Opinion ID: 184613
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Switchboard Operator and Provider Exception

Text: 18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(a)(i) (1994) provides: 27 It shall not be unlawful under this chapter for an operator of a switchboard, or an officer, employee, or agent of a provider of wire ... communication service, 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 that service, except that a provider of wire communication service to the public shall not utilize service observing or random monitoring except for mechanical or service quality control checks. 28 (Emphasis added). The government claims this exception covers the actions of the Watch Officer defendants who actually overheard Berry's conversations and that if their interception and use was legal, it then follows that the subsequent use and disclosure by others would not be illegal. Berry responds that the exception does not apply, because, again, it cannot possibly be deemed in the normal course of a Watch Officer's employment to engage in any monitoring contrary to the guidelines. As we have indicated in the discussion above, we agree with this proposition, but do not think the exception applies here regardless of the Watch Officers' normal practices. A switchboard operator is authorized to overhear (and disclose and use) only that part of a conversation which is a necessary incident to the rendition of his service. We think it rather obvious from the statutory language that Congress recognized switchboard operators, when connecting calls, inevitably would overhear a small part of a call, but the exception permitting them to use that content is limited only to that moment or so during which the operator must listen to be sure the call is placed. (It has been held that the operator also may stay on the line on those rare occasions when he hears something troubling during that moment, such as the planning of a murder.) See, e.g., Adams v. Sumner, 39 F.3d 933 (9th Cir.1994); United States v. Axselle, 604 F.2d 1330 (10th Cir.1979); United States v. Savage, 564 F.2d 728 (5th Cir.1977). In short, the switchboard operator, performing only the switchboard function, is never authorized simply to monitor calls. 29 The government, pointing to the last part of the clause--except that a provider of wire communication service to the public shall not utilize service observing or random monitoring except for mechanical or service quality control checks (emphasis added)--asserts that the negative implication of that wording indicates that non-providers can monitor at will, presumably to their hearts' content. We think that construction is quite strained and unpersuasive. The clause actually recognizes two exceptions, one for switchboard operators of all kinds 7 and the second for employees of public providers of wire communications service, like inter-exchange or local carriers. The provider's employees might be obliged to monitor calls considerably beyond the incidental overhearing by a switchboard operator. The part which pertains to the provider then is obviously designed to insure the carrier engages in service observing or random monitoring only to check for quality control. But there is not even a suggestion in the clause that a switchboard operator acting as a switchboard operator can ever engage in any random monitoring--let alone for other than quality control.