
House Representative Tauzin represents district-3 comprised of fourteen coastal and river parishes in southern Louisiana. He was first elected in 1980 as a Democrat in a special election to fill the seat vacated by Dave Treen, who resigned from Congress after becoming Governor of Louisiana.

Rep. Tauzin had no trouble either winning votes, or raising money. In Louisiana there is an open primary system. If one candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, there is no general election. In 1994 Rep. Tauzin faced only an independent opponent in the primary, who he easily beat. There was no general election. In 1996 he did not have any opposition at all.
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&q=Tauzin+watch

Note that Tauzin's name kept showing up as sponsor or co-sponsor of many questionable bills to become laws. And note the corporations and political action committees that gave to Tauzin's political office.

It is not government for the people but government for the powerful few. Corporations have more rights than individuals. It is wrong!

Tauzin Rejects Hollywood Lobbyist Offer

Jan 24, 2004 -- A congressman who wields influence over the government's relationship with drug and media companies rejected an offer to become Hollywood's top lobbyist but hasn't decided whether to head the pharmaceutical industry's leading trade organization.

Louisiana Republican Billy Tauzin, a 13-term congressman, decided against replacing 82-year-old Jack Valenti as president of the Motion Picture Association of America, his spokesman, Ken Johnson said. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) represents the big five movie studios, which reportedly pays one million dollars per year.

Tauzin will talk to his family and close friends over the weekend about what to do with his future, Johnson said.

The MPAA made "a very flattering offer, and it was a difficult decision to say no," Johnson said. "Billy has a great reverence for Jack, and they're great friends as well. At this point in his life he did not feel this is the best fit for him or his family."

Tauzin is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees the media and telecommunications industries.

Valenti said in a statement that Tauzin "was given a very, very generous offer from another enterprise," according to published reports.

Tauzin was a key negotiator in creating a prescription drug benefit for Medicare recipients that prohibits the government from using its buying power to drive down drug costs, a measure the pharmaceutical industry supported.

Johnson denied rumors that Tauzin has accepted a job with the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, which represents big drug manufacturers such as Eli Lilly and Co. and Merck & Co.

"Just as I have said for the past year that there was no deal with MPAA, there is no deal with PhRMA either," Johnson said.

Feb 04, 2004 -- Rep. Billy Tauzin of Louisiana is stepping down as chairman of one of the most powerful committees in Congress, and is considering an offer to become the top lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry.

Tauzin, who has spent nearly 24 years in Congress, informed House Speaker Dennis Hastert that he would give up his chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee, effective Feb. 16.

He does not plan to seek re-election in November 2004 and may leave Congress before then, said Ken Johnson, Tauzin's spokesman, adding that the Republican congressman has yet to decide what he will do next.

But Tauzin, 60, is widely expected to accept a job as head of the Washington lobbying operation of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, which represents big drug manufacturers such as Eli Lilly and Co. and Merck & Co.

The job offer has raised eyebrows since Tauzin's committee deals with critical legislation affecting the pharmaceutical industry. For example, Tauzin last year guided through his committee and the House a new Medicare law that prevents the government from negotiating lower prices from drug companies. Congress passed the legislation, which includes a prescription drug plan for the elderly, in December 2003.

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, met with Hastert to press his desire for the chairmanship. Barton, a former oil industry engineer and chairman of the Commerce energy and air quality subcommittee, is viewed and the most likely successor to Tauzin.

Feb. 26, 2004 -- Rep. W. J. "Billy" Tauzin, former chairman of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, has ended negotiations to head the pharmaceutical industry's lobby, his spokesman said.

"He told them he's not accepting the position at this time," said Ken Johnson, spokesman for Rep. W.J. "Billy" Tauzin, R-Louisiana. "He won't make a decision about his future until he leaves Congress. This has become a monumental distraction and he wants to put it behind him."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) repeatedly raised the possibility that representatives from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America began job talks with Tauzin during the Medicare negotiations.

Congress passed a Medicare prescription drug bill that will earn billions for the drug companies, and Tauzin played a leading role in House negotiations on that measure.

His successor as Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, was confirmed by the full House of Representatives in a voice vote.

Tauzin told his attorney not to hold talks with any other potential employer until he leaves Congress, which he announced he would do at the end of this term.

Dec. 16, 2004 -- The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) announced that former U.S. Representative Billy Tauzin would assume the role of President and CEO of PhRMA, effective January 3, 2005 . Tauzin retired from Congress this year, having served in the House since 1980. Until February 2004, Tauzin served as the Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over health care, including FDA, among other functions. For more information, visit http://www.medadnews.com/News/index.cfm?articleid=198545.

Pelosi Statement on Billy Tauzin Accepting PhRMA Position

Washington, D.C.  House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following statement on Republican Congressman Billy Tauzin of Louisiana being named president and CEO of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America:

As lead negotiator on the Medicare prescription drug bill, Congressman Tauzin secured billions of taxpayer money for the big drug companies.  Now as the new president and CEO of PhRMA, Mr. Tauzin will be getting millions from the drug companies in payback.  The appearance is unseemly, undignified, and unethical.

Is it the ethical standard of this Republican Congress that a Committee Chair should be able negotiate a sweetheart deal for pharmaceutical companies and for himself?  Republicans have already lowered their ethical standards to allow an indicted person to serve as their leader and have indicated that they will make it more difficult to file legitimate ethics complaints.  It is not surprising, but it is shameful, that House Republicans find Mr. Tauzin's behavior to be ethical.

Most people do not vote although they have the right to vote. That would be corrected if everybody eligible to vote were required to vote.

So when will that become a law?

It has not become law because it is easier to have fraudulent elections with fewer voters!

Go to vote.htm

http://clerk.house.gov/members/index.php current Congress Members of the House of Representatives
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm current Congress Members of the Senate
http://clerk.house.gov/histHigh/Congressional_History/index.html past members of the House
http://bioguide.congress.gov/ past and present members of the House and Senate
http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ past and present President of the United States of America

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=corrupt+lobbyist+Congress

I commend the good, honest, and hard working people that work in law enforcement. Many try their best to protect and serve us. Everyone should appreciate their tough job because too many times their hard work goes unnoticed.

More restrictions at stepsto2.htm

Disclaimer

External links are provided for research and information only. The external links on this Web site does not constitute endorsement or approval by me. I am not responsible for the contents on any external link referenced from this Web site.

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