Opinion ID: 176129
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Newsday

Text: Although Appellants can point to no provision in Title III prohibiting the disclosure at issue, they argue more broadly that Title III's failure expressly to permit the disclosure at issue implicitly prohibits it. This argument is foreclosed by our decision in In re Newsday, Inc., 895 F.2d 74. [14] In Newsday, a newspaper sought access to a search warrant application containing wiretap communications that had been sealed by the district court at the request of the government. Id. at 75. Following a guilty plea by the subject of the wiretap, the government withdrew its earlier objection to unsealing the application, and the district court released a redacted copy of the warrant materials. Id. The subject of the wiretap appealed, making essentially the same argument that Appellants make in the instant case: that Title III forbade such public disclosure of wiretap information, because the disclosure provisions of Title III are the exclusive means by which intercepted communications may be released to the public. Id. at 77. We held that Title III did not specifically address the issue of a right of public access to intercepted communications when those communications become part of a public document [such as the warrant affidavit at issue] after having been used by the government in the course of its law enforcement activities. Id. at 76. Rejecting the appellant's reliance on the Seventh Circuit's decision in United States v. Dorfman, 690 F.2d 1230, 1232 (7th Cir. 1982) (Title III implies that what is not permitted is forbidden), we agreed that Title III generates no right of [public] access, but found it a non-sequitur to conclude the obverse: that Congress intended in § 2517, which relates solely to use in law-enforcement activities and judicial proceedings, to forbid public access by any other means on any other occasion. Newsday, 895 F.2d at 77. We noted that nowhere does Title III state rules regarding disclosure of intercepted communications to the public incident to, or after, their use under § 2517.... No doubt the framers of Title III expected that the main channel of public disclosure of intercepted communications would be testimonial, but they did not so confine it. Id. at 78. In Newsday, we ruled that there was a common law right of access to the judicial documents at issue, but that the right of access needed to be balanced against the privacy rights at issue, i.e., the privacy rights of the person whose intimate relations may ... be disclosed. Id. at 79. We then concluded that the district court had not abused its discretion in ordering the release of a redacted affidavit. Id. at 80; see also id. at 75 ([W]e hold that the district court properly balanced the common law right of access to judicial records with the defendant's privacy rights, and affirm its release of a redacted copy of the warrant application.). In short, in Newsday, we held that Title III does not prohibit all disclosures of legally intercepted wire communications that it does not expressly permit, and that in determining whether a right of access should lead to disclosure of Title III materials, the right of access should be weighed against the relevant privacy interests at stake. The district court should have applied that analysis in the instant case. Appellants argue that Newsday is distinguishable, because it involved a disclosure of wiretap materials that had already been filed as part of a public document. [15] Although the specific context of Newsday was the right of public access to judicial documents, the case necessarily reflects a broader principle, of which its narrow holding is simply one example. Here, just as in Newsday, the SEC's discovery request asked for disclosure of Title III materials incident to, or after, their use under § 2517. Cf. id. at 78 ([N]owhere does Title III state rules regarding disclosure of intercepted communications to the public incident to, or after, their use under § 2517. (emphasis added)). In Newsday, the government had already properly disclosed the material pursuant to § 2517(2) in seeking a search warrant; here, the USAO disclosed the wiretap materials as part of the criminal discovery process, also pursuant to the proper performance of [its] official duties under 18 U.S.C. § 2517(2). [16] Newsday sought wiretap materials that had already been disclosed pursuant to § 2517 by invoking its independent right of access to judicial documents; the SEC here similarly seeks such material, also already legitimately disclosed to Appellants pursuant to § 2517, by invoking its independent right to discovery in civil litigation. Just as in Newsday, Title III does not expressly address the right claimed here. The issue, therefore, is whether there is an independent right of access to the materials that might permit further disclosure, and, if so, whether the district court properly balanced any such right against the privacy interests at stake. [17] We have repeatedly employed such balancing when dealing with Title III issues. [18] We have similarly employed a balancing in other relevant discovery contexts. [19] We are therefore confident that district courts can engage in such balancing in the present context without undue difficulty.