PRIVACY Forum Digest Sunday, 12 February 1995 Volume 04 : Issue 04
Moderated by Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com)
Vortex Technology, Woodland Hills, CA, U.S.A.
===== PRIVACY FORUM =====
The PRIVACY Forum digest is supported in part by the
ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy.
CONTENTS
HIV blood test results (minya!jc@eddie.mit.edu)
Ultra Call-Forwarding used to steal business (Larry Seiler)
Anonymous ?? Survey (Dave Moore)
Deep Faults with NYNEX default? (Edward P. Ravin)
Identification technologies (Phil Agre)
More on Mailbox, Etc. wastebaskets (G. Martin)
The Philosophy of CallerID (Malcolm Slaney)
Special Alert! Unreasonable Network Policing Proposed
(Carlos Amezaga)
Some thoughts on S.314 (Lauren Weinstein; PRIVACY Forum Moderator)
*** Please include a RELEVANT "Subject:" line on all submissions! ***
*** Submissions without them may be ignored! ***
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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VOLUME 04, ISSUE 04
Quote for the day:
"Listen to them: Children of the night.
What music they make..."
Dracula (Bela Lugosi)
"Dracula" (1931)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 29 Jan 95 22:53 EST
From: minya!jc@eddie.mit.edu
Subject: HIV blood test results
| 1) Once testing (for whatever reason) has revealed that the test subject has
| HIV infected blood, should it be required by law that the previous partners
| be found, notified (partner tracking) and be required to be tested with
| possible further notification and treatment for their partners? (This is
| currently required by law for other venereal diseases.)
There is a major difference between HIV and other sexually transmitted
diseases. If a blood test shows that I (may) have syphilis or gonorhea
or chlamidia, I don't have any particular worries if it is in the
medical records. Everyone (including insurance agencies) will simply
encourage me to get treatment (and abstain from sex until I'm cured).
However, if the test is positive for HIV, and the news gets out, the
treatment I can expect is rather different. If an employer learns of
it, I'll almost certainly lose my job, and I may not be able to get
another one. If an insurance agency learns of it, they will do
everything in their power to terminate any and all insurance policies,
and I'll never be able to get another one. Even if the test turns out
to have been a false positive, I can still expect such treatment; once
a positive test is on my record, there's a good chance it will be
there forever after, despite subsequent negative results.
The two HIV tests that are currently in use have false positive rates
of about 10% and 5%. Even with repeated testing, the false positive
rate is on the order of 1%. Even if the rate were only 1/1000, it is
too high considering the effect. Why would a sensible person volunteer
for a test that has a 1/100 (or even 1/1000) chance of so totally
destroying the rest of their life?
As for other people's "rights" in this matter, I'd just point out that
there is no country in the world where anyone has a "right" to another
person's blood. If donating blood means that the results of an HIV
test will be put into public records, then the only sensible reaction
is to refuse to donate blood.
As long as society continues to treat HIV-positive people as pariahs,
rather than as victims of a microorganism, we should expect that
people will not cooperate with anything that involves such testing. I
don't think I'll be donating any more blood until this issue is
cleared up. It's just too risky.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 1 Feb 95 14:12:16 EST
From: "Larry Seiler, x223-0588" <seiler@wrksys.enet.dec.com>
Subject: Ultra Call-Forwarding used to steal business
I read an AP article in last Sunday's paper about how a plumber in
Pensynvania used Bell Atlantic's "ultra call-forwarding" service to
steal business from at least 5 competitors! He bought the service
for his competitor's phones and then at will redirected their calls
to himself! He serviced some of the calls he pirated, and blew off
others, generating lot of irate "I'll never call you again" calls to
his competitors. His actions went undetected for a while because
his competitors thought that their sudden drop in business was due
to the Christmas holidays. He was finally caught when someone called
their regular plumber to thank him for work over the Christmas weekend
and he replied that they hadn't done any work over that weekend!
The charges against the plumber, Michael Lasch of Levittown PA, are
many and interesting: theft by deception, criminal attempt, unlawful
use of a computer, criminal trespass, and impersonating an employee.
There may be more charges later. He's now in jail in lieu of $50,000
bail and his business owes nearly $200,000 in judgements.
Normally I'm opposed to lawsuits, but in this case, I hope there are
legal grounds to hit Bell Atlantic with treble damages for all current
and future lost business. In effect, they sold Lasch a "master key" to
his competitors' telephone communications. Actually, I think someone
at the phone company should be criminally charged. We wouldn't let a
locksmith get off who sold a "master key service" that allowed someone
to unlock five doors of his choice. Why should the phone company be
allowed to avoid this act of criminal stupidity?
It seems to me that Lasch was only caught because he was greedy. Someone
who applied the same scheme in a more delicate fashion could probably go
on for a long time without being caught. If instead of stealing business,
Lasch had stolen costumer names or alienated (more of) his comeptitors'
customers, he might not have been caught.
Regards,
Larry Seiler
[ While a subscriber who had never used nor ordered
call-forwarding could not be expected to know this, the
clue as to what was going on should have been the many
"single-ring, but nobody there" calls the targeted plumber
no doubt received. This, the so-called "courtesy ring" is
designed to give warning that a call was forwarded.
Also, many telcos now mail out an explicit notice when
services are changed. Unfortunately, many subscribers
routinely throw out everything they receive from the
telcos (except, one hopes, the bills...) -- MODERATOR ]
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 95 21:44:00 -0500
From: dave.moore@tcbbs.cais.com (DAVE MOORE)
Subject: Anonymous ?? Survey
[ From RISKS-FORUM Digest; Volume 16 : Issue 78 -- MODERATOR ]
I was recently asked to participate in an opinion survey feedback to
management in order for them to compare their own views, superior views,
peer views, and subordinate views. This data is then to be used by the
reviewee as a self improvement tool.
In order to get honest feedback, a commercial P.C. software package
called "2020" was used as a survey tool. This package is supposed to
protect your anonymity. It also uses a user supplied password on each
diskette to prevent anyone reading your responses. The responses are
then collected by a master program and combined with everyone else's
responses. Only the combined result is seen, individual responses are
not ever seen or tracked. At least, that's the theory.
Since privacy and encryption have been a long time interest of mine, I
decided to take a look at the files.
The first thing I saw was that both my name and my reviewee's name were
embedded in the data area.
The next thing I saw was that free form comments were stored in clear ascii.
You lose the formatting, but any file viewer could see the comments.
I used a hex editor to change some of the comments then reinvoked the
program to see if it would detect the changes. It never noticed a thing.
It obviously didn't use a digital signature or even a simple checksum.
The cherry on top was the password. It only uses 0-9 & A-Z (uppercase).
The password was stored encrypted: down-1 and backward. Thus a password of
"simple6" was stored as "5DKOLHR". This took me all of the commercial
breaks while watching Star Trek Voyager to find and figure out.
The net result was that I chose not to participate in the anonymous feedback
survey.
dave.moore@tcbbs.cais.com
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 22:42:54 EST
From: HFDG63A@prodigy.com (EDWARD P RAVIN)
Subject: Deep Faults with NYNEX default?
[ From RISKS-FORUM Digest; Volume 16 : Issue 78 -- MODERATOR ]
Today I received an interesting letter from NYNEX (nee NY Telephone,
the local telephone service provider in NY City):
Our records indicate that you requested All-Call Restrict Service on your
telephone line...
During a recent system check, we discovered that All-Call Restrict Service
was not in place on some lines which it had been requested. We are in the
process of checking every All-Call Restrict line and correcting this
problem where it exists. As soon as we complete the checking and
correction process, we will confirm the status of All-Call Restrict on
your line through a special notification.
In other words, you might have thought you had Caller-ID disabled when you
make calls from your line, because you ordered it and NYNEX sent you a
confirmation notice six or seven months ago, but unless you independently
verified that it was in place, you might have been sending your number all
this time.
I can tell whether my line is sending caller-ID because I can call a friend
with a display and ask him. But as usual, there is no way the local telco
can tell you what your lines settings are. Call the billing office, and
they will describe what you have ordered and what was reported to have been
installed, but what is actually on the line?
It would be nice if you could dial a number and have a voice robot read back
to you the settings actually in place -- surely this is possible with
today's digital exchanges, if anyone thought to implement it. Given how
many different settings you can have with today's phone lines in the USA
(call forwarding, speed dialing, send or don't send Caller ID, choice of
long distance carrier, etc), we already need it.
[ Other reports indicated that between perhaps 10-15% of the persons
who thought they had the ID blocking service in reality did not
have it--potentially more than 80,000 subscribers. There are
already reports of threats being received by persons in sensitive
occupations who unwittingly divulged their numbers to persons they
called. Nynex also reportedly spent weeks telling persons who
thought there was a problem that nothing was wrong. One person
who was unable to get Nynex to admit the problem finally went to
the press, and shortly thereafter the news of the breakdown was
admitted by Nynex. -- PRIVACY Forum MODERATOR ]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 1 Feb 1995 20:39:50 -0800
From: Phil Agre <pagre@weber.ucsd.edu>
Subject: Identification technologies
[ From RISKS-FORUM Digest; Volume 16 : Issue 78 -- MODERATOR ]
The journal "Information Technology and People" has just published a special
issue, edited by Roger Clarke <roger.clarke@anu.edu.au> entitled
"Identification Technologies and Their Implications for People". As the
title suggests, it's about computer technologies that identify particular
human beings, as well as applications of those technologies to automated
tracking of highway traffic. Here are the contents:
Roger Clarke
"Human Identification in Information Systems:
Management Challenges and Public Policy Issues"
Simon Davies
"Touching Big Brother:
How Biometric Technology Will Fuse Flesh and Machine"
Marcus Wigan
"The Influence of Public Acceptance on the Realisability of
the Potential Benefits of Intelligent Vehicle-Highway Systems"
Philip E. Agre and Christine A. Harbs
"Social Choice About Privacy:
Intelligent Vehicle-Highway Systems in the United States"
Full details on the issue, including abstracts for the papers, are available
on the web at:
http://weber.ucsd.edu/~pagre/identification.html
Or through e-mail by sending a message that looks like this:
To: rre-request@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: archive send identification
Phil Agre, UCSD
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 1995 20:23:45 -0500 (EST)
From: G Martin <gmartin@freenet.columbus.oh.us>
Subject: More on Mailbox, Etc. wastebaskets
I went back into our local Mailbox, Etc. to run more photocopies. I
noticed that they had not placed a sign above the wastebasket or put a
shredder on it. If you'll recall, I found a document in their wastebasket
the previous time I was in there that contained a wealth of sensitive,
personal information. I told the management about it, and Imailed it to
the person who had left it there. When I originally discussed it with
management I made it clear to them that I did NOT consider this to be
THEIR fault. I suggested that they post a note above the wastebasket
reminding customers that confidential info can be retrieved from a
wastebasket, or to place an inexpensive shredder on the wastebasket. I
told them that this would be a very customer sensitive thing to do, and
that it might earn them big brownie points with their customers.
They were resistant the first time, and positively hostile when I asked
them whey they had ultimately decided not to do anything about it
(yesterday when I went back in). The two employees who I talked to said
repeatedly, "it's not our responsibility". And I repeatedly said I agree.
I never said it was your responsibility. What I did say is that your
doing something over and above what people would expect was a customer
sensitive thing to do. One woman then said that we've been her six years
and nobody's ever complained that information about them was stolen from
our wastebaskets.
I told her that more likely than not, when information is stolen from a
wastebasket, the victim is clueless as to how the bad guy got it.
It's highly unlikely that they'd figure out it came from
Mailbox Etc. wastebasket, and that's why nobody would complain. I told
them I wonder how many tax forms have been removed from their wastebaskets
in the months of January - April each year. I might as well have been
talking to robot that was programmed only to say, "It's not our
responsibility".......
It never ceases to amaze me how often businesses miss such great
opportunities to do little things like this for their customers that
could really impress them. Maybe someday they'll get sued over
something like this and finally take it seriously. And it amazes me
even more how careless people can be with such sensitive data about
themselves. I don't know if any of you who subscribe to this mailing list
have experienced this, but I find myself getting treated like I'm some
kind of a nut when I discuss a privacy or security concern. Most people
seem to think you're just being paranoid. And most people seem to want to
just bury their heads in the sand and pretend that there's no risk.
Gary Martin
gmartin@FREENET.COLUMBUS.OH.US
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 7 Feb 1995 19:35:53 +0000
From: malcolm@interval.com (Malcolm Slaney)
Subject: The Philosophy of CallerID
The article listed below (with abstract) does an incredibly good job of
discussing the issues in CallerID and Anonymous call-rejection. The
article's primary purpose is to define four types of privacy and how they
relate to CallerID:
Anonyminity - public place but no ID
Solitude - Dont be disturbed
Reserve - Mental distance
Intimacy - Screening
To make the issue more interesting, who wins and loses depends on who has
access to the technology.
This article should be required reading for anybody who wants to enter into
the debate. I think the definitions and framework are a valuable starting
point.
-- Malcolm
Caller ID and the Meaning of Privacy
Laurie Thomas Lee (Univ of Nebraska-Lincoln)
Robert LaRose (Michigan State)
The Information Society, Volume 1, pp 247-265, 1994.
Caller ID service continues to be controversial issue in the U.S. because
of its privacy implications. State and federal regulators, legislaters,
scholars, and the courts have examined and responded to the privacy issue
from a policy perspective, but perhaps without a complete understanding of
the meaning of privacy in the context of the debate. What types of privacy
are involved, how signifiant are these interests, and how might privacy
needs compare and be balanced? This article explores privacy in the
context of the Caller ID debate from a social science perspective. It
examines motives for seeking and preserving privacy and explores the
dynamic relationship between the caller and the called party positions. It
then provides an analysis of current and proposed Caller ID features and
policies with a view towards understanding how these proposals balance
competing privacy needs. This article establishes an analytic framework
and a foundation for further study of caller and called party privacy that
should lead to a better understanding of the privacy debate and the privacy
implications of Caller ID.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 07 Feb 1995 20:57:00 EST
From: overlord@megalith.miami.fl.us (Carlos Amezaga)
Subject: Special Alert! Unreasonable Network Policing Proposed
-> EMA ALERT <-
News For and About the Members of the
ELECTRONIC MESSAGING ASSOCIATION
February 3, 1995 -- Number 18
***** SPECIAL ALERT *****
- Congress to consider making all system operators liable
for messaging content. Bill would force employers to
monitor message content. ACTION NEEDED NOW!
UNREASONABLE NETWORK POLICING PROPOSED
Yesterday, Senator Jim Exon (D-NE) introduced S.314, the
Communications Decency Act of 1995, in the United States Senate. In
an effort to stamp out digital pornography, it makes all
telecommunications providers doing business in the United States (from
the telephone companies all the way down to offices that use LANs)
liable for the content of anything sent over their networks. To avoid
the possibility of tens of thousands of dollars in fines and up to two
years in jail, business owners would be forced to police their
networks and monitor in advance all messages sent over them.
WITHOUT ACTION - COULD BE LAW IN MONTHS
This bill is substantially the same as the one he put forward last
year. He will offer it as an amendment to the pending telecommunications
deregulation legislation in the U.S. Senate, which is expected to be
enacted by July. Last year, his amendment was adopted even though
many thought it hastily drafted and poorly thought out. Fortunately,
the telecommunications deregulation legislation died. This year, a
more conservative U.S. Congress may be even more reluctant to challenge
a "morality" amendment; and its legislative vehicle, the telecommunications
deregulation legislation, stands a much better chance of passage this
year.
ACTION NEEDED NOW
Action by the business community is needed now. Please notify your
corporate government affairs office and/or your legal counsel. This
measure could be adopted as an amendment to the telecommunications
bill IN A MATTER OF WEEKS (or potentially added to any legislation
pending on the U.S. Senate floor), if business does not mobilize
against it. S.314 will not stop digital pornography, but it could
devastate the messaging business. If you are interested in further
information or are able to participate in lobbying efforts over the
next few weeks, contact Sarah Reardon at EMA (see below).
---------------------------------------
EMA ALERT is published and copyrighted (1995) by the Electronic
Messaging Association. Permission to reproduce and/or redistribute
with attribution is hereby given to all EMA members. For more
information about anything in EMA ALERT, contact EMA via e-mail - use
either X.400 (S=info; O=ema; A=mci; C=us) or Internet (info@ema.org)
address, facsimile (1-703-524-5558), or telephone (1-703-524-5550).
Any EMA staff member can be addressed directly via e-mail by using,
for X.400, G=<firstname>; S=<lastname>; O=ema; A=mci; C=us, and, for
Internet, <firstinitial><lastname>@ema.org. EMA's postal address is
1655 N. Fort Myer Dr. #850, Arlington, VA 22209 USA. --
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 12 Feb 95 11:48 PST
From: lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein; PRIVACY Forum Moderator)
Subject: Some thoughts on S.314
Greetings. The previous message expresses (possibly well-founded)
alarm at Senate Bill S.314. However, the bill contains a number
of provisions that could be subject to varying interpretations, so
I thought it would be worthwhile if we could spend a bit of time
on the details of the bill itself. I've included the entire text
(it's not very long) at the end of this message.
Since the bill is written mainly as modifications to the 1934 Communications
Act, it would be useful to refer back to that Act for reference, but
I think the salient points should still be clear.
The part of S.314 that appears to be causing the most alarm in the network
community is actually fairly simple--it seems to simply extend the
prohibitions against obscene/harrassing communications from the telephone to
the broader category of "telecommunications devices", presumably to bring
email and similar communications under its jurisdiction. On the face of it,
this seems quite sensible--there is no obvious reason why someone should be
able to conduct the same sorts of harrassments via, for example, email, that
are prohibited as a phone call. Some problems come up, however, in the
interpretation of this prohibition. There are a number of points to
consider:
-- Is the prohibition meant to apply strictly to obscene/harrassing
communications? Would materials openly discussed in some of the
more controversial network newsgroups fall under the prohibition,
even though they are not harrassing in nature? What definition
of obscenity would be used? How does the nature of the audience
(for messages being sent to a group, rather than an individual)
enter into the mix?
-- Is the prohibition truly to be interpreted as making the service
providers responsible for the messages sent by their subscribers
or users? Would services be responsible for helping to track
down offenders when violating messages were sent from their systems,
or are they also expected to take steps to prevent such messages
from being sent in the first place? The latter would imply the
need for active message monitoring, which would be in direct
conflict with other existing laws, regulations, and rulings.
What would happen in the case of systems providing anonymous
access? Should such anonymous accounts be usable as a shield
for harrassing communications without any form of control?
If not, how can they be controlled? How does this compare with the
use of payphones for making obscene calls and telephone company
responsibilities in such cases? Is there a reasonable middle
ground that can be found?
-- What impact, if any, would there be on intermediate sites carrying
such communications?
-- How would email service providers' responsibilities differ from
those of telephone common carriers? Would common carriers offering
email services have a different level of responsibility? It's worth
noting that in general, common carriers are pretty well protected
from responsibility for materials sent over their systems (there
have, however, been a number of exceptions to this, pretty rare and
sometimes bizarre but present nonetheless).
It's also important to note that many email service providers, though
they may believe they are operating as "common carriers", may not
fit the strict legal definition of common carrier. Until there is
case law addressing such situations, there's no way to know how
they might fare in these sorts of situations.
There are other interesting aspects to S.314 as well. One facet
that seems particularly questionable is the lumping together of
nudity, indecency, and obscenity into one category for certain
decision-making purposes. U.S. Supreme Court decisions have clearly
drawn separations between these categories--trying to clump them
back together again may well be subject to reversal. It's hard enough
trying to pin down the definition of obscenity. There have been
conflicting court decisions on how "community standards" should or
can affect national publications and national broadcasters.
And finally, there are aspects of S.314 that could have significant
financial effects as well. The clause requiring the scrambling or
blocking of *both* video and audio of cable services not meant for
children could require the wholesale replacement of the set-top boxes
used by many cable systems, since many systems currently only scramble
video and not audio, leaving the audio accessible to those with
cable-ready televisions capable of tuning the appropriate channels.
At a time when Congress is looking at already repealing the hardly dry
cable industry re-regulation rules, some more big cable rate increases
could be in the near future.
Overall, S.314 seems to have some valid ideas, but like so much of the
legislation (much of it highly "ideological" in nature) now flowing through
the pipe, the details and effects would seem to need a good deal more
thought and/or elaboration. Whether we're talking about telecommunications
law or a balanced budget, the devil is in the details. To push through laws
just so that the folks back home can be told that "something was done", and
leaving the details to be thrashed out in the future with unknown impacts,
does not seem like the best way to proceed.
--Lauren--
-------------------------------------------
S 314 IS
104th CONGRESS
1st Session
To protect the public from the misuse of the telecommunications
network and telecommunications devices and facilities.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
February 1 (legislative day, January 30), 1995
Mr. Exon (for himself and Mr. Gorton) introduced the following
bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on
Commerce, Science, and Transportation
A BILL
To protect the public from the misuse of the telecommunications
network and telecommunications devices and facilities.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Communications Decency Act of 1995'.
SEC. 2. OBSCENE OR HARASSING USE OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS FACILITIES
UNDER THE COMMUNICATIONS ACT OF 1934.
(a) Offenses: Section 223 of the Communications Act of 1934 (47
U.S.C. 223) is amended--
(1) in subsection (a)(1)--
(A) by striking out `telephone' in the matter above
subparagraph (A) and inserting `telecommunications device';
(B) by striking out `makes any comment, request,
suggestion, or proposal' in subparagraph (A) and inserting
`makes, transmits, or otherwise makes available any
comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other
communication';
(C) by striking out subparagraph (B) and inserting the
following:
`(B) makes a telephone call or utilizes a
telecommunications device, whether or not conversation or
communications ensues, without disclosing his identity and
with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person
at the called number or who receives the communication;' and
(D) by striking out subparagraph (D) and inserting the
following:
`(D) makes repeated telephone calls or repeatedly
initiates communication with a telecommunications device,
during which conversation or communication ensues, solely
to harass any person at the called number or who receives
the communication; or';
(2) in subsection (a)(2), by striking `telephone facility'
and inserting `telecommunications facility';
(3) in subsection (b)(1)--
(A) in subparagraph (A)--
(i) by striking `telephone' and inserting
`telecommunications device'; and
(ii) inserting `or initiated the communication' and
`placed the call', and
(B) in subparagraph (B), by striking `telephone facility'
and inserting `telecommunications facility'; and
(4) in subsection (b)(2)--
(A) in subparagraph (A)--
(i) by striking `by means of telephone, makes' and
inserting `by means of telephone or telecommunications
device, makes, knowingly transmits, or knowingly makes
available'; and
(ii) by inserting `or initiated the communication'
after `placed the call'; and
(B) in subparagraph (B), by striking `telephone facility'
and inserting in lieu thereof `telecommunications facility'.
(b) Penalties: Section 223 of such Act (47 U.S.C. 223) is amended--
(1) by striking out `$50,000' each place it appears and
inserting `$100,000'; and
(2) by striking `six months' each place it appears and
inserting `2 years'.
(c) Prohibition on Provision of Access: Subsection (c)(1) of such
section (47 U.S.C. 223(c)) is amended by striking `telephone' and
inserting `telecommunications device.'
(d) Conforming Amendment: The section heading for such section is
amended to read as follows:
`obscene or harassing utilization of telecommunications devices and
facilities in the district of columbia or in interstate or foreign
communications'.
SEC. 3. OBSCENE PROGRAMMING ON CABLE TELEVISION.
Section 639 of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 559) is
amended by striking `$10,000' and inserting `$100,000'.
SEC. 4. BROADCASTING OBSCENE LANGUAGE ON RADIO.
Section 1464 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by
striking out `$10,000' and inserting `$100,000'.
SEC. 5. INTERCEPTION AND DISCLOSURE OF ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS.
Section 2511 of title 18, United States Code, is amended--
(1) in paragraph (1)--
(A) by striking `wire, oral, or electronic communication'
each place it appears and inserting `wire, oral,
electronic, or digital communication', and
(B) in the matter designated as `(b)', by striking `oral
communication' in the matter above clause (i) and inserting
`communication'; and
(2) in paragraph (2)(a), by striking `wire or electronic
communication service' each place it appears (other than in the
second sentence) and inserting `wire, electronic, or digital
communication service'.
SEC. 6. ADDITIONAL PROHIBITION ON BILLING FOR TOLL-FREE TELEPHONE
CALLS.
Section 228(c)(6) of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C.
228(c)(6)) is amended--
(1) by striking `or' at the end of subparagraph (C);
(2) by striking the period at the end of subparagraph (D) and
inserting a semicolon and `or'; and
(3) by adding at the end thereof the following:
`(E) the calling party being assessed, by virtue of being
asked to connect or otherwise transfer to a pay-per-call
service, a charge for the call.'.
SEC. 7. SCRAMBLING OF CABLE CHANNELS FOR NONSUBSCRIBERS.
Part IV of title VI of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C.
551 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the following:
`SEC. 640. SCRAMBLING OF CABLE CHANNELS FOR NONSUBSCRIBERS.
`(a) Requirement: In providing video programming unsuitable for
children to any subscriber through a cable system, a cable operator
shall fully scramble or otherwise fully block the video and audio
portion of each channel carrying such programming so that one not a
subscriber does not receive it.
`(b) Definition: As used in this section, the term `scramble'
means to rearrange the content of the signal of the programming so
that the programming cannot be received by persons unauthorized to
receive the programming.'.
SEC. 8. CABLE OPERATOR REFUSAL TO CARRY CERTAIN PROGRAMS.
(a) Public, Educational, and Governmental Channels: Section
611(e) of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 531(e)) is
amended by inserting before the period the following: `, except a
cable operator may refuse to transmit any public access program or
portion of a public access program which contains obscenity,
indecency, or nudity'.
(b) Cable Channels for Commercial Use: Section 612(c)(2) of the
Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 532(c)(2)) is amended by
striking `an operator' and inserting `a cable operator may refuse
to transmit any leased access program or portion of a leased access
program which contains obscenity, indecency, or nudity.
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End of PRIVACY Forum Digest 04.04
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