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I might be too late for anyone to see this, but I think it's an important point. A lot of people assume the origin of wiretapping laws has to do with protectin

I might be too late for anyone to see this, but I think it's an important point. A lot of people assume the origin of wiretapping laws has to do with protecting citizens from the police. This isn't the case, at least not originally. Wiretapping laws were about protecting citizens from each other. Let me explain: Once upon a time, it was too expensive to run a phone line to each house. AT&T had the brilliant idea of running one phone line and having many people on a street share the line (the rich, of course, enjoyed private communications). So if there were seven houses, and you were in house number 5, you would only answer calls that rang 5 times. The problem is that since all the houses on the block shared one phone line, any one nosy enough to but in could eavesdrop just by taking their phone off hook. The original wiretapping laws were setup to protect citizens from this, not the Government. As a side note: before the North American Numbering plan, phone numbers were names followed by numbers. An example might be Oxford7 or OX7 on the number pad, which would ring the 7th house in the Oxford area (Oxford is a placeholder and doesn't refer to Oxford proper.)

mrexroad 14y ago
interesting. i assume you're referring to legislation at a state level? got any links? i haven't read much about that era, but from what i have, it sounds like things were awesomely crazy back then w/ PIs tapping for clients, corporations tapping each other, etc. at least at the federal level, everything i'd read places the catalyst for modern wiretapping laws as the conviction appeal of seattle bootlegger Roy Olmstead's arrest based on evidence gathered by a warrantless wiretap by "rogue federal law enforcement officers." his appeal reached the supreme court in 1928 and was upheld 5-4 on 18th century trespass laws. in 1934, congress passed The Communications Act of 1934, which made wiretapping a federal criminal offense and any evidence obtained from such would be inadmissible. it wasn't until the The Omnibus Crime Control Act of 1968 that the constitutionality of wiretapping was articulated for investigative purposes. this gives a better overview/detail compared wikipedia: http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/litigation/materials/sac_2012/29-1_history_and_law_of_wiretapping.authcheckdam.pdf http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/li...
- josh2600 14y ago
  Oh Joy! I'll go see if I can dig up some links. Thanks for sharing this. I've seen this before, but I believe the legislation, at the state level, was driven by nosy neighbors. I'll ring up a friend of mine who's an expert on the subject to see if I can get some commentary.
- josh2600 14y ago
  Alright so digging a bit: At common law, “eavesdroppers, or such as listen under walls or windows, or the eaves of a house, to hearken after discourse, and thereupon to frame slanderous and mischievous tales, are a common nuisance and presentable at the court-leet; or are indictable at the sessions, and punishable by fine and finding of sureties for [their] good behavior.” [1] Very Early Eavesdropping law. but it wasn't prosecuted very often and faded from the common parlance: “Eavesdropping is indictable at the common law, not only in England but in our states. It is seldom brought to the attention of the courts, and our books contain too few decisions upon it to enable an author to define it with confidence.... It never occupied much space in the law, and it has nearly faded from the legal horizon.”[2] The first wiretapping laws were enacted by congress during world war 1: 40 Stat.1017-18 (1918)(“whoever during the period of governmental operation of the telephone and telegraph systems of the United States ... shall, without authority and without the knowledge and consent of the other users thereof, except as may be necessary for operation of the service, tap any telegraph or telephone line ... or whoever being employed in any such telephone or telegraph service shall divulge the contents of any such telephone or telegraph message to any person not duly authorized or entitled the receive the same, shall be fined not exceeding $1,000 or imprisoned for not more than one year or both”); 56 Cong.Rec. 10761-765 (1918). And you're right, that wiretaps weren't constitutional until 1968, but this doesn't discuss neighbors spying on neighbors. I think we found the same document: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/98-326.pdf http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/98-326.pdf I'll ping my buddy to see if he can shed a little more light, but this is related to wiretaps, which is slightly different from eavesdropping. [1] 4 BLACKSTONE,COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS OF ENGLAND, 169 (1769). [2]1 BISHOP, COMMENTARIES ON THE CRIMINAL LAW, 670 (1882)."
- josh2600 14y ago
  Alright so I believe you're correct, again with respect to federal guidelines, and that the state guidelines are murky. I believe I may have to rescind my post at the top of this thread according to my friend, whose name I'll redact for his privacy: "It's funny -- one of the ideas I had batted around with my publisher for a second book was a history of wiretapping. :-) But, I never got around to doing any research and don't know the definitive answers to your questions off hand. In the thread you linked to below, mrexroad is correct about the Communications Act of 1934 (and section 605) being the first wiretapping federal law, at least that I'm aware of. And Olmstead is indeed a seminal case in the field, but whether it was the first, I don't know. The American Bar Association article he linked to seems pretty definitive. I had not ever heard the theory that wiretap/eavesdropping laws originated due to party lines. Not saying it isn't true, just that I've never heard that." So that's that. I'll have to blame some of the old engineers I talked to at AT&T for my miseducation, although they may have been referring to local (non-federal) laws. This has been fun :).
acchow 14y ago
> This isn't the case, at least not originally. Wiretapping laws were about protecting citizens from each other. Thanks for this. I wasn't aware of this bit of history. But I don't care. We need to be protected from the government and need new wiretapping laws for that end.
- josh2600 14y ago
  I COMPLETELY agree. Also, people don't realize the global negative consequences of supplying government research grants towards analysis and monitoring of its citizenry. For more on this subject, check this out: http://thepbxblog.com/2013/05/08/how-wiretapping-in-the-us-helps-oppressive-regimes-monitor-web-traffic/ http://thepbxblog.com/2013/05/08/how-wiretapping-in-the-us-h... (DISCLAIMER: I wrote this blog this morning).
monkeynotes 14y ago
> you would only answer calls that rang 5 times How would the person at house 6 ever get a call if house 5 always picked up the phone before it had a chance to ring 6 times? :) The actual way this worked was the ringing cadence was different for each subscriber: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_line_(telephony) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_line_(telephony)
randuser 14y ago
My uncle switched to a party line in the early 1980s because it was cheaper and since everyone had private lines by that point, he didn't have to share it with anyone.

mrexroad 14y ago

interesting. i assume you're referring to legislation at a state level? got any links? i haven't read much about that era, but from what i have, it sounds like things were awesomely crazy back then w/ PIs tapping for clients, corporations tapping each other, etc. at least at the federal level, everything i'd read places the catalyst for modern wiretapping laws as the conviction appeal of seattle bootlegger Roy Olmstead's arrest based on evidence gathered by a warrantless wiretap by "rogue federal law enforcement officers." his appeal reached the supreme court in 1928 and was upheld 5-4 on 18th century trespass laws. in 1934, congress passed The Communications Act of 1934, which made wiretapping a federal criminal offense and any evidence obtained from such would be inadmissible. it wasn't until the The Omnibus Crime Control Act of 1968 that the constitutionality of wiretapping was articulated for investigative purposes. this gives a better overview/detail compared wikipedia: http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/litigation/materials/sac_2012/29-1_history_and_law_of_wiretapping.authcheckdam.pdf http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/li...

josh2600 14y ago
Oh Joy! I'll go see if I can dig up some links. Thanks for sharing this. I've seen this before, but I believe the legislation, at the state level, was driven by nosy neighbors. I'll ring up a friend of mine who's an expert on the subject to see if I can get some commentary.
josh2600 14y ago
Alright so digging a bit: At common law, “eavesdroppers, or such as listen under walls or windows, or the eaves of a house, to hearken after discourse, and thereupon to frame slanderous and mischievous tales, are a common nuisance and presentable at the court-leet; or are indictable at the sessions, and punishable by fine and finding of sureties for [their] good behavior.” [1] Very Early Eavesdropping law. but it wasn't prosecuted very often and faded from the common parlance: “Eavesdropping is indictable at the common law, not only in England but in our states. It is seldom brought to the attention of the courts, and our books contain too few decisions upon it to enable an author to define it with confidence.... It never occupied much space in the law, and it has nearly faded from the legal horizon.”[2] The first wiretapping laws were enacted by congress during world war 1: 40 Stat.1017-18 (1918)(“whoever during the period of governmental operation of the telephone and telegraph systems of the United States ... shall, without authority and without the knowledge and consent of the other users thereof, except as may be necessary for operation of the service, tap any telegraph or telephone line ... or whoever being employed in any such telephone or telegraph service shall divulge the contents of any such telephone or telegraph message to any person not duly authorized or entitled the receive the same, shall be fined not exceeding $1,000 or imprisoned for not more than one year or both”); 56 Cong.Rec. 10761-765 (1918). And you're right, that wiretaps weren't constitutional until 1968, but this doesn't discuss neighbors spying on neighbors. I think we found the same document: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/98-326.pdf http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/98-326.pdf I'll ping my buddy to see if he can shed a little more light, but this is related to wiretaps, which is slightly different from eavesdropping. [1] 4 BLACKSTONE,COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS OF ENGLAND, 169 (1769). [2]1 BISHOP, COMMENTARIES ON THE CRIMINAL LAW, 670 (1882)."
josh2600 14y ago
Alright so I believe you're correct, again with respect to federal guidelines, and that the state guidelines are murky. I believe I may have to rescind my post at the top of this thread according to my friend, whose name I'll redact for his privacy: "It's funny -- one of the ideas I had batted around with my publisher for a second book was a history of wiretapping. :-) But, I never got around to doing any research and don't know the definitive answers to your questions off hand. In the thread you linked to below, mrexroad is correct about the Communications Act of 1934 (and section 605) being the first wiretapping federal law, at least that I'm aware of. And Olmstead is indeed a seminal case in the field, but whether it was the first, I don't know. The American Bar Association article he linked to seems pretty definitive. I had not ever heard the theory that wiretap/eavesdropping laws originated due to party lines. Not saying it isn't true, just that I've never heard that." So that's that. I'll have to blame some of the old engineers I talked to at AT&T for my miseducation, although they may have been referring to local (non-federal) laws. This has been fun :).

acchow 14y ago

> This isn't the case, at least not originally. Wiretapping laws were about protecting citizens from each other. Thanks for this. I wasn't aware of this bit of history. But I don't care. We need to be protected from the government and need new wiretapping laws for that end.

josh2600 14y ago
I COMPLETELY agree. Also, people don't realize the global negative consequences of supplying government research grants towards analysis and monitoring of its citizenry. For more on this subject, check this out: http://thepbxblog.com/2013/05/08/how-wiretapping-in-the-us-helps-oppressive-regimes-monitor-web-traffic/ http://thepbxblog.com/2013/05/08/how-wiretapping-in-the-us-h... (DISCLAIMER: I wrote this blog this morning).

monkeynotes 14y ago

> you would only answer calls that rang 5 times How would the person at house 6 ever get a call if house 5 always picked up the phone before it had a chance to ring 6 times? :) The actual way this worked was the ringing cadence was different for each subscriber: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_line_(telephony) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_line_(telephony)

randuser 14y ago

My uncle switched to a party line in the early 1980s because it was cheaper and since everyone had private lines by that point, he didn't have to share it with anyone.