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Found at: gopher.quux.org:70/Archives/usenet-a-news/NET.followup/82.04.28_eagle.285_net.followup.txt

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