Opinion ID: 184613
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Business Extension Exception

Text: 21 For a communication to be intercepted under the terms of the statute, its contents must be acquired through the use of any electronic, mechanical, or other device. 18 U.S.C. § 2510(4) (1994). An electronic, mechanical, or other device, in turn, is defined as any device or apparatus which can be used to intercept a wire ... communication other than-- 22 (a) any telephone ... instrument, equipment or facility, or any component thereof, (i) furnished to the subscriber or user by a provider of wire ... communication service in the ordinary course of its business and being used by the subscriber or user in the ordinary course of its business .... 23 18 U.S.C. § 2510(5)(a) (1994) (emphasis added). The government argues no calls were intercepted within the meaning of the statute because both requirements of the business extension exemption were satisfied. The Operations Center telephone console which contains the monitoring capability was indisputably furnished by AT&T, a provider of wire service acting in the ordinary course of business, and was used by Watch Officers in the ordinary course of their business when they patched Berry's calls to and from Tamposi. The government, in other words, contends that merely because the intercepted call was a business call, monitoring it was ipso facto in the ordinary course of business. 24 Berry disputes that interpretation, which would allow a business to monitor any particular call whether or not it was its ordinary business practice and whether or not employees were on notice that their calls would be monitored. He argues, to the contrary, that employees always must be on actual notice, which would be impossible to establish here because the monitoring took place contrary to the Operation Center's guidelines, which, as we have noted, provided that calls should not be monitored unless so requested. 25 The Eleventh Circuit in Epps v. St. Mary's Hospital, 802 F.2d 412 (11th Cir.1986), on which the government relies, did seem to accept the general principle that any call whose subject is business, if monitored, is necessarily done in the ordinary course of business even if not authorized by a company monitoring policy and not known to employees. Id. at 416-17. We think that is too limited an interpretation of ordinary course of business. We are inclined to agree with the Fourth Circuit that if covert monitoring is to take place it must itself be justified by a valid business purpose, Sanders v. Robert Bosch Corp., 38 F.3d 736, 741 (4th Cir.1994), or, perhaps, at least must be shown to be undertaken normally. Here, there was no reason presented as to the need for secret monitoring nor was it shown to be routine. Putting aside whether, and under what circumstances, notice to employees is required, in this case the government's position is fatally [331 U.S.App.D.C. 69] undermined by the Operation Center guidelines which clearly indicate the norm of behavior the Watch Officers were to follow and which must be regarded as the ordinary course of business for the Center. We think very little of the government's contention that the phrase should not in the guidelines rather than shall not suggests that the Officers were free to disregard the guidelines and therefore normality is defined by that freedom. 26