Opinion ID: 799453
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Eavesdropping Statute Burdens Individual Speech and Press Rights

Text: Unlike the federal wiretapping statute and the eavesdropping laws of most other states, [4] the gravamen of the Illinois eavesdropping offense is not the secret interception or surreptitious recording of a private communication. Instead, the statute sweeps much more broadly, banning all audio recording of any oral communication absent consent of the parties regardless of whether the communication is or was intended to be private. The expansive reach of this statute is hard to reconcile with basic speech and press freedoms. For reasons we will explain, the First Amendment limits the extent to which Illinois may restrict audio and audiovisual recording of utterances that occur in public. [5] Audio and audiovisual recording are media of expression commonly used for the preservation and dissemination of information and ideas and thus are included within the free speech and free press guaranty of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Burstyn v. Wilson, 343 U.S. 495, 502, 72 S.Ct. 777, 96 L.Ed. 1098 (1952) (holding that movies are a protected form of speech). Laws that restrict the use of expressive media have obvious effects on speech and press rights; the Supreme Court has voiced particular concern with laws that foreclose an entire medium of expression. City of Ladue v. Gilleo, 512 U.S. 43, 55, 114 S.Ct. 2038, 129 L.Ed.2d 36 (1994) (collecting cases); see also Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844, 869-70, 117 S.Ct. 2329, 138 L.Ed.2d 874 (1997) (recognizing that the internet is a dynamic, multifaceted category of communication and that there is no basis for qualifying the level of First Amendment scrutiny that should be applied to this medium). The act of making an audio or audiovisual recording is necessarily included within the First Amendment's guarantee of speech and press rights as a corollary of the right to disseminate the resulting recording. The right to publish or broadcast an audio or audiovisual recording would be insecure, or largely ineffective, if the antecedent act of making the recording is wholly unprotected, as the State's Attorney insists. By way of a simple analogy, banning photography or note-taking at a public event would raise serious First Amendment concerns; a law of that sort would obviously affect the right to publish the resulting photograph or disseminate a report derived from the notes. The same is true of a ban on audio and audiovisual recording. This is a straightforward application of the principle that [l]aws enacted to control or suppress speech may operate at different points in the speech process. Citizens United v. FEC, ___ U.S. ___, 130 S.Ct. 876, 896, 175 L.Ed.2d 753 (2010). The Illinois eavesdropping statute regulates the use of a medium of expression; the Supreme Court has recognized that regulation of a medium [of expression] inevitably affects communication itself. City of Ladue, 512 U.S. at 48, 114 S.Ct. 2038 (invalidating an ordinance banning residential signs). Put differently, the eavesdropping statute operates at the front end of the speech process by restricting the use of a common, indeed ubiquitous, instrument of communication. Restricting the use of an audio or audiovisual recording device suppresses speech just as effectively as restricting the dissemination of the resulting recording. As our colleagues in the Ninth Circuit have observed, there is no fixed First Amendment line between the act of creating speech and the speech itself: Although writing and painting can be reduced to their constituent acts, and thus described as conduct, we have not attempted to disconnect the end product from the act of creation. Thus, we have not drawn a hard line between the essays John Peter Zenger published and the act of setting the type. Cf. Minneapolis Star & Tribune Co. v. Minn. Comm'r of Revenue, 460 U.S. 575, 582, 103 S.Ct. 1365, 75 L.Ed.2d 295 (1983) (holding that a tax on ink and paper burdens rights protected by the First Amendment). The process of expression through a medium has never been thought so distinct from the expression itself that we could disaggregate Picasso from his brushes and canvas, or that we could value Beethoven without the benefit of strings and woodwinds. In other words, we have never seriously questioned that the processes of writing words down on paper, painting a picture, and playing an instrument are purely expressive activities entitled to full First Amendment protection. Anderson v. City of Hermosa Beach, 621 F.3d 1051, 1061-62 (9th Cir.2010). This observation holds true when the expressive medium is mechanical rather than manual. For instance, [i]f the state were to prohibit the use of projectors without a license, First Amendment coverage would undoubtedly be triggered. This is not because projectors constitute speech acts, but because they are integral to the forms of interaction that comprise the genre of the cinema. Robert Post, Encryption Source Code and the First Amendment, 15 BERKELEY TECH. L.J. 713, 717 (2000). The Supreme Court's campaign-finance cases illustrate how laws of this sort trigger First Amendment scrutiny. The Court held long ago that campaign-finance regulations implicate core First Amendment interests because raising and spending money facilitates the resulting political speech. See Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 19, 96 S.Ct. 612, 46 L.Ed.2d 659 (1976) (per curiam) (restricting money spent on political communications necessarily reduces the quantity of expression by restricting the number of issues discussed, the depth of their exploration, and the size of the audience reached); see also Citizens United, 130 S.Ct. at 898 (invalidating the federal ban on corporate and union spending for political speech because the government may not repress speech by silencing certain voices at any of the various points in the speech process); McConnell v. FEC, 540 U.S. 93, 252, 124 S.Ct. 619, 157 L.Ed.2d 491 (2003) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (The right to speak would be largely ineffective if it did not include the right to engage in financial transactions that are the incidents of its exercise.); Nixon v. Shrink Mo. Gov't PAC, 528 U.S. 377, 400, 120 S.Ct. 897, 145 L.Ed.2d 886 (2000) (Breyer, J., concurring) ([A] decision to contribute money to a campaign is a matter of First Amendment concernnot because money is speech (it is not); but because it enables speech.). So too with laws that restrict audio recording. Audio and audiovisual recording are communication technologies, and as such, they enable speech. Criminalizing all nonconsensual audio recording necessarily limits the information that might later be published or broadcastwhether to the general public or to a single family member or friendand thus burdens First Amendment rights. If, as the State's Attorney would have it, the eavesdropping statute does not implicate the First Amendment at all, the State could effectively control or suppress speech by the simple expedient of restricting an early step in the speech process rather than the end result. We have no trouble rejecting that premise. Audio recording is entitled to First Amendment protection. [6] And here, the First Amendment interests are quite strong. On the factual premises of this case, the eavesdropping statute prohibits nonconsensual audio recording of public officials performing their official duties in public. `[T]here is practically universal agreement that a major purpose of' the First Amendment `was to protect the free discussion of governmental affairs'.... Ariz. Free Enter. Club's Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett, ___ U.S. ___, 131 S.Ct. 2806, 2828, 180 L.Ed.2d 664 (2011) (quoting Buckley, 424 U.S. at 14, 96 S.Ct. 612). This agreement `reflects our profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.' Id. at 2828-29 (quoting Buckley, 424 U.S. at 14, 96 S.Ct. 612, quoting New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270, 84 S.Ct. 710, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964)). Moreover, the First Amendment goes beyond protection of the press and self-expression of individuals to prohibit government from limiting the stock of information from which members of the public may draw. First Nat'l Bank of Bos. v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765, 783, 98 S.Ct. 1407, 55 L.Ed.2d 707 (1978). The freedom of speech and press `embraces at the least the liberty to discuss publicly and truthfully all matters of public concern without previous restraint or fear of subsequent punishment.' Id. at 767, 98 S.Ct. 1407 (quoting Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U.S. 88, 101-02, 60 S.Ct. 736, 84 L.Ed. 1093 (1940)). In this regard, the ACLU's challenge to the eavesdropping statute also draws on the principle that the First Amendment provides at least some degree of protection for gathering news and information, particularly news and information about the affairs of government. See Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U.S. 665, 681, 92 S.Ct. 2646, 33 L.Ed.2d 626 (1972). In Branzburg a news reporter claimed a First Amendment privilege to refuse to testify before a grand jury about his confidential sources. Id. at 667, 92 S.Ct. 2646. The reporter argued that without an implied testimonial privilege, the right of the press to collect and disseminate news would be undermined. Id. at 698, 92 S.Ct. 2646. The Court rejected this claim, but before doing so it made the following general observation: The heart of the claim is that the burden on news gathering resulting from compelling reporters to disclose confidential information outweighs any public interest in obtaining the information [by grand-jury subpoena]. We do not question the significance of free speech, press, or assembly to the country's welfare. Nor is it suggested that news gathering does not qualify for First Amendment protection; without some protection for seeking out the news, freedom of the press could be eviscerated. Id. at 681, 92 S.Ct. 2646. The Court declined to fashion a special journalists' privilege for essentially two reasons. First, the Court relied on the general principle that the First Amendment does not invalidate every incidental burdening of the press that may result from the enforcement of civil or criminal statutes of general applicability. Id. at 682, 92 S.Ct. 2646. By this the Court meant that otherwise valid laws serving substantial public interests may be enforced against the press as against others, despite the possible burden that may be imposed. Id. at 682-83, 92 S.Ct. 2646 (emphasis added). Stated differently, the institutional press `has no special immunity from the application of general laws.' Id. at 683, 92 S.Ct. 2646 (quoting Associated Press v. NLRB, 301 U.S. 103, 132-33, 57 S.Ct. 650, 81 L.Ed. 953 (1937)). Second, the Court held that the public interest in detecting, punishing, and deterring crime was much stronger than the marginal increase in the flow of news about crime that a journalist's testimonial privilege might provide. See id. at 700-01, 92 S.Ct. 2646. We will return to the point about generally applicable laws in a moment. For now, it is enough to note that the Court did not use that principle to reject the reporter's claim out of hand. Instead, the Court evaluated the State's demand for the reporter's testimony against the First Amendment interests at stake and held that the public's interest in obtaining `every man's evidence' justified the incidental burden on First Amendment rights. Id. at 687, 92 S.Ct. 2646 (quoting United States v. Bryan, 339 U.S. 323, 331, 70 S.Ct. 724, 94 L.Ed. 884 (1950)). The Court specifically reserved the question whether in a particular case, a subpoena for a reporter's testimony might be a pretext for [o]fficial harassment of the press, a circumstance that would pose wholly different issues for resolution under the First Amendment. Id. at 707, 92 S.Ct. 2646. The Supreme Court has not elaborated much on its abstract observation in Branzburg that news gathering is not without its First Amendment protections. [7] Id. The Branzburg opinion itself suggests some caution in relying too heavily on the Court's discussion of a First Amendment right to gather news and information. See id. at 703-04, 92 S.Ct. 2646 (noting that an expansive judicially administered right to gather information would present practical and conceptual difficulties of a high order and embark the judiciary on a long and difficult journey with an uncertain destination). Still, the Court's observation that speech and press freedom includes, by implication, some protection for gathering information about the affairs of government is consistent with the historical understanding of the First Amendment. To the founding generation, the liberties of speech and press were intimately connected with popular sovereignty and the right of the people to see, examine, and be informed of their government. For example, in one of the most famous eighteenth-century essays on the freedom of speech, [8] Whig commentator Thomas Gordon explained: That Men ought to speak well of their Governours is true, while their Governours deserve to be well spoken of; but to do public Mischief, without hearing of it, is only the Prerogative and Felicity of Tyranny: A free People will be shewing that they are so, by their Freedom of Speech. The Administration of Government, is nothing else but the Attendance of the Trustees of the People upon the Interest and Affairs of the People: And as it is the Part and Business of the People, for whose Sake alone all public Matters are, or ought to be transacted, to see whether they be well or ill transacted; so it is the Interest, and ought to be the Ambition, of all honest Magistrates, to have their Deeds openly examined, and publicly scann'd. Silence Dogood No. 8, THE NEW-ENGLAND COURANT (Boston), July 9, 1722, reprinted in 1 THE PAPERS OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 28 (Leonard W. Labaree et al. eds., 1959) (quoting Cato's Letter No. 15 ). Other colonial writers stressed the necessity and right of the people to be informed of their governors' conduct so as to shape their own judgments on `Public Matters' and be qualified to choose their representatives. LEONARD W. LEVY, EMERGENCE OF A FREE PRESS 134 (2004). The Virginia General Assembly objected to the infamous Sedition Act of 1798 in part because it is levelled against that right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon. Virginia Resolutions of 1798, reprinted in 17 THE PAPERS OF JAMES MADISON 189-90 (David B. Mattern et al. eds., 1991) (emphasis added). In a subsequent report, James Madison explained that the Sedition Act had repressed that information and communication among the people, which is indispensable to the just exercise of their electoral rights. Virginia Report of 1800, reprinted in 17 THE PAPERS OF JAMES MADISON 343 (emphasis added). This understanding prevailed at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified. In his famous 1868 treatise on constitutional law, Thomas Cooley explained that a foremost purpose of the Constitution's guarantee of speech and press liberty is to secure the[] right to a free discussion of public events and public measures, and to enable every citizen at any time to bring the government and any person in authority to the bar of public opinion by any just criticism upon their conduct in the exercise of the authority which the people have conferred upon them. To guard against repressive measures by the several departments of government, by means of which persons in power might secure themselves and their favorites from just scrutiny and condemnation, was the general purpose.... The evils to be guarded against were not the censorship of the press merely, but any action of the government by means of which it might prevent such free and general discussion of public matters as seems absolutely essential to prepare the people for an intelligent exercise of their rights as citizens. THOMAS M. COOLEY, A TREATISE ON THE CONSTITUTIONAL LIMITATIONS 421-22 (1868) (emphasis added); see also Eugene Volokh, Freedom for the Press as an Industry, or for the Press as a Technology? From the Framing to Today, 160 U. PA. L.REV. 459 (2012) (collecting sources from the framing to the modern era); see generally AKHIL REED AMAR, THE BILL OF RIGHTS 20-26, 231-45 (1996) (explaining the structural role of speech and press rights based on founding-era and Reconstruction history). In short, the eavesdropping statute restricts a medium of expressionthe use of a common instrument of communication and thus an integral step in the speech process. As applied here, it interferes with the gathering and dissemination of information about government officials performing their duties in public. Any way you look at it, the eavesdropping statute burdens speech and press rights and is subject to heightened First Amendment scrutiny. The First Circuit agrees. In Glik v. Cunniffe, 655 F.3d 78, 79-81 (1st Cir.2011), the court considered a claim of qualified immunity in a damages suit brought by a bystander who was arrested for using his cell phone to record police officers making an arrest on the Boston Common. The bystander alleged that the officers violated his rights under the First Amendment; the First Circuit rejected the officers' defense of qualified immunity. Id. The court framed the issue this way: [I]s there is a constitutionally protected right to videotape police carrying out their duties in public? Id. at 82. The court held that [b]asic First Amendment principles, along with case law from this and other circuits, answer that question unambiguously in the affirmative. [9] Id. The court went on to conclude that the right to record the police was clearly established, resting its conclusion primarily on the Supreme Court's observations about the right to gather and disseminate information about government: Gathering information about government officials in a form that can readily be disseminated to others serves a cardinal First Amendment interest in protecting and promoting `the free discussion of governmental affairs.' Id. (quoting Mills v. Alabama, 384 U.S. 214, 218, 86 S.Ct. 1434, 16 L.Ed.2d 484 (1966)). [10] Before moving on, a few words about challenges to generally applicable laws. As we have noted, the Supreme Court's decision in Branzburg rested in part on the principle that a generally applicable law will not violate the First Amendment simply because its application has an incidental effect on speech or the press. 408 U.S. at 682, 92 S.Ct. 2646; see also Cohen v. Cowles Media Co., 501 U.S. 663, 669, 111 S.Ct. 2513, 115 L.Ed.2d 586 (1991) ([G]enerally applicable laws do not offend the First Amendment simply because their enforcement... has incidental effects on [the] ability to gather and report the news.); Arcara v. Cloud Books, Inc., 478 U.S. 697, 707, 106 S.Ct. 3172, 92 L.Ed.2d 568 (1986) ([T]he First Amendment is not implicated by the enforcement of a public health regulation of general application against the physical premises in which respondents happen to sell books.). It's important to note that the legal sanction at issue in Branzburg enforcement of a grand-jury subpoenawas not aimed at the exercise of speech or press rights as such. Likewise Cohen involved a claim by two newspapers for a special First Amendment immunity from damages liability for breach of a promise to keep a source's identity confidential. As in Branzburg, the Court rejected the claim of special press immunity and upheld the damages award against the newspapers. The Court observed that the doctrine of promissory estoppel is generally applicable and the enforcement of such general laws against the press is not subject to stricter scrutiny than would be applied to enforcement against other persons or organizations. Cohen, 501 U.S. at 670, 111 S.Ct. 2513. Branzburg and Cohen thus stand for the unremarkable proposition that the press does not enjoy a special constitutional exemption from generally applicable laws. Similarly, in Arcara the Court upheld a court order shutting down an adult bookstore pursuant to a state nuisance statute authorizing the closure of premises where prostitution is ongoing. The Court held that the First Amendment is not implicated by the enforcement of a public health regulation of general application against the physical premises in which respondents happen to sell books. 478 U.S. at 707, 106 S.Ct. 3172. The Court noted, however, that it would be a different case if the `nonspeech' which drew sanction was intimately related to expressive conduct protected under the First Amendment. Id. at 706 n. 3, 106 S.Ct. 3172. Instead, the nonspeech that was subject to general public-health regulation in Arcara operating an establishment where prostitution is carried onbears absolutely no connection to any expressive activity, notwithstanding that the establishment is also a bookstore. Id. at 707 n. 3, 106 S.Ct. 3172. On the other hand, in Barnes v. Glen Theatre, Inc., 501 U.S. 560, 111 S.Ct. 2456, 115 L.Ed.2d 504 (1991), the Court applied First Amendment scrutiny to Indiana's public-indecency statute as applied to establishments that offer nude dancing. The Court observed that nude dancing of the kind sought to be performed here is expressive conduct within the outer perimeters of the First Amendment, though we view it as only marginally so. Id. at 566, 111 S.Ct. 2456. Applying the intermediate standard of review established in United States v. O'Brien, 391 U.S. 367, 376-77, 88 S.Ct. 1673, 20 L.Ed.2d 672 (1968), the Court upheld Indiana's modest requirement that dancers wear a modicum of clothing (pasties and G-strings) because that requirement served a substantial government interest in protecting order and morality, Barnes, 501 U.S. at 569, 111 S.Ct. 2456, and was the bare minimum necessary to achieve the State's purpose, id. at 572, 111 S.Ct. 2456. These cases illustrate the point that enforcement of a generally applicable law may or may not be subject to heightened scrutiny under the First Amendment. Turner Broad. Sys., Inc. v. FCC, 512 U.S. 622, 640, 114 S.Ct. 2445, 129 L.Ed.2d 497 (1994); see also Food Lion, Inc. v. Capital Cities/ABC, Inc., 194 F.3d 505, 521-22 (4th Cir.1999). When the expressive element of an expressive activity triggers the application of a general law, First Amendment interests are in play. On the other hand, when speech and nonspeech elements are combined, and the nonspeech element (e.g., prostitution) triggers the legal sanction, the incidental effect on speech rights will not normally raise First Amendment concerns. See Eugene Volokh, Speech as Conduct, Generally Applicable Laws, Illegal Courses of Conduct, Situation-Altering Utterances, and the Uncharted Zones, 90 CORNELL L.REV. 1277, 1278-93 (2005). The Illinois eavesdropping statute may or may not be a law of general applicability; as we have noted, it contains a number of exemptions. Either way, it should be clear by now that its effect on First Amendment interests is far from incidental. To the contrary, the statute specifically targets a communication technology; the use of an audio recordera medium of expressiontriggers criminal liability. The law's legal sanction is directly leveled against the expressive element of an expressive activity. As such, the statute burdens First Amendment rights directly, not incidentally.