Hi Richard!
Thursday February 13 1997 13:21, Richard Town wrote to Denis Mcmahon:
 DC>> Oh dear, this is VERY UNTRUE. It is perfectly LEGAL to listen to
 DC>> ANY radio frequency, even the police. The only rule is, when you
 DC>> are listening to any emergency service, you are not allowed to
 DC>> act upon the information recieved.
 RT> Under the Wireless Telegraphy Acts (as amended) this is true.
 RT> But it is illegal to listen into "unauthorised" transmissions
 RT> _under that Act_
You're misinterpreting "authorised". It's not whether the transmission is
authorised that controls whether you are permitted to receive it, but whether
your reception is authorised.
 DM>> Dan, as you're posting from a UK address I'll assume UK law. You
 DM>> are very wrong. The Wireless Telegraphy Acts make it an offence
 DM>> to receive any broadcast that you do not have a license to
 DM>> receive,
 RT> Yes.  And you only have a "licence to receive" authorised
 RT> transmissions And a cellular transmission is authorised.  (A CB
 RT> transmission from an unlicenced operator isn't, for example) Course,
 RT> since its no longer necessary to have a specific licence to
 RT> receive radio only - that power is questionable
The fact that a transmission may be made legally doesn't mean that anyone may
listen to it legally, again you are confusing authorisation of transmission 
with
authorisation of reception. You are permitted to receive public broadcast
transmissions. (You don't get a licence to receive anymore, except in respect 
of
TV broadcasts). Technically you shouldn't even listen to ham radio without a
license, but I don't think anyone has ever been prosecuted for it. Ditto
shipping and air traffic broadcasts.
 DM>> offence to take any action whatsoever based on the received
 DM>> broadcast.
 RT> Please note your talking about "broadcasts" here not point-to-point
 RT> communications which is what Cellular is
From the point of view of the WTA, transmission and broadcast are generally
synonymous. Cellular is only point-to-point on the basis that there is only
meant to be a single transmitter/receiver pair active on a given channel at 
any
time within any cell.
 DM>> Note that neither the primary offence of reception,
 RT> There is no "primary" offence of reception.  There is however an
 RT> offence of interception as you rightly point out.  But not under the
 RT> WT Acts
Yes there is. If you receive a transmission that you are not authorised to
receive then that is an offence. Legally you need a specific authority (ie
license) to receive all transmissions other than public broadcast radio.
I suggest you go and read the legislation before you continue. I think it's 
n
S3 para 2 (It's some while since I read it, but that's sticking in my mind 
or
some reason) that it states something like "a. It is an offence to receive 
ny
transmission unless you have been authorised by the secretary of state to
receive that transmission" and "b. It is a more serious offence to take any
action based on the reception of such a transmission"
(1) Reception of any RF signal is an offence if you do not have authority
receive it.
(2) Acting on the reception is a more serious offence.
(3) The only generally authorised frequencies are those allocated to public
broadcast radio sttions.
Now, if you are going to dispute the above, please quote chapter and verse of
legislation. If you can not do so, you obviously have not actually checked 
your
facts but are instead spouting off someone elses erroneous interpretation of 
the
legislation.
Note - I *HAVE* read the legislation and I actually do know what I'm talking
about - as I used to work in an area where this legislation was extremely
relevant to our daily work.
 DM>> serious offence of acting upon the reception, actually require
 DM>> that you demodulate and listen to or in any other way make use of
 DM>> the received signal.
 RT> No.  This would refer to point to point communications
Nope - it doesn't matter whether it's meant to be point to point or point to
multipoint, if you receive and act upon a transmission without being 
authorised
to receive and act upon it you are breaking the law.
 DM>> It might even be argued in court that demodulating the received
 DM>> signal into a human-understandable form was "taking action".
 RT> Not under the WT Acts
As I said, it might.
 DM>> In addition, the Interception Of Communication Act creates
 DM>> specific offences relating to the unauthorised listening in on
 DM>> telephone conversations.
 RT> Too true.  But since that's been admitted as going on by the State for
 RT> the past 30 years at least (quote: Home Sec. Michael Howard) and
 RT> noone's taken any action, I think we can safely assume that none will
 RT> occur now
 DM>> Please do not attempt to give out legal advice unless you are
 DM>> conversant with the legislation concerned.
 RT> Please ensure you use the correct relevent legislation when citing
 RT> law. The interesting thing about the specific interception legislation
 RT> you refer to was whether it was necessary at all.
Both the WTA and the ICA are relevant to cellular radio.
Regards
Denis
denis@pickaxe.demon.co.uk dmcmahon@edlgu4.ericsson.se
http://www.pickaxe.demon.co.uk/
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