From: die@pig.jjm.com (Dave Emery)
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 94 04:12:09 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: RemailNet
Message-ID: <9408161117.AA13017@pig.jjm.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Forwarded message:
From die Tue Aug 16 07:03:18 1994
Subject: Re: RemailNet
To: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 1994 07:03:18 -0400 (EDT)
Reply-To: die@pig.jjm.com
In-Reply-To: <199408160216.TAA24250@netcom15.netcom.com> from "Timothy C. May" at Aug 15, 94 07:16:53 pm
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3]
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Length: 1678      


> 
> Yeah, and I got a recent report that "Long Lines" and other microwave
> tower lines were deliberately routed so as to cross over Indian
> Reservation lands in several places. Why? Allegedly because Indian
> lands are legally treated as "sovereign nations" and the (purported)
> rules against NSA listening could be ignored.

	A small historical note.  It was not until 1986 that most
unauthorized interceptions of microwave radio common carrier
transmissions such as AT&T Long Lines TD-2 and TH routes were definately
and clearly made illegal (in the ECPA).  Before that time such
interception for other than foreign government espionage purposes was a
gray area in the law, quite possibly there deliberately as was a curious
similar absence of any prohibition at all against interception of any kind of
digital data or record communications such as telegrams, twxs, faxes
etc.  transmitted over any media. 

	It might be noted that microwave radio as a medium for
transmitting long distance public telephone and data traffic was already
undergoing a precipitous decline in 1986 as noisy analog microwave
systems were rapidly being replaced with much cleaner digital fiber
optic lines.  At the present time very few (at least compared to the
past) microwave long distance telephone links are still in use - but
interestingly I am told that some out in the Indian reservation area
of the west were still active as recently as a couple of years ago. 

	[This in the face of successful federal prosecution of Indians
for TV satellite piracy, ignoring any arguments that as a sovereign
nation the Indian tribes were exempt from federal communications law].

						Dave Emery