Opinion ID: 202810
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Application of Bartnicki to Jean's Circumstances

Text: As a preliminary matter, we note that, like the statutes in question in Bartnicki, section 99 is a content-neutral law of general applicability, id. at 526, 121 S.Ct. 1753. It does not distinguish based on the content of the intercepted conversations, nor is it justified by reference to the content of those conversations. Id. Like the delivery of the recording in Bartnicki, which the Court analogized to the delivery of a handbill or a pamphlet, id. at 527, 121 S.Ct. 1753, section 99's prohibition against disclosure also constitutes a regulation of pure speech. As did the Court in Bartnicki, we consider the interests implicated by the disclosure of the information. With respect to the state's interest in protecting the privacy of its citizens, the privacy interests discussed in Bartnicki are less compelling here. Bartnicki emphasized the importance of encouraging the uninhibited exchange of ideas and information among private parties, id. at 532, 121 S.Ct. 1753, and of avoiding the `[f]ear or suspicion that one's speech is being monitored by a stranger,' id. at 533, 121 S.Ct. 1753 (quoting President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society 202 (1967)). This interest in protecting private communication is clearly implicated by the interception of a private cell phone conversation in Bartnicki. However, this interest is virtually irrelevant here, where the intercepted communications involve a search by police officers of a private citizen's home in front of that individual, his wife, other members of the family, and at least eight law enforcement officers. Moreover, the state's interest in deterring illegal interception by punishing a subsequent publisher of information  already accorded little weight by the Court in Bartnicki  receives even less weight here, where the identity of the interceptor is known. In Bartnicki, the government argued that punishing a subsequent publisher of information remov[es] an incentive for parties to intercept private conversations by deterring would-be publishers of illegally intercepted material and thus reducing the demand for such material. Id. at 529-30 & n. 17, 121 S.Ct. 1753. This argument rested, in part, on the assumption that the interceptors themselves could not be punished because their identities usually were unknown. Unimpressed, the Court explained that the available evidence did not support this assumption of anonymity. First, the legislative record did not indicate that a significant number of interceptors were anonymous. Id. at 531 n. 17, 121 S.Ct. 1753. Moreover, fewer than ten of the 206 cases filed under § 2511 (the federal wiretap statute) involved an anonymous interceptor. Id. Thus, the Court concluded that the relatively small number of anonymous interceptors meant that it was not difficult to identify the persons responsible for illegal interceptions and, consequently, not necessary to prohibit disclosure by third parties with no connection to, or responsibility for, the initial illegality, id. Given this logic, there is a better argument for prosecuting a subsequent publisher of information when the interceptor is anonymous. In such a situation, the government is unable to punish the interceptor directly; punishing the subsequent publisher might be more justifiable as a deterrent. However, even after taking into account the anonymity of the interceptor in Bartnicki, the Court held that [a]lthough there are some rare occasions in which a law suppressing one party's speech may be justified by an interest in deterring criminal conduct by another, this is not such a case. Id. at 530, 121 S.Ct. 1753 (citation omitted). Thus, where, as here, the identity of the interceptor is known, there is even less justification for punishing a subsequent publisher than there was in Bartnicki. On the public interest side of the equation, the broad interest in permitting the publication of truthful information of public concern, described in Bartnicki, id. at 534-35, 121 S.Ct. 1753, applies here as well. The police do not deny that the event depicted on the recording  a warrantless and potentially unlawful search of a private residence  is a matter of public concern. The police also concede that, like the defendants in Bartnicki, Jean played no part in the illegal interception. Thus, the only possible ground for distinguishing this case from Bartnicki is the assertion of the police that Jean, unlike the defendants in Bartnicki, did not obtain the recording lawfully. The Massachusetts interception statute prohibits willfully commit[ting] an interception, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 272, § 99(C)(1), and willfully disclos[ing] . . . the contents of any wire or oral communication, knowing that the information was obtained through interception, id. § 99(C)(3). It likewise forbids permit[ting], participat[ing] in a conspiracy to commit, or acting as an accessory to a person who commits a violation of another subsection of the statute. Id. § 99(C)(6). By willfully recording his arrest and then giving the recording to Jean, Pechonis arguably would have violated both section 99(C)(1) and section 99(C)(3). Thus, the police argue, by voluntarily accepting the tape from Pechonis and then disseminating it, Jean assisted, conspired, or served as an accessory to Pechonis' violation of section 99(C)(3) and thereby independently violated section 99(C)(6). Elaborating on this point, the police contend that the disseminator's knowledge, when she obtains the tape, of the interceptor's identity and of the unlawfulness of the interception is determinative of whether she has obtained it lawfully or unlawfully for purposes of a Bartnicki analysis. They emphasize that, in Bartnicki, the tape was placed anonymously in Yocum's mailbox, and Yocum received the tape without knowing its contents until after he played it. 532 U.S. at 519, 121 S.Ct. 1753. Thus, they argue, [t]he break in the chain between the interceptor and the defendants became the pivotal point in the Court's balancing of interests because the break meant that the defendants had not obtained the tape unlawfully. In contrast, Jean knowingly participated in [Pechonis'] disclosure and became the essential but-for first link in the chain. In short, appellants insist that the essential distinction between this case and Bartnicki  was that [i]n Bartnicki, the interceptor had already disseminated the tape before Yocum passively received it and disseminated it further;. . . . In the present case, it was Jean's active collaboration with Pechonis that made his unlawful dissemination possible in the first instance. We will assume that Jean's conduct, viewed through the prism of section 99(C)(3) and section 99(C)(6), may have been unlawful under the Massachusetts statute. She disclosed to others the contents of an oral communication that she knew had been recorded illegally, and she arguably participated with Pechonis in a conspiracy to disclose the content of the illegally recorded oral communication. However, whether Jean's conduct fell within the statute is not determinative  indeed, we note that the conduct of both Yocum and Vopper in Bartnicki would have fallen within this statute. Rather, the determinative question is whether the First Amendment, as applied by the Supreme Court in Bartnicki, permits Massachusetts to criminalize Jean's conduct. On this question, we find the arguments of the police unpersuasive. The police note correctly that, in Bartnicki, Yocum did not realize that the tape had been recorded illegally at the time he received it in his mailbox. Yocum's knowledge of the illegality of the interception arose only later, when he listened to the tape. Although the police argue that this delay between the receipt of the tape and the recognition of its illegality caused a critical break in the chain, the Supreme Court attached no significance to Yocum's receipt of the tape without knowledge of its contents. If the disconnect in time between the receipt of the tape and the later recognition that the tape had been recorded illegally was critical to the premise that Yocum had obtained the tape lawfully, the Court would have distinguished between Yocum and Vopper, who received the tape directly from Yocum and thus knew the tape had been recorded illegally at the time that he received it. Id. at 519, 121 S.Ct. 1753. Yet the Court explicitly stated that it found no distinction between Yocum and Vopper. Id. at 525 n. 8, 121 S.Ct. 1753. Like Vopper, Jean already had reason to know that the tape was illegally intercepted at the time that she received it; consequently, the Court's conclusion that Vopper obtained the tape lawfully applies equally to Jean. The police still insist on a distinction between Jean and the defendants in Bartnicki because Jean's active collaboration with Pechonis as the essential first link in the chain of dissemination distinguishes this case from Bartnicki. They contend that Jean had the opportunity to prevent the dissemination and that no one farther down the chain would have the same opportunity. We also find this distinction unpersuasive. Critically, in Bartnicki, Yocum had the opportunity to prevent further disclosure. Although he did not know the tape was illegally intercepted when he received it, he had that knowledge at the time he disclosed the tape to the school board and Vopper. Thus, both Yocum and Jean could have prevented further dissemination by refusing to disclose the tape. In light of this similarity, the fact that Yocum received the tape passively and Jean received the tape actively is a distinction without a difference: both made the decision to proceed with their disclosures knowing that the tape was illegally intercepted, yet the Supreme Court held in Bartnicki that such a knowing disclosure is protected by the First Amendment. Our conclusion is further supported by the D.C. Circuit's recent decision in Boehner v. McDermott, 484 F.3d 573 (D.C.Cir. 2007)(en banc). In Boehner, Alice and John Martin illegally intercepted a cell phone conversation between Representative John Boehner and several House Republican leaders. The Martins delivered a tape of the conversation, accompanied by a typed letter explaining the nature of its contents, to the office of Representative James McDermott, the ranking Democrat on the House Ethics Committee, who, [a]fter conversing with the Martins, . . . accepted the envelope. Id. at 576 McDermott listened to the tape that evening and disclosed it to various newspapers the following day. Boehner subsequently filed a complaint against McDermott seeking damages for violations of federal and state wiretapping statutes. Following a lengthy procedural history, [4] the D.C. Circuit heard the case en banc. The majority held that Representative McDermott's position on the Ethics Committee imposed a `special' duty on him not to disclose the tape in these circumstances, id. at 579, and thus he had no First Amendment right to disclose the tape to the media, id. at 579. The majority explicitly distinguished Bartnicki, explaining that the case has little to say about McDermott's special duty because [t]he individuals who disclosed the tape in [ Bartnicki ] were private citizens who did not occupy positions of trust. Id. at 579. Importantly, however, a majority of the members of the Court . . . would have found [McDermott's] actions protected by the First Amendment if he were not subject to a special duty as a member of the Ethics Committee. Id. at 580 (Griffith, J., concurring); see also id. at 581 (Sentelle, J., dissenting). [5] In other words, if McDermott had been a private citizen, like Jean, the court would have concluded that his disclosure of the tape was subject to First Amendment protection regardless of the fact that he received the tape directly from the Martins and thus served as the first link in the chain leading to publication. Returning to Bartnicki, the police make a final attempt to distinguish the instant case by contending that language in Justice Breyer's concurring opinion, joined by Justice O'Connor, differentiates that case from the situation at hand. They cite the concurrence's statement that [n]o one claims that [defendants] ordered, counseled, encouraged, or otherwise aided or abetted the interception, the later delivery of the tape by the interceptor to an intermediary, or the tape's still later delivery by the intermediary to the media, Bartnicki, 532 U.S. at 538, 121 S.Ct. 1753 (Breyer, J., concurring)(emphasis added). The precise scope of the emphasized language is uncertain, and the police argue that Jean's knowing acceptance of the tape constitutes aiding and abetting its delivery to an intermediary in the person of Jean herself. Ultimately, however, this language does not help the police. The concurrence also states plainly that the statutes do not forbid the receipt of the tape itself, id. at 538, 121 S.Ct. 1753. This statement indicates that Justice Breyer did not interpret 18 U.S.C. § 2511(c), in conjunction with the federal aiding and abetting statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2, to punish an individual's acceptance of a tape, even if that individual had reason to know that the tape's contents were illegally intercepted. Moreover, if he had interpreted the statute to forbid later disclosure of the tape by one who had lawfully received it, he could not have joined the majority opinion, which held that the defendants, who certainly aided the tape's later delivery by an intermediary to the media, did nothing unlawful. Thus, the concurring opinion offers no basis for distinguishing Jean's situation from that of the defendants in Bartnicki.