FROM MSNBC, 1/17/97:

   WASHINGTON ­ Security analysts and mobile radio experts are scoffing at
the idea that a hobbyist could have accidentally intercepted and taped a
cellular telephone call in which House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., was
heard discussing his pending ethics violation hearing with other GOP House
leaders.  Such a feat is so improbable, several experts claim, that some
level of professional assistance had to have come into play.

   At the center of the controversy are John and Alice Martin, a Florida
couple who have admitted taping the Gingrich call.  The Martins say they
accidentally stumbled onto the call while driving in their car, listening
to a recently purchased police scanner.  The couple claims to have
recognized Gingrich¹s voice and turned on a hand-held tape recorder to
preserve a ³part of history.²  The couple then gave the tape to Rep. Jim
McDermott, D-Wash.  Someone then leaked the tape to The New York Times and
the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

   The Federal Bureau of Investigation has begun an investigation of the
taped call; the interception and disclosure of a cellular phone call are
felony offenses under federal wiretap statutes.  ³No one here is giving
much weight to the fact that a couple of amateurs were able to pluck this
entire conversation out of midair without some level of sophistication,²
an FBI source said.  He declined to elaborate, emphasizing that the
investigation was ³only in the preliminary stages.²

   Attempts to reach the Martins for comment were unsuccessful.

   There¹s little chance a ³scanner buff or rank amateur could zero in on
[this call] and get the quality and clarity of transmission that was on
that tape,² said Bill Cheek, a San Diego, Calif.-based professional
³radioist.²  Cheek, an Internet celebrity among those who traffic on
newsgroups dedicated to scanning, publishes the ³World Scanner Report²
newsletter and has written three books on scanning, including the
³Ultimate Scanner.²  Cheek said the Martins would ³really have to be a
super expert² to have pulled off the interception.  And even an expert
would have had to have some help, Cheek notes, ³like someone tipping an
expert off to the fact that a cell phone conversation was happening then
it¹s bingo, 1-2-3-4, it wouldn¹t take much to zero in on the call.²  But
for this to ³happen by chance² would ³be a rare situation."

   Though all new scanners sold since 1993 are prohibited by law from
having the capability to pick up cellular phone frequencies, some
low-quality scanners do pick up what is called the ³image² of a cellular
call, says Ted Rappaport, electrical engineering professor at Virginia
Tech.  An ³image² occurs in a radio receiver when the receiving equipment
must modify the high frequencies of a cell-phone call so that they can be
heard by the human ear.  If a scanner is close to a cellular phone base
station, it increases the likelihood of stumbling onto a cellular call¹s
³image,² Rappaport says.

   Taping an entire cellular phone call on the basis of picking up the
call¹s image is ³absolutely not a trivial thing,² Rappaport says.  ³The
likelihood of picking up something from a cellular phone image² using one
of today¹s commercial scanners ³is plausible, but highly improbable,² he
said, not unlike ³ trying to find a needle in a haystack² and to be
successful, ³you have to know where the needle is or have a good idea of
the location of the target.²

   And Rappaport should know ‹ he developed the capability to find that
cellular ³needle² with a device called Cellscope.  The device allows law
enforcement agents to target a specific cellular phone call even on the
move.  It was Rappaport¹s device that allowed the FBI to finally track
down the infamous computer hacker Kevin Mitnik in 1995.

   Professional surveillance and security experts know how difficult the
task is that the Martins pulled off.  The clarity and duration of the
interception, as indicated by the published transcript, ³indicates that a
surveillance specialist monitored and taped [Gingrich¹s] phone call,² said
James Ross, president of Ross Engineering, during a radio interview on the
G. Gordon Liddy show.  Ross¹ company (www.rosseng.com) is a Washington,
D.C.-based firm that specializes in countersurveillance and privacy
protection.

   Ross, who previously worked in various security positions for the U.S.
government, said the taping could have only been done with equipment such
as Rappaport¹s Cellscope device, ³which are only available, legally, to
licensed telephone companies and law enforcement² organizations.  And even
then, such devices have to be monitored and operated by ³highly skilled²
people, Ross said during the radio program.

   Members of Congress, habitual users of cell phones, have been jolted by
the Gingrich story.  Informal conversations over the past few days with
Hill staffers reveal that several members are considering dumping their
analog cell phones for the newer digital models.  Digital cell phone calls
are much more difficult to intercept due to the nature of the digital
transmission, which when scanned, sound like static.

   Additionally, Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., new chairman of the House
Telecommunications Subcommittee, said he would call for hearings on the
issue of cellular phone security.  Those hearings would be aimed at the
privacy issues surrounding cellular phones and exploring the possibility
of a technological fix.