LETTERS: LAWS WOULD LIMIT RADIO SCANNERS

To the editor:

I am writing to urge your opposition to HR1964 (the Communications Privacy and Consumer Empowerment Act), which would ban radio scanners capable of reception of the commercial mobile radio services, and to HR2369 (the Wireless Privacy Enhancement Act), an even more repressive bill.

HR2369 and HR1964 both contain the same prohibition of CMRS in scanners. Millions of hobbyists who tune in local police, fire, rescue, NASCAR drivers and other two-way radio traffic could be branded outlaws just because they share frequencies with cellular and paging services. Simply listening to any of these currently allowable communications would make you subject to imprisonment and a fine.

However, HR2369 goes even further to completely ban third-party reception of any non-broadcast radio reception and the manufacture of receivers which can pick up non-broadcast signals. There are exceptions which may be extremely narrow or relatively generous, depending on how the FCC chooses to interpret the bill's ambiguous language.

In its strictest reading, shortwave hobbyists could be criminalized for listening to anything other than broadcasts such as the BBC or amateur radio operators. Even the 6-million C-band and Ku-band satellite dish owners might be subject to this law. The overly broad language of this bill dumps the good along with the bad in its attempts to provide privacy to the evolving personal-communications technologies.

The obligation to make communications private lies with the providers who are selling the service and the equipment, and they should be held to the promise they made 11 years ago to do so. It is already illegal for a third party to use information gained through interception of a non-broadcast signal for profit or to aid in a criminal act. I ask that offenders of existing laws be justly prosecuted, but don't penalize harmless hobbyists and public service volunteers by outlawing all two-way reception outside of CB and amateur radio.

Please oppose HR1964 and HR2369. If the intent of both bills is to enhance privacy in personal communications systems, they both miss the mark. HR1964 does not take into consideration the enormous variety of services that utilize frequencies in the commercial mobile radio service. HR2369 repeats the error and goes even further to give the U.S. the most repressive radio legislation in the free world.

Do you realize that if these bills are passed it will be illegal for every U.S. citizen to have a scanner, that the highway patrol, county sheriff, all police departments, government agencies, emergency management agencies, ambulances or any other public or private agency would be subjected to arrest for a felony and subject to stiff fines and more?

JOHN HALTER

Chaffee