Sources in the high-tech sector believe there might be an attempt in Congress' post-election, lame-duck session to pass a bill that would bar consumers from making copies of digital and satellite radio transmissions.

Outgoing Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., supports the "audio flag" anti-piracy technology because of his ties to Nashville, the nation's country music headquarters, an aide said. And Mitch Bainwol, chief executive officer of the Recording Industry Association of America, is Frist's former chief of staff.

Frist is retiring from Congress and is said to be contemplating a run for president in 2008.

Lawmakers returned to Washington Monday to work on must-pass appropriations bills and other measures, and Frist is said to want action on the audio flag, too. Frist's office did not respond to calls seeking comment.

Meanwhile, Rep. Mike Ferguson, R-N.J., in March introduced a bill, H.R. 4861, that would implement the audio flag.

Officials at the Consumer Electronics Association and National Association of Broadcasters acknowledged having heard talk of Frist's potential plan to resurrect the push for an audio flag in the lame-duck session.

NAB spokesman Dennis Wharton said his group will "vigorously oppose this effort should it surface." CEA's Michael Petricone echoed those remarks.

Declared Electronic Frontier Foundation Staff Attorney Fred von Lohmann, "It certainly stands to reason that Frist would want to deliver a final set of favors to his hometown supporters." said Thursday.

The RIAA has taken advantage before of what Petricone characterized as a lame-duck sneak attack. In 1999, RIAA added language to the Satellite Home Viewer Act that he argued took rights away from artists and gave them to recording labels. RIAA declined to comment.

Frist has been keeping this issue alive all by himself, Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn said. Even those legislators who support copy protection for video think the audio flag is "not ready for prime time," she said.

A technology industry lobbyist said moving a bill like the audio flag "takes a lot more work than you think" and the likelihood of Frist being able to get the measure anywhere before his departure "is close to nil."

Sohn told the Senate Commerce Committee in January that proposals to require content protection for digital broadcast and satellite radio signals would allow the FCC to mandate how new technologies are designed.

If digital radio receivers have less functionality than existing analog receivers, consumers will reject them, she contended. The audio flag mandate also would cripple radio offerings by Sirius Satellite and XM Satellite, Sohn said.

Proponents of the protection measures argue that the technology would curtail unauthorized copying and allow the emerging mediums to flourish, while also protecting rights holders' content.

Sohn told a House telecommunications subcommittee in June that supporters of the flag wanted to "extinguish the long-protected consumer right to make personal home recordings of radio transmissions."

At the same hearing, Bainwol said satellite broadcasters protect their own signals, while arguing that the content they carry should be afforded the same security.