This might sound like an odd question, but I was wondering about this for various reasons. I do know that a few years ago there was a law passed that specifically prevented federal grant money from being used for SETI-related work, even indirectly, because it was regarded as a worthless project. However, recently I've heard rumor that this specifically has been repealed so some SETI work is now permitted- for example, there is a NASA researcher who got a grant recently to use the Allen telescope to develop routines to detect technological signatures and the like.
So does anybody know what exactly is the situation with this, or how I could find out? Thanks very much!

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Yes, I have a life. It's quite different from yours.

Well I'm not aware of any legal barriers. As far as I'm aware anyone is free to listen in to radio waves from space without let or hindrance.

However, I do think there is a serious issue involved here: do we really want people intentionally broadcasting our presence around the cosmos? At the moment I don't think there's a law preventing this and may be there should.

I don't think that is feasable.. You would have to stop using all the satelites. And people wouldn't enjoy loosing their 200 channels.

My impression from brief research is that in 1981 then-Senator Proxmire got an amendment made into law that forbade NASA from spending any money on SETI. However, Carl Sagan got him to change his mind a year or so later.

Then, in 1992, NASA started a formal SETI program, formally called the High Resolution Microwave Survey. However, a year later, Congress eliminated funding for it.

The present situation appears to be that NASA is not forbidden from researching SETI, but Congress is not funding any programs to do so.

There's an article about NASA and SETI here (NOTE: PDF file), from which I got most of this information.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

Andromeda321 was not talking about the legality of any private individual or organization to listen in to radio waves from space. The question was whether it is legal for US government to pay for it. There are activities which are not illegal in and of themselves, but Congress had passed laws banning any use of federal funds for them.

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Fiction has to be plausible. Reality is under no such constraint.

Nope, no law against it anywhere, I would have thought.

SETI is NOT about broadcasting our presence, it is about LISTENING for signals from the cosmos, and determine whether there is any intelligence behind anything they detect.

However, the point about us beaming 1000's of TV and radio channels via satelite is more valid, even if they aren't intentionally meant for ET. But these signals are not broadcast on a tight beam for detection at 5 or maybe 10 light years distant, only in the next block, city, country or continent. By the time they reach the edge of the solar system I would expect they are so weak as to be indistinguishable from the interstellar hiss (but no doubt someone will give us the correct figures!)

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The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not Eureka! (I found it!) but rather, 'hmm.... that's funny...'
- Isaac Asimov

Are we alone in the Universe? Are we the only intelligent life? Who knows? But the universe is so BIG, it somehow seems such a waste of space if we are ....

Bit late to be worrying about that......it's been happening unintentionally for close to a century.

Of course, the signals attenuate significantly, but then again we have no idea what sort of devices might be out there listening.

Not much to worry about. Radio waves are rapidly becoming a thing of our technological past - waste of energy. Communications will be all cable within our lifetimes. Our EM bleed off will be undetectable beyond a few light years. They are pathetically faint to begin with, so there is little to be concerned about. The universe is a very big place, ET will never find us that way.

[Gentle, non-malicious teasing] Riiiight. Because nobody ever uses cellphones or blackberries anymore. And cabling is so much a better for things like cars (radio receivers), wi-fi networking, aircraft communications, space exploration, those police RC reconnaisance robots, rural TV reception, active sensing, weather prediction, etc, etc, etc. [gnmt]

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[Dr. Horrible]___________________________[Penny]
Listen close to everybody's heart________And you believe there's good in everybody's heart
And hear that breaking sound_____________Keep it safe and sound
Hopes and dreams are shattering apart____With hope you can do your part
And crashing to the ground_______________To turn a life around

Quick comment:

If there is a sufficientaly technological race out there, that is MORE than willing AND capable of travelling light-years quickly enough to feasably fight an intergalactic war, and subvert the human race...

Wouldn't they have magical enough of technology to spot us easily anyways? Just sayin'.

The whole, "Let's be quiet about our presence" just reeks of paranoia to me.

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"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

Something that I would equate to censorship.

In fact the powers that be (IAU, IAA) are eager to pass a banning on active SETI. If every civilization should behave the same way, well, there´s an explanation for the lack of detection, after all.

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"Shut up and calculate" R. Feynman

Thanks for the responses.
As for the idea of if it's a good idea for us to make our presence known, besides the fact that it's too late to worry about this we have the aid of interstellar quarantine on our sides. Even if there were hostile creatures tuning in to the Earth nightly news, it's not like they can hop into a spaceship and get here in any fashionable amount of time.

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Yes, I have a life. It's quite different from yours.

There was never a _law_ against SETI funding. It was merely a matter of getting NASA's budget approved. In several years, NASA's budget approval was affected by disputes regarding funding of SETI.

On 16 February 1978, Senator William Proxmire (D-Wis) awarded NASA his “Golden Fleece” for proposing to use taxpayer money on SETI. Several months later, NASA SETI funds were stricken from the 1979 HUD appropriation bill.

In July 1981, Senator William Proxmire (D-Wis) successfully proposed an amendment to eliminate NASA “subsistence level” funding of SETI (which the Senator referred to as “insterstellar conversation”).

On 1 October 1982, Congress approved a budget line which reinstated funding of NASA’s attempts to detect extraterrestrial radio signals.

During 1991, Representative Ronald Machtley of Rhode Island proposed elimination of SETI funding from NASA’s budget, asking “If, in fact, there is a superintelligent form of life out there, might it be easier just to listen and let them call us?”. Silvio Conte of Massachusetts supported that motion, stating that to find evidence of these “rascally creatures”, “we only need 75 cents to buy a tabloid at the local supermarket”.

It appears that no-one told Representative Machtley that the SETI funding _was_ was listening...

Kind Regards,

Isaac Koi

Our daily TV and radio transmission won´t take news of our presence very far. Even a powerful directed signal would have to struggle to keep its integrity any further than a few thousand light years. Furthermore, there are constraints as to the amount if information that can be conveyed per unit of power.

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"Shut up and calculate" R. Feynman

It appears that no-one told Representative Machtley that the SETI funding _was_ was listening...

No one ever suggested you had to be intelligent to go into politics.

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Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

When advanced civilizations view our historical tendency of violence, naked aggression, and warfare, they have cause to question the wisdom of revealing their presence to us.

Yeah, because that's all we're known for. I mean, there's no nations currently at peace, nope.

After all, the "war in Iraq" is a huge war, surrounding much of the world.

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"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov