Opinion ID: 184613
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Prior Consent Exception

Text: 30 The statute authorizes the interception of wire communications where ... one [331 U.S.App.D.C. 70] of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to such interception. 18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(c) & (d) (1994). And it has been uniformly held that implicit consent will satisfy. See Griggs-Ryan v. Smith, 904 F.2d 112, 116-18 (1st Cir.1990); United States v. Willoughby, 860 F.2d 15, 19 (2d Cir.1988). Berry claimed that neither he nor Tamposi ever consented to the monitoring of their calls. The government argues, however, that they did know (or should have known) that Watch Officers, as part of their duties, listened to conversations. They particularly fault Berry for not alleging that the operators told him they were dropping off the line after the calls were placed. The government's argument presumably is that as a matter of law any reasonable person would assume that an operator stayed on the line if not told otherwise. We think that proposition is absurd. 31 Implied consent, to be sure, is inferred 'from surrounding circumstances indicating that the [party] knowingly agreed to the surveillance.'  Griggs-Ryan, 904 F.2d at 117 (quoting United States v. Amen, 831 F.2d 373, 378 (2d Cir.1987)). The key question in such an inquiry obviously is whether parties were given sufficient notice. Compare Griggs-Ryan, 904 F.2d at 118 (implied consent where prison inmate was expressly informed that incoming calls were being monitored), with Campiti v. Walonis, 611 F.2d 387, 393 (1st Cir.1979) (no implied consent where regulations did not inform inmates of monitoring). Without actual notice, consent can only be implied when [t]he surrounding circumstances [ ] convincingly show that the party knew about and consented to the interception. United States v. Lanoue, 71 F.3d 966, 981 (1st Cir.1995) (emphasis added). 32 The government may be able to establish that Berry was aware that the Operations Center had the capacity to monitor calls. But appellees have introduced no evidence that either he or Tamposi was told that these specific conversations would be monitored. Nor do we think that the circumstances surrounding these conversations remotely suggest that Berry or Tamposi knew about the interceptions. (Recall that the Operation Center's guidelines explicitly directed Watch Officers not to monitor unless the parties to the conversation so requested.) We certainly cannot conclude that an operator's failure to inform a party that he is getting off the line normally raises a suspicion in a reasonable person's mind that his call is being monitored. The question of implied consent thus raises a genuine issue of material fact that is not appropriately decided on summary judgment. See In re State Police Litig., 888 F.Supp. 1235, 1265 (D.Conn.1995).