Last week, Judge Koh handed down a significant decision about the legality of e-mail scanning in the case of In Re: Google, Inc Gmail Litigation. In this class action, a class of Gmail users and people who sent e-mail to Gmail users complain that their e-mails were unlawfully wiretapped in violation of the Federal Wiretap […]
Archive | Wiretap Act
It’s Such a Great TV Show That Even The Criminals Like It
From the facts of United States v. Cross, a decision from Chief Judge Garland handed down yesterday involving a wiretap that targeted a large-scale heroin conspiracy: On the wiretap, the agents overheard a series of conversations between Toure and appellant Cross. On several occasions, Cross used coded language to place narcotics orders. Cross and Toure […]
Ninth Circuit Holds That Intercepting Unencrypted Wireless Internet Communications is Covered by the Wiretap Act
The decision is Joffe v. Google. From the introduction: In the course of capturing its Street View photographs, Google collected data from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks. Google publicly apologized, but plaintiffs brought suit under federal and state law, including the Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C. ยง 2511. Google argues that its data collection did not violate the […]
Does Congress Have the Power to Enact A General Ban on the Use of Bugging Devices?
Since 1968, federal law has prohibited the use of bugging devices — secret microphones — to record private conversations. Here’s the relevant text: [A]ny person who . . . intentionally intercepts, endeavors to intercept, or procures any other person to intercept or endeavor to intercept, any . . . oral . . . communication [is […]
Szymuszkiewicz Update
Back on September 10, I had a long post criticizing some dicta in a wiretapping opinion by Judge Easterbrook: The Perils of Interpreting Statutes With Multiple Remedial Schemes: A Comment on the Dicta in United States v. Szymuszkiewicz. Apparently DOJ wasn’t very happy with the language, either, as I understand the government filed a motion […]
The Perils of Interpreting Statutes With Multiple Remedial Schemes: A Comment on the Dicta in United States v. Szymuszkiewicz
By Orin Kerr on September 10, 2010 3:21 am in Fourth Amendment, Stored Communications Act, Wiretap Act
The Seventh Circuit decided an interesting Wiretap Act case today that was largely a replay of United States v. Councilman, the First Circuit case that I blogged about here a bunch of times back in 2004 to 2005. In the new case, United States v. Szymuszkiewicz (glad I don’t have to pronounce that one), the […]