Opinion ID: 799453
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Eavesdropping Statute Likely Fails Intermediate Scrutiny

Text: The Supreme Court uses several variations of intermediate scrutiny in its free-speech cases. When an intermediate standard of review applies in the campaign-finance contextfor example, when the Court reviews limits on contributions to candidatesthe challenged law must be closely drawn to serve a sufficiently important interest.... Ariz. Free Enter. Club, 131 S.Ct. at 2817 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Doe v. Reed, ___ U.S. ___, 130 S.Ct. 2811, 2818, 177 L.Ed.2d 493 (2010). In commercial-speech cases, the government must establish that the challenged statute directly advances a substantial governmental interest and that the measure is drawn to achieve that interest. Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc., ___ U.S. ___, 131 S.Ct. 2653, 2667-68, 180 L.Ed.2d 544 (2011). Stated differently, intermediate scrutiny in this context requires a `fit' between the legislature's ends and the means chosen to accomplish those ends,... a fit that is not necessarily perfect, but reasonable; that represents not necessarily the single best disposition but one whose scope is in proportion to the interest served. Bd. of Trs. of State Univ. of N.Y. v. Fox, 492 U.S. 469, 480, 109 S.Ct. 3028, 106 L.Ed.2d 388 (1989) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Under the Court's speech-forum doctrine, a regulatory measure may be permissible as a time, place, or manner restriction if it is `justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech, ... narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest, ... and... leave[s] open ample alternative channels for communication of the information.' Ward, 491 U.S. at 791, 109 S.Ct. 2746 (quoting Clark v. Cmty. for Creative Non-Violence, 468 U.S. 288, 293, 104 S.Ct. 3065, 82 L.Ed.2d 221 (1984)). Though stated in different terms, these intermediate-scrutiny standards share certain essential elements in common. All require (1) content neutrality (content-based regulations are presumptively invalid); (2) an important public-interest justification for the challenged regulation; and (3) a reasonably close fit between the law's means and its ends. This last requirement means that the burden on First Amendment rights must not be greater than necessary to further the important governmental interest at stake. See Fox, 492 U.S. at 480, 109 S.Ct. 3028; Ward, 491 U.S. at 799, 109 S.Ct. 2746; see also O'Brien, 391 U.S. at 376-77, 88 S.Ct. 1673 (stating an alternative formulation of intermediate scrutiny). As we have explained, the eavesdropping statute probably satisfies the requirement of content neutrality. As applied here, however, it very likely fails the rest of the test. The State's Attorney defends the law as necessary to protect conversational privacy. This is easily an important governmental interest. Bartnicki v. Vopper, 532 U.S. 514, 532, 121 S.Ct. 1753, 149 L.Ed.2d 787 (2001) (Privacy of communication is an important interest....). Indeed, the protection of personal conversational privacy serves First Amendment interests because fear of public disclosure of private conversations might well have a chilling effect on private speech. Id. at 533, 121 S.Ct. 1753. At common law, actionable invasion of privacy takes several forms: (1) an unreasonable intrusion upon the seclusion of another; (2) appropriation of another's name or likeness; (3) unreasonable publicity given to another's private life; and (4) publicity that unreasonably places another in a false light before the public. RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS § 652A; Wolfe v. Schaefer, 619 F.3d 782, 784 (7th Cir.2010); Desnick v. Am. Broad. Cos., 44 F.3d 1345, 1353 (7th Cir.1995); Haynes v. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 8 F.3d 1222, 1229 (7th Cir. 1993). In Fourth Amendment law, there is no talisman that determines in all cases those privacy expectations that society is prepared to accept as reasonable. O'Connor v. Ortega, 480 U.S. 709, 715, 107 S.Ct. 1492, 94 L.Ed.2d 714 (1987) (plurality opinion); see also Orin S. Kerr, Four Models of Fourth Amendment Protection, 60 STAN. L.REV. 503 (2007) (discussing different understandings of privacy). But surreptitiously accessing the private communications of another by way of trespass or nontrespassory wiretapping or use of an electronic listening device clearly implicates recognized privacy expectations. See United States v. Jones, ___ U.S. ___, 132 S.Ct. 945, 945-52, 181 L.Ed.2d 911 (2012); Bartnicki, 532 U.S. at 526, 121 S.Ct. 1753; Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351-52, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967). Simply put, these privacy interests are not at issue here. The ACLU wants to openly audio record police officers performing their duties in public places and speaking at a volume audible to bystanders. Communications of this sort lack any reasonable expectation of privacy for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. See Katz, 389 U.S. at 351, 88 S.Ct. 507 (What a person knowingly exposes to the public... is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection.); id. at 361, 88 S.Ct. 507 (Harlan, J., concurring) ([C]onversations in the open would not be protected against being overheard, for the expectation of privacy under the circumstances would be unreasonable.). Dissemination of these communications would not be actionable in tort. See RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS §§ 652B, 652D (explaining the elements of the different invasion-of-privacy torts). [12] Of course, the First Amendment does not prevent the Illinois General Assembly from enacting greater protection for conversational privacy than the common-law tort remedy provides. Nor is the legislature limited to using the Fourth Amendment reasonable expectation of privacy doctrine as a benchmark. But by legislating this broadlyby making it a crime to audio record any conversation, even those that are not in fact privatethe State has severed the link between the eavesdropping statute's means and its end. Rather than attempting to tailor the statutory prohibition to the important goal of protecting personal privacy, Illinois has banned nearly all audio recording without consent of the partiesincluding audio recording that implicates no privacy interests at all. The ACLU's proposed audio recording will be otherwise lawfulthat is, not disruptive of public order or safety, and carried out by people who have a legal right to be in a particular public location and to watch and listen to what is going on around them. The State's Attorney concedes that the ACLU's observers may lawfully watch and listen to the officers' public communications, take still photographs, make video recordings with microphones switched off, or take shorthand notes and transcribe the conversations or otherwise reconstruct the dialogue later. The ACLU may post all of this information on the internet or forward it to news outlets, all without violating the Illinois eavesdropping statute. The State's Attorney has not identified a substantial governmental interest that is served by banning audio recording of these same conversations. We acknowledge the difference in accuracy and immediacy that an audio recording provides as compared to notes or even silent videos or transcripts. But in terms of the privacy interests at stake, the difference is not sufficient to justify criminalizing this particular method of preserving and publishing the public communications of these public officials. The State's Attorney insists that the broad reach of the statute is necessary to remove[] incentives for interception of private conversations and minimize[] the harm to persons whose conversations have been illegally intercepted. At the risk of repeating ourselves, this case has nothing to do with private conversations or surreptitious interceptions. We accept Judge Posner's point that private talk in public places is common. Dissent at 613. But the communications in question here do not fall into this category; they are not conversations that carry privacy expectations even though uttered in public places. Moreover, the ACLU plans to record openly, thus giving the police and others notice that they are being recorded. [13] The State's Attorney also argues that the statute endeavors to [1.] encourage that civilians candidly speak with law enforcement, including those conversations conditioned on confidentiality; [2.] limit opportunities of the general public from gaining access to matters of national and local security; and [3.] reduce the likelihood of provoking persons during officers' mercurial encounters. These interests are not threatened here. Anyone who wishes to speak to police officers in confidence can do so; private police-civilian communications are outside the scope of this case. Police discussions about matters of national and local security do not take place in public where bystanders are within earshot; the State's Attorney has made no effort to connect this law-enforcement concern to the communications at issue here. It goes without saying that the police may take all reasonable steps to maintain safety and control, secure crime scenes and accident sites, and protect the integrity and confidentiality of investigations. While an officer surely cannot issue a move on order to a person because he is recording, the police may order bystanders to disperse for reasons related to public safety and order and other legitimate law-enforcement needs. See, e.g., Colten v. Kentucky, 407 U.S. 104, 109, 92 S.Ct. 1953, 32 L.Ed.2d 584 (1972) (rejecting a First Amendment right to congregate on the side of a highway and observe the issuance of a traffic ticket). Nothing we have said here immunizes behavior that obstructs or interferes with effective law enforcement or the protection of public safety. Because the eavesdropping statute is not closely tailored to the government's interest in protecting conversational privacy, we need not decide whether it leaves open adequate alternative channels for this kind of speech (assuming that this factoran aspect of speech-forum analysiseven applies in this context). See Saieg v. City of Dearborn, 641 F.3d 727, 740 (6th Cir.2011) (The requirements for a time, place, and manner restriction are conjunctive. (citing Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc'y v. Village of Stratton, 536 U.S. 150, 168-69, 122 S.Ct. 2080, 153 L.Ed.2d 205 (2002))). We note, however, that audio and audiovisual recording are uniquely reliable and powerful methods of preserving and disseminating news and information about events that occur in public. Their self-authenticating character makes it highly unlikely that other methods could be considered reasonably adequate substitutes. Before closing, a brief response to a couple of points in the dissent. Our decision will not, as Judge Posner suggests, cast[] a shadow over the electronic privacy statutes of other states. Dissent at 609. As we have explained, the Illinois statute is a national outlier. See Alderman, Police Privacy in the iPhone Era?, supra note 4, at 533-45 (collecting state statutes). Most state electronic privacy statutes apply only to private conversations; that is, they contain (or are construed to include) an expectation-of-privacy requirement that limits their scope to conversations that carry a reasonable expectation of privacy. Others apply only to wiretapping, and some ban only surreptitious recording. Id. Indeed, the California statute discussed in the dissent is explicitly limited to confidential communications, a term specifically defined to exclude the kind of communications at issue here. If the Illinois statute contained a similar limitation, the link to the State's privacy justification would be much stronger. The dissent also takes us to task for giving insufficient consideration to the privacy interests of civilians who communicate with the police and for failing to grasp the extent to which people say things in public that they don't expect others around them to be listening to, let alone recording for later broadcasting. Dissent at 613. To the contrary, we have acknowledged the importance of conversational privacy and heeded the basic distinction drawn in Katz that some conversations in public places implicate privacy and others do not. See Katz, 389 U.S. at 351, 88 S.Ct. 507. Again, the privacy interests that may justify banning audio recording are not limited to those that the Fourth Amendment secures against governmental intrusion. But the Illinois eavesdropping statute obliterates the distinction between private and nonprivate by criminalizing all nonconsensual audio recording regardless of whether the communication is private in any sense. 720 ILL. COMP. STAT. 5/14-1(d). If protecting privacy is the justification for this law, then the law must be more closely tailored to serve that interest in order to avoid trampling on speech and press rights. For these reasons, we conclude that the ACLU has a strong likelihood of success on the merits of its First Amendment claim. The Illinois eavesdropping statute restricts an expressive medium used for the preservation and dissemination of information and ideas. On the factual premises of this case, the statute does not serve the important governmental interest of protecting conversational privacy; applying the statute in the circumstances alleged here is likely unconstitutional. Accordingly, we reverse and remand with the following instructions: The district court shall reopen the case and allow the amended complaint; enter a preliminary injunction enjoining the State's Attorney from applying the Illinois eavesdropping statute against the ACLU and its employees or agents who openly audio record the audible communications of law-enforcement officers (or others whose communications are incidentally captured) when the officers are engaged in their official duties in public places; and conduct such further proceedings as are consistent with this opinion. REVERSED AND REMANDED WITH INSTRUCTIONS.