25 February 2002. Thanks to the authors of the messages.

From: X
Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002

My main piece of "RF detection" equipment consists of a Tektronix 492 spectrum analyzer and a Diamond D-130J 25-to-1300 Mhz discone antenna.  (I have other antennas for higher frequencies).

I also have a "test transmitter", (manufactured by Vega), which is basically a motion picture wireless microphone.  The frequency is 169.925 Mhz, 50 mW, NBFM.

Another "test transmitter", (manufactured by Com-Tek), also a motion picture wireless microphone, transmits on 72.1 MHZ, 25 mW, NBFM.

I am also an amateur (ham) radio operator, and have about a dozen, or more, various transmitters ranging in frequency from 40 MHz to 500 Mhz, with power levels from 10 mW to 100 mW.  Some I bought, some I built myself from scratch, some are audio modulated, others are just "oscillators".

A source for "wireless microphones", is your local Radio Shack or electronics store.

Anyway, (and getting to the point), I set-up the spectrum analyzer in my house with the discone antenna.  Then I walk around the neighborhood at night with several of my "test transmitters", and place them next to the side of a house at various distances from a few houses away to several blocks.

Depending on the power level and number of buildings, parked cars, and bushes, I can detect my test transmitters anywhere from 300 to 1,000 feet away.  While this is not a "calibrated" test, it does give me a very good idea of the real world detection capabilities of my 492-with-discone antenna set-up.

From: Y
Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002

> I am also an amateur (ham) radio operator, and have about a dozen, or
> more, various transmitters ranging in frequency from 40 MHz to 500
> Mhz, with power levels from 10 mW to 100 mW.  Some I bought, some I
> built myself from scratch, some are audio modulated, others are just
> "oscillators".

You have just confessed in a public forum widely read by law enforcement, to committing a number of state and federal felonies.

Ten seconds on QRZ.com will return your amateur call and physical address for any agency who wants to take you down.

You can be certain copies of your post were printed and submitted by someone to Justice Dept, to some U.S Attorney somewhere.

Go READ AND MEMORIZE 18USC 2511 and 2512.

Title 18 is the U.S. Criminal Code, BTW.

It is a federal FELONY to possess any device primarily intended for electronic interception. Also a felony to advertise them to the public. And of course to use them.

The ONLY exceptions are: 1) Government agencies. 2) Common carriers (paging companies, telephone companies, etc.) in their NORMAL course of business, and 3) PERSONS UNDER CONTRACT with a government agency to supply these devices.

So unless you happen to have ongoing purchase orders (CONTRACT) continuously covering your sale of these devices to a government agency, every day you possess each one is a felony at both the federal and virtually all state levels.

The government is up in arms over privacy issues now, and are foaming at the mouth to make an example of someone. Apparently you weren't in the business yet during the several coordinated large scale raids some years back, where persons in possession of these devices were dragged out in handcuffs, with the media alerted prior and TV cameras running. Many went to jail and virtually all had to find another career.

They even got Spyking/SpyTurd aka Frank Jones, who was the Teflon Turd for 20 years. Felony. Parole. Can't travel without permission of your P.O. Can't own a firearm ever again for the rest of your life. Can't hold a passport for the rest of your life. Can't vote. Can't get a job in any government position. Can't get a job anywhere in security, or any place who runs background checks. Can't rent apartments or houses. Et al. 

A lot of these people taken down were identified by undercovers monitoring forums like this one. Others were by personal visits to shops. More were from examining customer lists from various vendors of the things.

Enough people have forgotton, the left wing is screaming about privacy issues, and certain agencies are very willing to do their job, in this instance.

They're ready to move again, and you're jumping up and down advertising, waving a red flag and begging to go on their list.

Your only safe course of action right now is to surrender the things to your local law enforcement agency on your own terms, advising them you just learned your possession of them was illegal and you are surrendering them in accordance with the law. Get a receipt. That may be your Get Out Of Jail Free card. Don't tell them why you had them. You have the right not to be a witness against yourself. Deal with some busy desk sergeant or busy duty officer, get him to sign a receipt, and leave it at that. You do NOT want to go off into a back room with the detectives or tech guys and brag about being a sweeper. Cops hate sweepers. Cops hate anyone who tries to assume powers or authority they don't have. TSCMers have no more right to possess these gadgets than does a boy scout.

Since the other transmitters you mentioned are not on amateur frequencies, the ones in your above paragraph likely are not either.

Even if they were, the described operation would be illegal under amateur license rules (one way transmissions, no I.D., etc.).

At a minimum, it will cost you your full time job if you work for anyone else, your own business, your life's savings, and you will have a criminal record the rest of your life. Oh, and of course your ham license.

Hams are held to higher standards than the general public, because we are licensed, allegedly know the laws which govern us, and we are supposed to know better.

Persons active in any facet of the security business fare worse than Joe Sixpack in raids, because you will be held to higher standards also. If you are in the security business, whether as a uniformed guard walking a post on midnight shift at a construction site, a full time TSCM'er, a private investigator (PI's also are licensed, so held to higher standards) or anything, you will be facing a hostile judge, a hostile prosecutor and a jury who votes as they are told by the judge.

FOLKS -- LISTEN WELL

THIS IS CRITICAL. READ THIS:

Being in the TSCM business, or pretending to, or wanting to, DOES NOT confer on you any special privilege to possess surveillance equipment.

Demonstrating the stuff to the wrong people, or if the Wrong People (to you, meaning government) learn of your possession, you WILL be charged with a felony. Your entire place will be raided. Everything will be confiscated down to trash cans and pencil sharpeners. Ask Ramsey. Ask EEB, now long out of business. Ask any of the 40+ places hit all at the same instant, nationwide, in the raids a few years ago. There is not one square inch of your facility that will not be tossed, and not a single electronic item left in your house/business/car/wherever.

NO ONE is immune.

You WILL NOT get away with it.

A $20 kit is as illegal as anything. A zip gun will get you the same mandatory jail penalty as will carrying a Colt Python.

I am in the unfortunate position at this immediate moment of testifying against a Maryland private investigation agency in cooperation with Maryland State Police. My testimony likely will put someone in jail.

I may likely be called upon, as a well accepted long term expert court witness on electronic surveillance, to testify against you. This would sadden me.

Doesn't matter if you run a training facility. Doesn't matter if you do demos. Doesn't matter if you claim to have found a bug on a job, and 99% of the people who claim this are lying anyway. In my entire career, spanning 30 years last month, I have found only a small number of devices or wired phones. When I did, I secured the area and notified the FBI or local law enforcement, whoever I could get, and stayed with the devices, not touching them, until the authorities arrived to take custody. The things are akin to a smoking gun. FELONY. You can't afford to fool around. In one case, I testified before the grand jury in Cranston, RI, and the bad guy was indicted and went to jail.

Any of these TSCM training facilities who maintain surveillance devices allegedly for training have no legal grounds for having the things. They are as guilty as anyone else. And their nice new fancy buildings will be sold at some distress sale a few years after the raid, to pay legal bills.

IT HAS HAPPENED. This is not speculation. This is not crying wolf. Dozens of guys spend months to years in jail cells merely for playing with the cheap Micro bugs.

If you would happen to be one of the extremely few persons who ever actually locates an illicit surveillance device through your own efforts, you can't go with the wishes of your client, or wait to see who services it, or feed it false info. That makes you an accessory after the fact as well as a co-conspirator. A few more counts, and a few more years. Your only option is to call LE immediately and request they take custody.

You may ask how some companies can advertise the things.

In many, if not most, cases, the spy shops carry no inventory. They are committing a violation by advertising them, but only rarely do they actually possess the crap they claim to sell. Most are ripoffs or brokers at best. Some companies actually may have the things, and they go on a list to be raided along with 40 or 50 others around the country, all at the same hour, so they can't call each other and warn each other. That's the way it was done the last two times.

More professional companies, legitimate manufacturers of professional devices actually used by law enforcement (you don't think they use $20 Cony bugs, do you?), sell only to government and more or less continuously have contracts to supply their products to government agencies. That is a clear exemption under 18 USC 2511 and 2512. Claiming to 'sell to police' is meaningless, and we all hear it several times a week. Having a history (paper purchase orders from a government agency and copies of invoices as well as payments received) is the only thing that counts.

Bottom line:

Unless you have regular business, which you can document, providing electronic surveillance equipment to government agencies, you cannot possess audio surveillance, data, much video, anything which transmits, or much of what connects to the phone line.

You will not be the one to decide what is legal and what is not. A prosecutor will, after most of what you own is hauled away in an 18 wheeler for a 3 month inventory, after which time you will be able to examine your files to prepare your defense at a government warehouse under government supervision 2 days a week for 2 hours at a time, and will have the privilege of copying your own files at 25 cents a page.

You're not a big tough guy having bugs. You're a fool.

I don't mean to address this specifically to X, but generically to the group.

You WILL get caught, and you will not work in anything remotely related to security ever again.

Save this message, print it, and refer to it frequently. This may be the most serious message you have yet read on this list.

S (incidentally a ham)