Quote Originally Posted by KukriKhan View Post
I take your point, and concede that I may have been unknowingly duped by propaganda. OBL used to communicate via SatPhone, until some media bigmouth blabbed about it, and how DoD used it to track him. He, like we cel phone users, have no expectation of privacy when using that particular technology; it's no different than using a Citizen's Band Radio - to which anyone with a receiver can listen... or even a backwater internet gamer's off-topic forum - anyone can register and "listen in", from gamers, to police, to terrorists, to parents to children.

Our Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, IMO, does not apply to cel phones, becauste it is not unreasonable for anyone to pluck signals out of the public air. If signal scrambling & unscrambling technology got more widespread, thereby demonstrating the users' and receivers' intent to privacy, THEN I think we'd have a case to justify outrage. An analogy might be the envelope-encased letter vs the postcard. The envelope demonstrates my desire to protect the contents of the letter, whereas a postcard offers no such protection - and none is sought (obviously) by the sender.
Again, I think I would disagree.

Unlike Citizen's Band radio, cellphones use encrypted signals. There is an expected restriction on the availability of the information being sent. At least in most European countries, the law prohibits ordinary citizens from using technology to crack into wireless telecommunications like cellphones. The information is not considered public access, any more than one's wireless internet.

Therefore it is entirely unreasonable for anyone to pluck signals of this kind out of the air, without explicit permission. Just because it is possible to do, does not make it legal to do. Your letter/postcard analogy does not quite fit, but if I extend it to my argument, CB radio is the postcard (explicit permission through use of open media) your cellphone is the letter. No-one has the right to open your mail (without a strict warrant) even though it is a simple act so to do, and to hide. What prevents people rifling one's mail? The law and a widespread acceptance of the rights of privacy.

I would be outraged if the government routinely opened my mail and I am similarly exercised about proposals to tap into my communications. Note that even "landlines" often utilise radio communications over long distances - would this then make them fair game the moment your conversation hit the satellite?