The following is an excerpt from Lars-Erik Nelson's column, published in the New York Daily News on Friday, January 17, 1997. Nelson, not a favorite of mine at all, is normally a Republican basher and Clinton apologist.
John and Alice, both Democratic activists, were driving through
Florida, listening to a police scanner, when they happened to recognize
the voices of Gingrich and some Republican colleagues talking on the
phone.
The Martins pulled into a parking lot, tape-recorded the call,
interpreted it as being politically significant, flew to Washington and
handed it to Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) of the House ethics
committee, who leaked it.
There are problems with this story.
The Radio Shack scanner John Martin bought in August cannot tune into
cell phone calls unless it is illegally modified (by snipping just one
wire). Martin says he did not modify it.
Radio Shack says the scanner can accidentally pick up cell calls on
the wrong frequency (a phenomenon known as intermodulation) if it is
close to a transmitter.
So it is theoretically, physically and technologically possible that
having picked up the call, they coincidentally parked in a spot where the
false signal would continue to be heard reliably enough for taping.
If you believe that, let us continue. The Martins say they had no
idea it was illegal to listen to the call. Radio Shack, however,
includes in every scanner box a warning to purchasers not to listen,
even unintentionally, to cell phone calls.
Having listened in anyway, the Martins concluded that the call was
incriminating enough to warrant handing it over to the ethics committee.
At this point, even the simplest and most gullible of us must say, "Fat
chance."
You would have to be a fairly sophisticated lawyer with knowledge of
ethics committee procedures to interpret the bugged conversation as
incriminating. But the ordinary Martins immediately grasped its
significance. This is interception and intelligence analysis worthy of
the National Security Agency.
True, the Martins do appear to be innocent bumblers. But White House
security aide Craig Livingstone pretty much wore out the "innocent
bumbler" excuse when he explained how he had innocently bumbled his way
into the possession of hundreds of FBI background files on Republicans.
His defense, too, was straight from the Good Soldier Schweik: "Humbly
report, sir, I am an idiot."
...
Yes, the Democrats can argue -- as Republicans do about Gingrich --
that McDermott unintentionally violated arcane laws. As it happens, for
such arcane crimes there is the potential of an arcane prison.
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