Opinion ID: 3148968
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Unauthorized Disclosure

Text: The SCA dictates that—except as otherwise permitted—a service provider “shall not knowingly divulge a record or other information pertaining to a subscriber to or customer of such service . . . to any governmental entity.” 18 U.S.C. § 2702(a)(3). But, the exceptions that follow expressly permit a provider to divulge such records or information when, among other things, it is “otherwise authorized in section 2703.” 18 U.S.C. § 2702(c)(1); see also id. at § 2702(c)(2)- (6) (other exceptions). As amended, § 2703 provides, in relevant part, that a governmental entity may require a service provider to disclose a subset of basic subscriber or customer information— including name, address, phone number, and length of service—“when the governmental entity uses [1] an administrative subpoena authorized by a Federal or State statute or [2] a Federal or State grand jury or trial subpoena[.]” 18 U.S.C. § 2703(c)(2) (as amended). Reading these provisions together, and given that no defect was alleged with respect to the grand jury subpoena in this case, we assume that TWC would have been authorized to disclose the basic subscriber information associated with the .170 IP address in response to that subpoena. As plaintiffs alleged, however, TWC mistakenly disclosed the subscriber information associated with plaintiffs’ .70 IP address instead. TWC’s error was allegedly made in the course of retrieving the information to be disclosed (i.e., “running the IP address”). Notably, plaintiffs have not alleged any facts (or argued that there are any facts) to suggest that TWC was aware of the error at the time of the disclosure. The district court found plaintiffs had alleged that “TWC made a mistake, a typographical error, in responding to the subpoena.” Long, 2014 WL 4425738, at . Our de novo review of the complaint confirms that there are no facts from which we may infer that TWC’s unauthorized disclosure of plaintiffs’ information was the result of 2 The parties do not dispute that TWC was a provider of an electronic communication service to the public within the meaning of the SCA. See 18 U.S.C. § 2711(1) (“‘electronic communication service’ means any service which provides to users thereof the ability to send or receive wire or electronic communications”) (incorporating definition from 18 U.S.C. § 2510(15)). As such, it is immaterial whether TWC was also a provider of a remote computing service as defined in 18 U.S.C. § 2711(2). Also, it is evident that the Ohio BCI comes within the definition of a “governmental entity.” See 18 U.S.C. § 2711(4) (“the term ‘governmental entity’ means a department or agency of the United States or any State or political subdivision thereof”). No. 14-3996 Long, et al. v Insight Communications Page 6 anything other than inadvertence or negligence. Accepting these well-pleaded facts as true, we turn to the question of whether plaintiffs have stated a plausible claim for relief under the SCA.