Date: Fri, 17 Jul 92 17:15:12 EST Errors-To: Comp-privacy Error Handler From: Computer Privacy Digest Moderator To: Comp-privacy@PICA.ARMY.MIL Subject: Computer Privacy Digest V1#063 Computer Privacy Digest Fri, 17 Jul 92 Volume 1 : Issue: 063 Today's Topics: Moderator: Dennis G. Rears Re: Caller ID Decision SSN Required to Buy Car in Calif Re: Phone Tap in Murder Case Ruled Illegal The Computer Privacy Digest is a forum for discussion on the effect of technology on privacy. The digest is moderated and gatewayed into the USENET newsgroup comp.society.privacy (Moderated). Submissions should be sent to comp-privacy@pica.army.mil and administrative requests to comp-privacy-request@pica.army.mil. Back issues are available via anonymous ftp on ftp.pica.army.mil [129.139.160.200]. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 16 Jul 92 18:20 PDT From: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: Caller ID Decision "Michael C. Berch" writes: > This tradition has already been broken -- by cellular phone service. I disagree. Cellular providers are not in the position to either make or break "telephone tradition". As entities that are neither LEC nor IEC, whatever a cellular provider does or does not do applies only to itself. There is not even any consistency, standard, or tradition among the hundreds of providers across the country. The rules and procedures change on apparent whim. Cellular providers have a long way to go before they can claim "telephone company" status. So I will restate Mr. Forrette's position: tradition and usage dictates that the party paying for the call knows the calling number. This is true on 800 service, both in real time and on billing; collect calls; and even on third-party calls where the billed party is not a participant, the billed party has the numbers of both ends of the conversation. -- John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 264 4115 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 92 19:18:14 PDT From: Mark Bell Subject: SSN Required to Buy Car in Calif Awhile back I posted on the SSN being required to renew Ca Drivers License. Well, I bought a car for our kid a couple of weeks ago and was stunned to find that they wouldn't sell it to me without SSN! The dealership manager was VERY sympathetic and agreed it was wrong on the face of it, but that's how it was. She had worked the DMV over a few weeks before on behalf of a foreign national, consulate corps member without an SSN. She had to get some notarized letters to ALLOW the guy to buy a car! I checked the section of the Cal Vehicle code that requires it. To its credit, it states that the SSN is not a public record and can be used only for legitimate law enforcement and for tracking down non-payers of child support. So that's it, I guess. The law went into effect a few months ago. Oddly, the Vehicle Code makes no exception for the foreigner without an SSN, so I'd be curious how they got around it. Is there anyone out there who can advise how to beat this? I'd be happy to guinea-pig a court case if someone has any ideas. Mark Bell Los Angeles ------------------------------ From: MPA15AB!RANDY@trenga.tredydev.unisys.com Date: 16 Jul 92 19:09 Subject: Re: Phone Tap in Murder Case Ruled Illegal PHONE TAP IN MURDER CASE RULED ILLEGAL In 1986, Joe Otto, a 61-year-old electrician, became suspicious of his wife, Brenda, a 39-year-old divrocee he had married a month earlier. He hid a voice-activated tape recorder which recorded all calls incoming and outgoing. He recorded a conversation between his wife and Marvin Mark, in which Mark said "everything was wrong" and "I tried every possible way," but then added: "I got a better plan." He played the tape to his daughter and a neighbor who was a police officer. In response to his daughter's concern, he began carrying a gun. He also gave his daughter a copy of his will in which he left her virtually all of his $300,000 estate and gave his wife $1. Three days later, another call was taped in the wife and Mark spoke cryptically about the daughter being absent from the home that night. Later in the evening, Otto was bludgeoned to death. The body was discovered after the wife appeared screaming and naked at a neighbor's home, claiming robbers had killed Otto and assaulted her. The two were convicted of murder, but filed an appeal claiming the tapes could not be used against them, as they were taped in violation of Federal wiretap law. The California Supreme Court recently issued a unanimous ruling that the tapes were improperly used, as federal law bars a family member from wiretapping the family telephone and that tapes thus made cannot be used as evidence in a criminal case. The justices rejected the state's two key contentions in the case: that the law permits domestic or "interspousal" wiretapping and that even if illegally made, the tapes were admissible because the government was an innocent recipient of evidence acquired by a citizen. "We may question the wisdom of Congress in adopting such a broad-based suppression [of evidence] sanction," Justice Armand Arabian wrote for the court. "...We may not, however, substitute our judgment for that of [Congress]." Deputy State Atty. Gen. Morris Beatus said an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court will be considered. If an appeal fails, prosecutors hope to retry the two even without the tapes, described as the "linchpin" of the case. "In an egregious case like this, it's really a shame that the tapes cannot be used," said Assistant Santa Clara County Dist. Atty. Joyce Allegro. "There was no government impropriety here." Mark L. Christiansen of Sacramento, lawer for the male defendant in the case, and Laurance S. Smith, attorney for the female defendant, praised the ruling, saying it will strengthen legal barriers against wiretapping by third parties. "This is going to make home telephones much more secure," Christiansen said. "Even in the best of families, one spouse may prefer that the other not overhear everything they say." "If this decision had gone the other way, anyone in a household could tape conversations by anyone else in the household," Smith said. "And if there was anything juicy, it could be turned over to the local prosecutor." [I can understand it being illegal to tap one's own phone, and also that evidence received through government (police) misconduct should be suppressed. It also makes sense to me that if you illegally tap your phone, you shouldn't be able to profit from it, such as by using the tapes in a civil suit. But if the government had no hand in making the tape (didn't put you up to it, etc.), then the tape should be usable in a criminal case. -- RCG] [Moderator's Note: I wonder if it would be legal for me to put a sign on my door stating that entrance into my apartment implies consent for recording of that person and a trap on my phone that states staying on the line implies consent for me to record the conversation. After all the government does it with thier installations. _dennis] ===================================================================== = sua cuique voluptas (everyone has his own pleasures) = = Randy Gellens randy%mpa15ab@trenga.tredydev.unisys.com = = >>>>>>> If mail bounces, forward to rgellens@mcimail.com <<<<<<<< = = Opinions are personal; facts are suspect; I speak only for myself = Randomly selected tag: Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle. ------------------------------ End of Computer Privacy Digest V1 #063 ******************************