Rick, your link only sends me to an ad, not to a reference to the Communications Act.
Napier, an “ethical principle from the world of radio” is worth… oh, approximately jacksquat vis-a-vis the exercise of the Legislative Power. The public wants their cell phone to be secure, the industry knows they’ll get more customers if that is so, the Legislature figures that the combination of happy customers getting cell phones and companies profiting from it results in job creation and higher tax revenues, bingo, a prohibition on eavesdropping on cell phones (Unless you’re the government itself, of course).
In the particular case of the speed detectors, driving on the public highways is a licensed privilege granted you by the State (driving license/permit), and operating your vehicle on that public highway is itself also a licensed privilege (registration/tagging). When you submit to that license, you submit to that they may intervene with your person and your property insofar as how you drive it on their highway, and not take actions to prevent that enforcement even if it involves beaming RF at your car (for which in turn they’ve been authorized by the proper authorities). Part of the strategy for enforcement necessarily involves that the drivers NOT know at all times whether they’re being spotted by a patrolman, so that they behave even when they may be miles from the nearest one.
Well, part of the strategy of any speed stop in the first place is that drivers don’t know that there is a cop watching, so that’s kind of begging the question. Let’s say I’m driving along under the speed limit, and I notice a cop there waiting, with or without a radar gun. I get on my CB and tell everyone behind me for the past 15 miles about it. Does that make the CB radio illegal, because it thwarts the “strategy”? Or what if I have a regular AM/FM car radio that, by some freak of electronics, makes weird sounds whenever radar gun is going off. Could they confiscate my car radio?
They don’t need to go into enforcement “strategy” to outlaw radar detectors. They can do so simply because they serve no other purpose than to allow people to speed without getting caught.
Right. Is the law any of the following:
A “crime against humanity”? Certainly not. IANAL, but on this I feel I am on pretty solid ground
Against the US Const?
Against an International treaty we have signed and Ratified?
Against the State Const?
So mangeorge, which of these do you think protects your right to a radar detector?
In general*, if a law is none of those things, it is legal. There are caveats, quibbles and exceptions, but as Princhester said, the Government can and does pass laws that some don’t like, or that even a majority don’t like.
Technically, many high end units can also alert you to an accident or traffic conditions ahead, or an emergency vehicle (not necessarily police) is near. I, personally, use them to speed without getting caught, but that’s not their only real use.
Here’s the funny part. Radar detectors are illegal in all 50 states on commercial vehicles, and in DC and Maryland on all vehicles, IIRC. In order to enforce the law, DOT officers carry radar detector detectors (which, admittedly, are better at singling out leaky Cobra detectors than they are at finding a V1 or Beltronics or Escort). So, you guessed it, they’ve come out with radar detector detector detectors. I’m pretty sure they haven’t come up with a rd^4 yet, but I’m not ruling it out.
What part of the act says what your first cite says it says? I’ve had a quick look but nothing stands out and I don’t want to have to wade through every section. Particularly when I suspect that I might be supposed to be looking for some alleged nuance.
But the fact that the argument is debatable (I’m reading this to mean that you can legitimately argue either side.) means that you can construct reasons, from a public safety perspective to support criminalizing such devices.
Then, too, raising revenues is a legitimate government function. So, if a purpose* of traffic tickets is to raise revenues, something which I think is true, whether legislators care to admit it, protecting that revenue source would become a legitimate government function. Now, one can argue whether one thinks that the government should be counting on such fines for revenues (And I do…) but I don’t think it’s illegal for a legislature to consider laws to protect revenue sources. No more than it’s illegal for a State to set itself up with a monopoly on liquor, or numbers game gambling, as a revenue source.
Saying that the law should serve the public is a great phrase, but until you define how you intend to serve that public, it’s pretty meaningless. Anti-miscegenation laws, after all, were seen to be a service to the public at one point, too.
Blast - dangling asterisk. This is what I’d meant to add:
*I think that traffic citations serve many different functions. Public safety is supposed to be the main one, but I believe it is naive to ignore the revenue function.
If that is the best argument Valentine has, then he is in the realms of tax protesters and other motley cranks. No-one is suggesting that the basis of using speed radar is that it is “privileged communication”. And surveillance by radars does not need to be conceived of as “protected” by laws as though it is.
It is allowed by laws in practically every state and country. The reason such nonsense is being discussed, of course, is to try to bring talk about radar detectors within the purview of of the provisions about the right to receive radio transmissions. But those provisions are about communications. If the Federal Communications Act had any bearing on the question, the laws against radar detectors in Virginia and elsewhere would have failed long ago. One does not even have to have read the Federal Communications Act to realise this must be so.
It is common for non-lawyers to try to distort language in a self-serving attempt to conjure some idiosyncratic meaning that supports the position they wish was the law. That is the reasons legal cranks are so passionate, and so wrong. Valentine (assuming he is not merely dishonestly shilling) is clearly in that long tradition.
Boy! How you read all that into my post, I don’t know.
But you might want to do a little research. I did, and couldn’t find any proof that radar detectors compromise safety. Which is why, I suspect, that they are indeed legal just about everywhere.
How’s that for pudding, eh?
Technically, radar detectors are not criminalized. I believe in the states where they are illegal, the penalties are civil rather than criminal. (Once, with a car registered in Maryland, I was pulled over by a Virginia state cop on the Virginia side of the Beltway for having a radar detector, and he just told me to put in the trunk and let me go.)
That would be DC and Virginia. I seem to recall that list included Connecticut at one time, but apparently not now.
Reminds me of the “anti-anti-anti-missile-missile-missile-missile.” Anyone remember Rocky & Bullwinkle?
It is not debatable that they were originally formed as acronyms. Whether they are still acronyms is what is debatable. There’s a pretty good argument to be made that they’re just normal words now and should be (not) capitalized as such.
Especially “technically,” since with language usage, there is no “technically,” only convention.
Well, I suppose that when you knock on someone’s door, and they ask, “Who is it?”, “technically” you “should” say, “It is I.” But do you? I doubt it. Nobody does.
Anyone remember Rocky & Bullwinkle?