Federal Judge: Keystroke Logging Isn't Wiretapping

TospenJ writes "A federal judge in Los Angeles has dismissed wiretapping charges against a California man who used a hardware keystroke logger to spy on his employer, SecurityFocus is reporting. The court ruled that the device doesn't violate the federal Wiretap Act because it only intercepted signals off a keyboard cable, not an interstate network. The government is asking for reconsideration. Ironically, the judge relied in part on the Scarfo precedent, which allowed the FBI to use such a keylogger without a wiretap warrant."

Comments

Payback

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm.
Isn't that ironic?
Now that there's precident, I can start spying on John Ashcroft!
Payback Be-och!

Poor FBI

[Joel from Sydney]

What good is a cake if you can't eat it too?

/sarcasm

Re:Time to do some pre-typing checks...

[sangreal66]

svchost.exe lsass.exe services.exe winlogon.exe I have confirmed these all to be dangerous keylogging processers. Terminate them at will!

Re:Ironic?

[mrchaotica]

I don't know why the FBI is even involved.

Oh, I'm sure it has something to do with the... <reads sig> ...never mind, I can't talk about it.

Re:Ironic?

[knifeyspooney]

Ironically, the government is prosecuting a case to protect a citizen's privacy!

not only that

[commodoresloat]

With keystroke logging, they can even snoop on what you post to slashdot!

Re:Ironic?

[Dimensio]

I just knew the irony nazi's would pick up on that.

You mean "nazis".

Re:Ironic?

[idontgno]

Alanis Morissette's Ironic. Ironic, because it's a song about irony, purporting to cite multiple glowing examples of irony, and containing exactly no irony. Except the meta-irony of being un-ironic.

Kinda Zen, that.