Task: sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.

Mr. Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Title III-of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act UU1968, 82 Stat. 211-225, 18 U. S. C.' §§ 2510-2520, prescribes the procedure for securing judicial authority to intercept wire communications in the investigation of specified serious offenses. The Court must here determine whether the Government sufficiently complied with the required application procedures in this case and whether, if not, evidence obtained as a result of such surveillance, under a court order based on the applications, is admissible at the criminal trial of those whose conversations were overheard. In particular, we must decide whether the provision of 18 U. S. C. § 2516 (1) conferring power, on the “Attorney General, or any.Assistant Attorney General specially designated by the Attorney General” to “authorize an application to a Federal judge... for... an order authorizing or approving the interception of wire or oral communications” by federal investigative agencies seeking evidence of certain designated offenses permits the Attorney General’s Executive Assistant to validly authorize a wiretap application to be made. We conclude, that Congress did not intend the power to authorize wiretap applications to be exercised by any individuals other than the Attorney General or an Assistant Attorney General specially designated by him and that primary or derivative evidence secured by wire interceptions pursuant to a court order issued in response to an application which was, in fact, not authorized by one of the statutorily designated officials must be suppressed under 18 U. S. C. § 2515 upon a motion properly made under 18 U. S. C. § 2518 (10)(a). Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
I
In the'course of an initial investigation of suspected narcotics dealings on the part of respondent Giordano, it developed that Giordano himself sold narcotics to an undercover agent on October 5, 1970, and also told an informant to call a specified number when interested in transacting narcotics business. Based on this and other information, Francis Brocato, an Assistant United States Attorney, on October 16, 1970, submitted an application to the Chief Judge of the District of Maryland for an order permitting interception of the communications of Giordano, and of others as yet unknown, to or from Giordano’s telephone. The application recited that Assistant Attorney General Will Wilson had been'specially designated by the Attorney General to authorize the application. Attached to the application was a letter -from Will Wilson to Brocato which stated that Wilson had reviewed Brocato’s request for authorization and had made the necessary probable-cause determinations and which then purported tb authorize Brocato to proceed with the application to the court. Also attached were various affidavits'of law enforcement officers stating the reasons and justification for the proposed ^interception.. Upon reviewing the application, the Chief Judge, issued an order on the same day authorizing the interception “pursuant to application authorized by the Assistant Attorney General... Will Wilson, who has been specially designated in this proceeding by the Attorney General... to exercise the powers conferred on him by [18 U. S. C. §2516].” On November 6, the same judge extended the intercept authority based on an application similar in form to the original, but also including information obtained from the interception already authorized and carried out and extending the authority to conversations óf additional named individuals calling from or to Giordano’s telephoné. The interception was terminated on November' 18 when Giordano and the other respondents were- arrested and charged with viola-'tions of the narcotics laws..
Suppression hearings'followed pretrial notification by the Government, see § 2518 (9), that it intended tó use in evidence the results of the court-authorized interceptions of communications on Giordano’s telephone. It developed at the hearings'that the applications for interception authority presented to the District Court had inaccurately described the official who had' authorized the applications and that neither the initial application for the October 16 order nor the application for the November 6 extension order had been approved and authorized by Assistant Attorney General Will Wilson, as the applications had indicated. An affidavit of the Executive Assistant to the Attorney General divulged that he, the Executive Assistant, had reviewed the request for authorization to apply for the initial order, had concluded, from his “knowledge of the Attorney General’s actions on previous cases, that he would approve the request if submitted to him,” and, because the Attorney General was then on a trip- away from Washington,. D. C., and pursuant to authorization by the Attorney General for him to do so in such circumstances, had approved the request and caused the Attorney General’s initials to be placed on a memorandum to Wilson instructing him to authorize Brocato to proceed. The affidavit also stated that the Attorney General himself had approved the November 6 request for extension and had initialed the memorandum to Wilson designating him to authorize Brocato to make application for an.extension' order. It was also revealed that although the applications recited that they had been authorized by Will Wilson, he had not himself reviewed Brocato’s applications, and that his action was at best only formal authorization to Brocato. Furthermore, it became apparent that Wilson did not himself sign either of the letters bearing his name‘and accompanying the applications io the District Court. Instead, it appeared that someone in Wilson’s office had affixed his signature after the signing of the letters had been authorized by a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal.Division who had, in turn, acted after the approval of the request for authorization had occurred in and had -been received from the Office of the Attorney General.
. The District Court sustained the motions to suppress on the ground that the officer in the Justice Department approving each application had been misidentified in the applications and intercept orders, in • violation of 18 U. S. C. §§ 2518 (l)(a). and (4)(d), United States v. Focarile, 340 F. Supp. 1033, 1060 (Md. 1972). On the Government’s pretrial appeal under 18 U. S. C. § 3731, the Court of Appeals affirmed on the different ground that the authorization of the October 16 wiretap application by the Attorney General’s Executive Assistant violated § 2516 (1).of the statute and struck at “the very heart” of Title III, thereby requiring suppression of the wiretap and derivative evidence under §§ 2515 and 2518 (10)(a)(i) and (ii). 469 F. 2d 522, 531 (CA4 1972). We granted certiorari to resolve- the' conflict with decisions of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit with, respect to the administration of the circumscribed authority Congress has granted in Title III for the use of wiretapping and wiretap evidence by law enforcement officers. 411 U. S. 905.
II
The United States contends that the authorization of intercept applications by the Attorney General’s Executive Assistant was not-inconsistent with the statute and that even if it were, there being no constitutional violation, the wiretap and derivative evidence should not have been ordered suppressed. We disagree with both contentions.
Turning first to whether the statute permits the authorization of wiretap applications by. the Attorney General’s Executive Assistant, we begin with the language of § 2516 (1), which provides that “[t]he Attorney-General, or any Assistant Attorney General specially designated by the Attorney General, may authorize” an application for intercept authority. Plainly enough, the Executive Assistant is neither the Attorney General nor a specially designated Assistant Attorney General; but the United States argues that 28 U. S. C. § 509, deriving from the Reorganization Acts of 1949 and 1950, vests all functions of the. Department of Justice, with some exceptions, in the Attorney General, and that Congress characteristically assigns newly created duties to the Attorney General rather than to the Department of Justice, thus making essential the provision for delegation appearing in 28 U. S. C. §510:
“The Attorney General may from time to time make such provisions as he considers appropriate authorizing the performance by any other officer, employee, or agency of the Department of Justice of any function of the Attorney General.”
It is therefore argued that merely vesting a duty in the Attorney General, as it is said Congress did in § 2516 (1), evinces no intention whatsoever to preclude delegation to other officers in the Department of Justice, including those on the Attorney General's own staff.
As a general proposition, the argument is unexceptionable. But here the matter of delegation is expressly addressed by § 2516, and the power of the Attorney General in this respect is specifically limited to delegating his authority to ‘ any Assistant Attorney General specially designated by the Attorney General.” Despite § 510, Congress does not always contemplate that the duties assigned to,the Attorney»-General may be freely delegated. Under the Civil Rights Act of 1968, for instance, certain prosecutions are authorized only on the certification of the Attorney General or the Deputy Attorney General, “which function of certification may not be delegated.” 18 U. S. C. § 245 (a)(1). Equally precise language forbidding delegation wás not employed in the legislation-before us; but we think § 2516 (1), fairly read, was intended to limit the power to ’authorize wiretap applications to the Attorney General himself and to any Assistant Attorney General he might designate. This interpretation of the statute is. also strongly supported by its purpose and legislative history.
The purpose of the legislation, which was passed in 1968, was effectively to prohibit, on the pain of criminal and civil penalties, all interceptions of oral and wire communications, except those specifically provided for in the Act, most notably those interceptions permitted to law enforcement officers when authorized by court order in connection with the investigation of the serious crimes listed’ in § 2516. Judicial wiretap orders must be preceded by applications containing prescribed information, § 2518 (1). The judge must make certain findings before authorizing interceptions, including/the existence of probable cg¡use, § 2518 (3). The orders themselves must particularize the extent and nature of the interceptions that they authorize, § 2518 (4), and they expire within a specified time unless expressly extended by a judge based on further application by enforcement, officials, § 2518 (5). Judicial supervision of the progress of the interception is provided for, § 2518 (6), as is official control of the custody of any recordings or tapes produced by the interceptions carried out pursuant to the order, § 2518 (8). The Act also contains provisions specifying the circumstances and procedures under and by which aggrieved persons may seek and obtain orders for the suppression of intercepted wire or oral communications sought to. be used in evidence by the Government. § 2518 (10) (a).
The Act is not as. clear in some respects as it mignt be, but it is at once apparent that it not only limits the crimes for which intercept authority may be obtained but also imposes important preconditions to obtaining any intercept authority at all. Congress legislated in considerable detail in providing for applications and orders authorizing wiretapping and evinced the clear intent to make doubly sure that the statutory authority be used with restraint and only where the circumstances warrant the surreptitious interception of wire and oral communications. These procedures were not to be routinely employed as the initial step in criminal investigation. Rather, the applicant must state and the court must find that normal investigative procedures have been tried, and failed or reasonably appear to be unlikely to succeed if tried or to be too dangerous. §§2518 (l)(c) and (3) (c). The Act plainly calls for the prior, informed judgment of enforcement officers desiring court approval for intercept authority, and investigative personnel may not themselves ask a judge for authority to wiretap or eavesdrop. The mature judgment of a particular, responsible Department of Justice official is interposed as a critical precondition to any judicial order.
The legislative history of the Act supports this view. As we have indicated, the Act was passed in 1968, but the provision of § 2516 requiring approval of applications by the Attorney General or a designated Assistant Attorney General dates from 1961, when a predecessor bill was being, considered in the 87th Congress. Section 4 (b) of that bill, S.' 1495, which was also aimed at prohibiting all but designated official interception, initially provided that the “Attorney General, or any officer of the Department of Justice or any United States Attorney specially designated by the Attorney General, may authorize any investigative or law enforcement officer of the United States or any Federal agency to apply to a judge” for a wire interception order. Hearings oh Wiretapping and Eavesdropping Legislation before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 87th Cong., 1st Sess.,'5 (1961). Under..that phraseology, the authority was centered in the Attorney General, but he could empower any officer of the Department of Justice, including United States Attorneys and the Executive Assistant, to authorize applications for intercept orders. At hearings on the bill, the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division stated the views of. the Department of Justice, and the Department later officially proposed, that the authority tq approve applications be substantially narrowed so that the Attorney General could delegate his authority only to an Assistant Attorney General. The testimony was:
“This is the approach of S. 1495, with which the Department of Justice is in general agreement. The bill makes wiretapping a crime unless specifically authorized by a Federal judge in situations involving specified crimes.' As I understand the bill, the application for a court order- could be made only by the authority of the Attorney General or. an officer of the Department of Justice or ■ U. S. Attorney authorized by him. I suggest that the bill should confine the power to authorize an application for a court order to the Attorney General and any assistant Attorney General whom he may designate. This would give greater assurance of a responsible executive determination of the need and justifiability of each interception.” Id., at 356.
The official proposal was that § 4 (b) be changed tc provide.that the “Attorney General, or any Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice specially designated by the Attorney General, may authorise” e, wiretap application. Id., at 372.
■ S. 1495 was not enacted, but its provision limiting those who could approve applications-for. court orders survived and was included in almost identical form in later legislative proposals, including the bill that became Title III of the Act now before us. In the course of testimony before a House Committee in 1967, the draftsman of the bill containing the basic outline of Title III engaged in the following colloquy:
“The Chairman.... About the origin of the application, as I understand it, your bill provides it must be originated by the Attorney General or an Assistant Attorney General.' Am I correct in that regard? >
“Professor Blakey. Yes, you are, Mr. Chairman.,
“The Chairman. The application must be made by the Attorney General or an Assistant Attorney General.
“Professor Blakey. If I am not mistaken, the present procedure is before any wiretapping or electronic equipment is used now it is generally approved at that level anyway,- Mr. Chairman, and- I would not want this equipment’ used without high level responsible officials passing on it. It may very well be that in some number of cases there will not be time to get the Attorney General to approve it. I think we are going to have just [sic] to let those cases go, and that if this equipment is to be used it ought to be approved by the highest level in the Department of Justice.. If we cannot make certain cases, that is going to have to be the price we will have to pay.” Hearings on Anti-Crime Program before Subcommittee No. 5 of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 1379 (1967).
As it turned out, the House Judiciary Committee' did not report out a wiretap bill, but the House did pass H. R. 5037, entitled the “Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice. Assistance Act of 1967,” 113 Cong. Rec. 21861 (Aug. 8, 1967). The Senate amended that bill by adding to it Title III, which in turn essentially reflected the provisions of S. 917, which had been favorably reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee and which contained the Committee’s own proposals with respect tó the interception of oral and wire communications. The report on the bill stated:
“Section 2516 of the new chapter authorizes the interception of particular wire or oral communication under court order pursuant to the authorization of the appropriate Federal, State, or local prosecuting officer.
“Paragraph (1)... centralizes in a.publicly responsible official subject to the political process the formulation of. law enforcement policy on the use of electronic surveillance techniques. Centralization will avoid the possibility that divergent practices might develop. Should abuses occur, the lines of responsibility lead to • an identifiable person. This provision in itself should go a long way toward guaranteeing that no abuses will happen.” S. Rep. No. 1097, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 96-97 (1968).
This report is particularly significant in that it not only recognizes that the authority to apply for court orders is to be narrowly confined but also declares that it is to be limited to those responsive to the political process, a category to which the Executive Assistant to the Attorney General- obviously does not belong.
The Senate passed H. It. 5037, with the amendments tracking the provisions of S. 917, on May 23, 1968, as the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 114 Cong, Rec. 14798 and 14889. During the proceedings leading to the passage of the bill, emphasis was again placed on § 2516. That the Attorney General had the exclusive authority to approve or provide for the approval of wiretap applications was reiterated, and it was made clear that as the bill was drafted no United States Attorney would have or could be given the authority to apply for an intercept order without the advance approval of a senior officer in the Department. There was no congressional attempt, however, to extend that authority beyond the Attorney General or his Assistant Attorney General designate.
The Government insists that because § 2516 (2) provides for a wider dispersal of authority among state officers to approve wiretap applications and leaves the matter of delegation up to state law, it is inappropriate to confine the authority so narrowly on the federal level. But it is apparent that Congress desired to centralize and limit this authority where it was feasible to do so, a desire easily implemented in the federal establishment by confining the authority to approve wiretap applications to the Attorney General or a designated Assistant Attorney General. To us, it appears wholly at odds with the scheme and history of the Act to construe § 2516 (1) to permit the Attorney General to delegate his authority at will, whether it be to his Executive Assistant or to any jfiicer'in the Department other than an Assistant Attorney General.
nr
We also reject the Government's contention that even if the approval by "the Attorney General's Executive Assistant of the October 16 application did not comply with the statutory requirements, the evidence obtained from the interceptions should not have been suppressed. The issue does not turn on the judicially fashioned exclusionary rule aimed at deterring violations of Fourth Amendment rights, but upon the provisions of Title III; and,.in our view, the Court of Appeals correctly suppressed the challenged wiretap evidence.
Section 2515 provides that no part of the contents of any wire or oral communication, and no evidence derived therefrom, may be received at certain proceedings, including trials, “if the disclosure of that information would be in violation of this chapter.” What disclosures are forbidden, and are subject to motions to suppress, is in turn governed by § 2518 (10) (a), which provides for suppression of evidence on the following grounds:
“(i) the communication was unlawfully intercepted ;.
“(ii) the order of authorization or approval under which it was intercepted is insufficient on its face; or
“(iii) the interception was not'made in conformity with the order of authorization or approval.”
The Court of Appeals held that the communications the Government desired to offer in evidence had been “unlawfully intercepted” within the meaning of paragraph (i), because the October application had been approved by the Executive Assistant to the Attorney General rather than by the Attorney General himself or •a designated Assistant Attorney General. We have already determined that delegation to the Executive Assistant was indeed contrary to the statute; but the Government contends that approval by the wrong official is a statutory violation only and that paragraph- (i) must be construed to reach constitutional, but not statutory, Violations. The argument ■ is a straightforward one based on the structure of §2518 (10) (a). On the one hand, the unlawful interceptions referred to in paragraph (i) must include some constitutional violations. Suppression for lack of probable cause, for example, is not provided for in so many words and must fall within paragraph (i) unless, as is most unlikely; the statutory suppression procedures were not intended to reach constitutional violations at all. On the other hand paragraphs (ii) and (iii) plainly reach some purely statutory defaults without constitutional overtones, and these omissions cannot be deemed unlawful interceptions under paragraph (i), else there would have been no necessity for paragraphs (ii). and (iii) — or to pujb the matter another way, if unlawful interceptions under paragraph (i) include purely statutory issues, paragraphs (ii) and (iii) are drained of all meaning and are surplusage. The conclusion of the argument is that if nonconstitutional omissions reached by paragraphs (ii) and (iii) are not unlawful interceptions under paragraph (i), then there is no basis for holding that “unlawful interceptions” include any such statutory matters; the only purely statutory transgressions warranting suppression are those falling within paragraphs (ii) and (iii).
The position gains some support from the fact that predecessor bills specified a fourth ground for suppression — the lack of probable cause — which was omitted in subsequent bills, apparently on the ground that it was not needed because official interceptions without probable cause would be unlawful within the meaning of paragraph (i). k Arguably, the inference is that since paragraphs (ii) and (iii) were retained, they must have been considered “necessary,” that is, not covered by paragraph (i).
The argument of the United States has substance, and it does appear that paragraphs (ii) and (iii) must be deemed to provide suppression for failure to observe some statutory requirements that would not render interceptions unlawful under paragraph (i). But it does not necessarily follow, and we cannot believe, that no statutory infringements whatsoever are also unlawful interceptions within the meaning of paragraph (i). The words “unlawfully intercepted” are themselves not limited to constitutional violations, and we think Congress intended^ to require suppression where there is failure to satisfy any of those statutory requirements that directly and substantially implement the congressional intention to limit the use of intercept procedures to thosé situations clearly calling for the employment of this extraordinary investigative device. We have already determined that Congress intended not only to limit resort to wiretapping to certain crimes and situations where probable cause is present but also to condition the. usé,of intercept procedures upon the judgment of a senior.‘official in the Department of Justice that the situation is one of those warranting their use. It is reasonable to believe that such a precondition would inevitably foreclose resort to wiretapping in various situations where investigative personnel would otherwise seek intercept authority from the court and the court would very likely authorize its use. We are confident that the provision for pre-application approval was intended to play a central role in the statutory scheme and that suppression must follow when it is shown that this statutory requirement has been ignored.
The principal' piece of legislative history relative to this question is S. Rep. No. 1097, 90th Cong., 2d Sess. (1968). The Government emphasizes that the report expressly states that §2518 (10) (a) “largely reflects existing law” and that there was no intention to “press the scope of the suppression role beyond present search and seizure law.” Id., at 96. But the report also states that the section provides for suppression of evidence directly or indirectly obtained “in violation of the chapter” and that the provision “should serve to guarantee that the standards of the new chapter will sharply curtail •the unlawful interception of wire and oral communications.” Moreover, it would not extend existing search- and-seizure law for Congress to provide for the suppression of evidence obtained in violation of explicit statutory-prohibitions. Nardone v. United States, 302 U. S. 379 (1937); Nardone v. United States, 308 U. S. 338 (1939).
IV
■Even though suppression of the wire communications intercepted under the October 16, 1970, order is required, the Government nevertheless contends that communications intercepted under the Novémber 6 extension order are admissible because they are not “evidence derived” from the contents of communications intercepted under the October 16 order within the meaning of §§ 2515 and 2518 (10)(a). This position is untenable.
Under § 2518, extension orders do not stand on the same footing as original authorizations but are provided for separately. “Extensions of an order may be granted, but only upon application for an extension made in accordance with subsection (1) of this section and the court making the findings required by subsection (3) of this section.” § 2518 (5). Under subsection (1) (e), applications for extensions must reveal previous applications and orders, and under (1) (f) must contain “a statement setting forth the results thus far obtained from the interception, or a reasonable explanation of the failure to obtain such results.” Based on the application, the court is required, to make the same findings that are required in connection with the original order; that is, it must be found not only that there is probable cause in the traditional sense and that normal investigative procedures are unlikely to succeed but also that there is probable cause for believing that particular communications concerning the offense will be obtained through the interception and for believing that the facilities or place from which the wire or oral communications are to be intercepted are used or will be used in connection with the commission of such offense or are under lease to the suspect or commonly used by him. § 2518 (3).
In its November 6 application, the Government sought authority to intercept the conversations of not only Giordano, who alone was expressly named in the initial application and order, but of nine other named persons who were alleged to be involved with Giordano in narcotics violations. Based on the attached affidavit, it was alleged that there was probable cause to believe that communications concerning the offense involved would be intercepted, particularly those between Giordano and the other named individuals, as well as those with others as yet unnamed, and that the telephone listed in the ñame of Giordano and whose monitoring was sought to be continued “has been used, and is being used and will be used, in connection with the commission' of the offenses described.” App. 62.
In the affidavit supporting the application, the United States set out the previous applications and orders, incorporated by reference and reasserted the “facts, details and conclusions contained in [the] affidavits” supporting the prior wiretap application, and set down in detail the relevant communications overheard under the existing order, as well as the physical movements of Giordano observed as the result of an around-the-clock surveillance that had been conducted by the authorities. App. 65-•81. The Government concluded “[a]fter analyzing the intercepted conversations to and from [Giordano’s telephone] and the results of BNDD surveillance” that nine listed individuals, some identified only by aliases, were associated with Giordano as suppliers or buyers in illegal narcotics trafficking and that certain other persons were perhaps connected with the operation in an as yet undisclosed fashion. Id., at 79-80. It was also said that the full scope of Giordano’s organization was not yet known. Id., at 80. Assertedly, Giordano was extremely guarded in his telephone conversations, “any specific narcotics conversations he makes are from pay phones” and “[conventional surveillance would be completely ineffective except as an adjunct to electronic interception.” Id., at 81. The United States accordingly requested an extension of the interception order for no longer than a 15-day period.
It is apparent from the foregoing that the communications intercepted pursuant to the extension order were evidence derived from the communications invalidly intercepted pursuant to the' initial order. In the' first place, the application sought and the order granted authority to intercept the communications of various named individuals not mentioned in the initial order. It is plain from the affidavit submitted that information about most of these persons was obtained through the-initial illegal interceptions. It is equally plain that the telephone monitoring and accompanying surveillance were coordinated operations, necessarily intertwined. As the Government' asserted, the surveillance and conventional investigative techniques “would, be completely ineffective except as an adjunct to electronic interception.” That the extension order and the interceptions under it were not in fact the product of the earlier electronic surveillance is incredible.
Second, an extension order could validly be granted only upon an application complying with subsection (1) of §2518. Subsection (1) (e) requires that the fact of prior applications and orders be rev.ealed, and (1) (f) directs that the application set out either the results obtained under the prior order or an explanation for the absence of such results. Plainly the function of § 2518 (1) (f) is to permit the court realistically to appraise the probability that relevant conversations will be overheard in the future. If during the initial period, no communications of the kind, that had been anticipated had been overheard, the Act. requires an adequate explanation for the failure before the necessary findings can be made as a predicate to an extension order. But here there were results, and they were set out in great detail. Had they been omitted no extension order at all could have been granted; but with them, there were sufficient facts to warrant the trial court's finding, in accordance with §2518 (3) (b), of probable cause to believe that wire communications concerning the offenses involved “will be obtained through the interception,” App. 83, as well as.the finding complying with §2518 (3) (d) that there was probable cause to believe that Giordano’s telephone “has been used, is being used, and will be used, in connection with the commission of the offenses described above and is commonly used by Nicholas Giordano...” and nine other named persons. Ibid.
It is urged in dissent that the information obtained from the illegal October 16 interception order may be ignored and that the remaining evidence submitted in the extension application was sufficient to support the extensión order. But whether or not the application, without the facts obtained from monitoring Giordano’s telephone, would independently support original wiretap authority, the Act itself forbids extensions of prior authorizations without consideration of the results meanwhile obtained. Obviously, those results were presented, considered, and relied on in this case. Moreover, as previously noted, the Government itself had stated that the wire interception was an indispensable factor in its investigation and that ordinary surveillance alone would have been insufficient: In our view, the results of the conversations overheard under the initial order were essential, both in fact and in law, to any extension of the intercept authority. Accordingly, communications intercepted under the extension order are derivative evidence and must be suppressed. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
[For concurring* opinion of Mr. Justice Douglas, see post, p. 580.]
APPENDIX TO OPINION. OF THE COURT
Relevant Provisions of Title III, Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 18 U. S. C. §§ 2510-2520
§ 2511. interception and disclosure of wire or oral communications prohibited.
(1) Except as otherwise specifically provided in this chapter any person who—
(a) willfully intercepts, endeavors to intercept, or procures any other person to intercept or endeavor to intercept, any wire or oral communication;
(b) willfully uses, endeavors to use, or procures any other person to use or endeavor to use- any electronic, mechanical, or other device to intercept any oral communication when—
(i) such device is affixed to, or otherwise transmits a signal through, a wire, cable, or other like connection used in wire communication; or
(ii) such device transmits communications by radio, or interferes with the transmission of such communication; or
(iii) such person knows,, or has reason to know, that such device or any component thereof has been sent through the mail or transported in interstate or foreign commerce; or
(iv) such use or endeavor to use (A) takes place on the premises of any business pr other commercial establishment the operations of which affect interstate or foreign commerce; or (B) obtains or is for the purpose of obtaining information relating to the operations of any business or other commercial establishment the operations of which affect interstate or foreign commerce; or
(v) such person acts in the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of'Puerto Rico, or any territory or possession of the United States;
(c) willfully discloses, or. endeavors to disclose, to any other person the contents of any wire or oral communication, knowing or having reason to know that the information was obtained through the interception of a wire or oral communication in violation of this subsection; or.
,(d) willfully uses, or endeavors to use, the contents of any wire or oral communication, knowing or having reason to know that the information was obtained through the interception of a wire or oral communication in violation of this subsection;
shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
(2) (a) (i) It shall not be unlawful under this chapter for an operator of a switchboard, or an officer, employee, or agent of any communication common carrier, whose facilities are used in the transmission of a wire communication, to intercept, disclose, or use that communication in the normal course of his employment while engaged in any activity which is a necessary incident to the rendition of his service or to the protection of the rights or property of the carrier of such communication: Provided, That said communication common carriers shall not utilize service observing or random monitoring except for mechanical or service quality control checks.
(ii) It shall not be unlawful undér this chapter for an officer, employee, or agent of any communication common carrier to provide information, facilities, or technical assistance to an investigative or law enforcement officer who, pursuant to this chapter, is authorized to intercept a wire or oral communication.
(b) It shall not be unlawful under this chapter for an officer, employee, or agent of the Federal Communications Commission,, in the normal course of his employment and in discharge of the monitoring responsibilities exercised.by the Commission in the enforcement of chapter.5 of title 47. of the United States Code, to intercept a wire communication, or oral communication transmitted by radio, or to disclose or use the information thereby obtained.
(e) It shall not be unlawful under this, chapter for a person acting under color of law to intercept a wire or oral communication, where such person is a party to the communication of one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to such interception.
(d) It shall not be unlawful under this chapter for a person not acting under color of law to intercept a wire or oral communication where such person is a party to the communication or where one of the partiés to the communication has given priqr consent to such interception unless such communication is intercepted for the purpose of committing any criminal or tortious act in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States or of any State or for the purpose of committing any other injurious act.
(3) Nothing contained in this chapter or in section 605 of the Communications Act of 1934 (48 Stat. 1143; 47 U. S. C. 605) shall

Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:

Answer: A