Quote:
Originally Posted by patrickt
No, you don't remember correctly. Eavesdropping is not a federal offence. Electronic eavesdropping is but not real-life person-to-person eavesdropping. It was in Colorado for two years. It was one of the few laws repealed quickly when everyone was guilty of eavesdropping. It was simply defined as listening to a conversation to which you were not a party and were visible to the participants. A high booth in a fancy restaurant, people in the hallway outside your office, or the two guys in the toilet stall next to yours. Eavesdropping. Felony.
The lunch pail was also in Colorado. I was the one who got that city ordinance, and many others, revoked. The reason it was passed was that many years before a new courthouse was being built and the mayor owned a cafe across the street. He envisioned all the workmen eating in his cafe. Instead, they brought their lunch or, more often, their wife brought them a hot lunch shortly before their lunch break. So, he made it illegal to carry a lunch pail.
My efforts were pointless, though. With it just me facing hundreds writing new laws I was bound to lose. I got rid of needing to have a pigeon trapping permit and a tent pitching permit along with the ordinance preventing single women from loitering near a tavern. You can carry a lunch pail through town now but you can't own a chicken. You can smoke marijuana but you cannot smoke a tobacco cigarette within 25 feet of a window...that doesn't open. When I left they were fighting over outlawing birdfeeders. I don't know how that turned out.
And your company town sounds a lot like neighborhoods in large cities where people are paid with EBT cards, live in government house, eat government food, and get government healthcare.
Now, back to Kindle or Smartphone. We've had some creative suggestions to avoid the law but I'm sure those loopholes will be closed in the next session of the legislature.
So, if the Kindle app were also made illegal which would go...Kindle or Smartphone?
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I think we lived in the same county in Colorado. I don't think my town had a courthouse. I know it didn't have the county courthouse.
Thanks for the correction, as I was thinking wiretapping not just overhearing.
We were talking about different definitions of eavesdropping. Overhearing as in your example is not the same as purposely listening in while trying not be to seen or heard. Example: little brothers picking up the phone in the other room. No wonder it got repealed.
I think all US cities have "government" towns not just large cities. Only difference is in a company town all the men had to work.
Now give me a smartphone in answer to your original post. Kindle is not the only game in town.
I think most places have some silly laws.