does channel 5 know FCC rules

[Mark Laurence]

On Friday, July 30, 2004, at 08:56  PM, Dan Billings wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "gic" <gary@garysicecream.com>

>> I'm beginning to wonder.  For the second time in a few days 
>> NewsCenter5
> (at
>> 6) was quoting what they said was "police transmissions we are
> monitoring".
>> Isn't there still a law that says you can listen to police and other
> private
>> communciations, but cannot repeat them (or has that law been done away
>> with).

> I am not sure if we are talking about the same law, but the Supreme 
> Court
> struck down a law that outlawed the broadcast of illegally taped phone
> calls.

The law in question is quoted on this website:

http://www.police-scanner.info/introscan.htm

"It is illegal to disclose information you hear [on a scanner] to other 
persons. "

That's how I remember it from my newsgathering days of quite a whiile 
ago.  You had to confirm anything you heard on a scanner from an 
outside source before you could broadcast the information.  It's not 
just illegal to broadcast it, it's illegal to tell the information to 
anyone at all.  It's not an FCC rule, it's federal law.  There's a link 
on that page to the entire relevant law, if anybody wants to slog 
through all of that.

Mark