Re: cutting your own phone lines is a felony?

[mgraffam@idsi.net]

On Sun, 28 Feb 1999, Anonymous wrote:

>    MEDINA, Ohio, Feb. 26 (UPI) - An Ohio prosecutor says (Friday) a
> grand jury will be asked to indict Scott Yoder, 37, for cutting his own
> telephone wires to keep his wife from shopping on the Internet and
> ignoring her family. Yoder faces a felony charge of disrupting public
> services.

Depends on what he actually cut. In the post-divestiture telephony
landscape, the wires actually within your home are your private
property (prior to the AT&T break-up, the wiring and the physical phone
in your house were AT&T's property). Everything on the outside of the
house is telco property.

If he cut wiring in the terminal block on the outside of the house,
that is illegal. If he cut wiring inside, he should be ok.

Michael J. Graffam (mgraffam@idsi.net) http://www.idsi.net/~mgraffam
"86% of conspiracy theories have some basis in truth... but, oddly enough,
it's that last 14% that usually gets you killed." 
    --Talas (http://cadvantage.com/~algaeman/conspiracy/public.htm)