Court Opinion

ID: 9460476
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:51:30.03929+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:38.155658
License: Public Domain

SEITZ, Chief Judge
(concurring and dissenting).
I concur in affirming the district court’s disposition of questions respecting the first, concededly illegal, set of surveillances. My views in this matter are well stated in Part II of Judge Aldi-sert’s opinion.
As to the second set of surveillances, the majority has found that these wiretaps and their use to procure evidence introduced against Ivanov, assuming such use was made of them, violated neither § 605 of the Communications Act nor the Fourth Amendment. Finding the wiretaps legal, the majority has held that the district court properly refused to order disclosure to Ivanov of the logs summarizing these surveillances and that the court below also properly refused to hold an evidentiary hearing on the issue of taint. Because I believe that these matters are settled by Supreme Court decisions and that the majority in effect is “overruling” Supreme Court decisions, sub silentio, I dissent from the majority’s affirmance of district court action respecting the second set of surveillances.
I. § 605 OF THE COMMUNICATIONS ACT
As I read the majority opinion, two conclusions support its decision that § 605 of the Communications Act has not been violated here. First, in logical or*609der, because wiretapping is one means of acquiring information” that may make the President’s decisions regarding foreign affairs “more likely to advance our national interests,” the majority presumes that Congress did not limit the President’s ability to wiretap to obtain foreign intelligence information when it adopted. § 605 without explicit discussion of this use of wiretaps. Second, the majority declares that “[t]here is absolutely no indication that Congress contemplated situations where interceptions were unaccompanied by divulgences” and reasons that since Congress presumably did not intend to limit the President’s use of wiretaps to stay informed regarding foreign affairs, § 605 is not violated by use of wiretap-derived evidence to secure espionage convictions. These conclusions, relied on for the majority’s holding that § 605 has not been breached, do not follow from their premises and contradict Supreme Court precedent as well as the.terms of § 605.
Initially, I think that insufficient attention has been paid to the section itself. Section 605 of the Communications Act, 47 U.S.C. § 605 (1970), contains four distinct prohibitions. The first prohibition is directed at employees of communications facilities and is not relevant here. Cf. Nardone v. United States, 302 U.S. 379, 381, 58 S.Ct. 275, 82 L.Ed. 314 (1937). The prohibition contained in the third clause of § 605 concerns unauthorized reception of communications ; the second and fourth prohibitions concern interception. The Act does not define reception and interception, but, attributing to the drafters a desire that each statutory statement be meaningful and not merely repetitive, I would distinguish these terms by the point in time at which the unauthorized participant acquires access to a communication; reception would occur following transmission, while interception would occur during transmission to and preceding reception of the communication by someone other than the interceptor. The third clause of § 605, therefore, also is inapplicable here.
§ 605: Clause 2, Element (1)
If the government has violated § 605, then, it must be ■ by virtue of the section’s second or fourth prohibition. The second part of § 605 forbids (1) any person not authorized by the sender (2) to intercept and (3) divulge or publish the communication’s contents, meaning or existence (4) to any person.1 This portion of § 605 was construed by the Supreme Court in Nardone v. United States, swpra, which involved in-court testimony by federal agents as to the contents of communications intercepted by government wiretaps. The argument advanced by the government in Nardone bears a striking resemblance to the first argument accepted by the majority here. The government contended that the executive branch was charged to take care that the laws of the United States be faithfully executed, that Congress at the time it passed the Communications Act was aware of the government’s use of wiretap evidence to faithfully execute federal criminal laws, that Congress did not mention this use of wiretaps in considering § 605 of the Communications Act, and that, therefore, Congress must be presumed to have excluded federal agents, acting in furtherance of their duty to enforce criminal laws, from those persons covered by § 605. Id. at 381-383, 58 S.Ct. 275.
The Court in Nardone observed that not only was there no discussion in *610.adoption of § 605 of the use federal agents made of wiretaps, but there was no record of any legislative discussion concerning adoption of § 605. The Court further noted that several bills designed explicitly to prohibit government wiretapping had failed shortly before passage of the Communications Act. These circumstances, however, were insufficient to overcome “the fact that the plain words of § 605 forbid anyone, unless authorized by the sender, to intercept a telephone message, and direct in equally clear language that ‘no person’ shall divulge or publish the message or its substance to ‘any person.’ ” Id. at 382, 58 S.Ct. at 276 [emphasis in original], In explaining its refusal in the absence of legislative history to speculate that Congress intended to exclude federal agents from the strictures of § 605, the Court added:
It is urged that a construction be given the section which would exclude federal agents since it is improbable that Congress intended to hamper and impede the activities of the government in the detection and punishment of crime. The answer is that . . . Congress may have thought it less important that some offenders go unwhipped of justice than that officers should resort to methods deemed inconsistent with ethical standards and destructive of personal liberty.
Id. at 383, 58 S.Ct. at 276.
I am unable to see any difference between the argument rejected by the Supreme Court in Nardone and that accepted by the majority here. Both argue that the plain all-inclusive language of the statute covering any person should be construed not to apply to federal officers performing tasks assigned by the Constitution to the executive branch. Both rely on the absence of legislative history, and both would require explicit legislative consideration of a limitation on the executive’s freedom of action before a statute could be read to restrict it. The canons of statutory construction considered by the Supreme Court in Nardone, id. at 383, 58 S.Ct.' 275, apply with equal force in both cases.
There is of course a distinction between this ease and Nardone. The case before us, as cast by the majority, involves Presidential powers over foreign affairs, while Nardone concerned executive authority over domestic matters. This distinction, however, makes no legal difference. The only constitutional provision cited by the majority as authority for the executive decision-making that “foreign intelligence information” supposedly aids is Article II, section 2’s declaration that “[t]he President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States . . . . ” This provision certainly cannot be said to be any more important than Article II, section 3’s charge that the President “take care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” nor can wiretapping be deemed any more crucial to accomplishment of the President’s duties as Commander-in-Chief than to his faithful execution of the laws.
The majority, however, apparently attaches significance to the fact that the President has powers over foreign affairs that are not made express in the Constitution. The majority’s principal authority as to this point is United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U.S. 304, 57 S.Ct. 216, 81 L.Ed. 255 (1936), decided one year before Nar-done. Curtiss-Wright stated that the federal government possessed certain powers over foreign affairs inherent in national sovereignty. Id. at 318, 57 S. Ct. 216. In upholding a statute permitting the President to make certain decisions bearing on foreign affairs against a charge of unconstitutional delegation of legislative power, the Court observed that power over foreign affairs was not legislative alone. Id. at 319-322, 57 S. Ct. 216. While rejecting the statement in Curtis-Wright that certain foreign affairs powers inhere in national sovereignty, constitutional considerations *611aside, (see note 37 of the majority opinion), the maj'ority here relies on Cur-tiss-Wright for the proposition that foreign affairs powers may be implied in the Constitution even if federal powers over domestic affairs must be express. Yet, the maj'ority never explains why this nebulous federal implied power, even assuming that it is addressed solely to the executive, is entitled to greater deference than an express power of the executive such as Nardone involved.
Perhaps the maj'ority has concluded that Congress could not limit the President’s power to wiretap in order to obtain foreign intelligence information.2 Without explicitly stating this conclusion, the majority indicates that “any action by [Congress] that arguably would hamper the President’s effective performance of his duties in the foreign affairs field would have raised constitutional questions.” The majority does not cite any precedent supporting this statement, nor does it state what questions would be raised. As I read Articles I and II of the Constitution, the Congress as well as the President has powers in foreign affairs. Congress is empowered to regulate commerce with foreign nations, to define and punish crimes committed on the high seas and offenses against the law of nations, to declare war, to raise and support armies, provide and maintain a navy, to provide for calling forth the militia to repel invasions, and to make rules for governing the armed forces. The President’s powers in the foreign affairs area, independent of legislative delegations, are far more limited: he is Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and receives public ministers; he can make treaties, with the Senate’s concurrence, and appoint ambassadors, again with Senate approval.
The President is certainly no “Lone Ranger” in the foreign affairs field, possessed, as the majority intimates, of vast constitutional powers to be exercised independently of Congress. All of the federal government’s powers, including foreign affairs powers, are subject to constitutional limitations, United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., supra, 299 U.S. at 320, 57 S.Ct. 216, and one such limitation on the President’s power is the exercise of Congressional power. “When the President takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb, for then he can rely only upon his own constitutional powers minus any constitutional powers of Congress over the matter. Courts can sustain exclusive Presidential control in such a case only by disabling the Congress from acting upon the subject. Presidential claim to a power at once so conclusive and preclusive must be scrutinized with caution, for what is at stake is the equilibrium established by our constitutional system.” Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 637-638, 72 S.Ct. 863, 871, 96 L.Ed. 1153 (1952) (Jackson, J., concurring) [footnote omitted],
I cannot conceive of any power in the foreign affairs field that the President exercises exclusively and for which wiretapping is essential; I cannot perceive any legal basis for intimating that Congress could not constitutionally limit the President’s power to wiretap to obtain “foreign intelligence information.” Apparently, Judge Learned Hand was of the same view, as were the judges concurring in his opinion in United States v. Coplon, 185 F.2d 629 (2d Cir. 1950). Coplon was, like this case, an espionage case involving the possible use of wiretap fruits. As the majority notes, *612Judge Hand engaged in no lengthy discussion to distinguish foreign intelligence wiretaps from others. It is safe to assume that Judge Hand knew that “foreign intelligence” was probably sought in wiretapping that led to an espionage charge. One may also assume that the government did not argue that Congressional limitation of foreign affairs wiretapping was constitutionally different from limitation of other government wiretapping — indeed, the government has not raised the argument in this case. Instead of inquiring into the constitutionality of the law, which, if he had doubted the Act’s constitutionality, he would have been required to do, Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 175-180, 2 L.Ed. 60 (1803), Judge Hand declared that the validity of the Coplon wiretap -was- covered by the ruling in Nardone. United States v. Coplon, supra, 185 F.2d at 636.
Like Judge Hand, I can see no basis for distinguishing Coplon from Nardone, nor can I distinguish this case from those. Thus, perceiving no difference between this case and Nardone, I would find that the federal agents involved here fall within the category of persons described in the first element of § 605’s second clause.
§ 605: Clause 2, Elements (S) & (!■)
The government does not dispute that it falls within the second element of § 605’s second prohibition; federal agents did intercept communications involving Ivanov. The government contends, however, that federal agents did not divulge the communication’s contents to any other person, the third and fourth elements required for violation of § 605, clause two. Of course the agents who made the interception divulged the “existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning” of the intercepted communication to other agents. Perhaps, as Judge Aldisert implies, such divulgence does not violate § 605 because the federal officers are really acting as agents of the executive in making the interception and the relevant “person” to be viewed as interceptor is, thus, the executive; divulgence to other agents of the executive, who receive the information in such capacity, hence would not violate the statute because the “divulgees” would be part of the same “person” as the “divulgors.” Cf. 47 U.S.C. § 153(i) (1970) (defining “person” to include, as well as individuals, partnerships, associations, trusts and corporations).
I do not think that question needs to be resolved here. Ivanov argues that the relevant divulgence occurred at trial when the government introduced evidence obtained by use of the wiretaps. The Supreme Court’s first Nardone decision held that the government could not introduce testimony on the content of wiretaps. The second Nardone decision, Nardone v. United States, 308 U.S. 338, 60 S.Ct. 266, 84 L.Ed. 307 (1939), held that the fruits of the interception also could not be introduced. Id. at 340-341, 60 S.Ct. 266. Assuming that the Court was again dealing with the second prohibition contained in § 605, I would read Nardone II as holding that the use of a wiretap’s fruits in court constituted a divulgence prohibited by § 605.
§ 605: Clause U
While the precise ground for the Nar-done II decision is not clear to me, the illegality of any derivative evidentiary use of wiretaps is. This illegality becomes more apparent on examination of the final prohibition contained in § 605. The section’s last clause forbids (1) any person who has received or become aware of the existence, meaning or contents of a communication (2) intercepted without the sender’s authorization (3) from divulging, publishing or using such information (4) for his own benefit or the benefit of another unauthorized person.3 *613This clause expressly prohibits the use of wiretap information.
The only remarks Supreme Court justices have made referring expressly to this clause are contained in the dissent to Goldstein v. United States, 316 U.S. 114, 62 S.Ct. 1000, 86 L.Ed. 1312 (1942). The majority in Goldstein decided that defendants who were not parties to the communication lacked standing to object to introduction of wiretap fruits against them. Id. at 121-122, 62 S.Ct. 1000. In dissent, Justice Murphy, joined by Chief Justice Stone, who voted with the majorities in Nardone I and II, and Justice Frankfurter, who authored Nardone II, disagreed with the Court on standing and thus reached the merits. The dissenters found this fourth part of § 605 to be “unequivocal and controlling.” 316 U.S. at 125-126, 62 S.Ct. 1000. “In enacting § 605, Congress sought to protect society at large against the evils of wiretapping and kindred unauthorized intrusions into private intercourse conducted by means of the modern media of communication, telephone, telegraph, and radio. To that end the statute prohibits not only the interception and the divul-gence of private messages without the consent of the sender, but also the use of information so acquired by any person not entitled to it.” Id. at 125, 62 S.Ct. at 1006. I would, therefore, find that § 605 prohibits use of wiretap information to obtain any evidence for trial.
§ 60S: Hearing & Disclosure
Since the derivative use of wiretaps alleged by Ivanov is made illegal by § 605, the question of illegality becomes identical to the question of taint. The wiretap information must be disclosed to the defendant and a hearing must be held to resolve the issue of taint. Alderman v. United States, 394 U.S. 165, 183-185, 89 S.Ct. 961, 22 L.Ed.2d 176 (1969); Nardone v. United States, 308 U.S. 338, 341-342, 60 S.Ct. 266, 84 L.Ed. 307 (1939); United States v. Coplon, supra, 185 F.2d at 636-640.
Since the decision in Alderman, the Congress has purportedly changed the method for determining taint from government wiretapping. The Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 provides, in relevant part, that taint from surveil-lances prior to the effective date of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 shall be determined by disclosure and hearing only if an in camera proceeding convinces the judge that the surveillances are arguably relevant, 18 U.S.C. § 3504(a)(2) (1970), and that courts shall not consider claims that such surveillances have tainted the evidence of a crime occurring more than five years after the surveillance, 18 U. S.C. § 3504(a)(3) (1970). The bar to consideration of taint is inapplicable here since the relevant wiretaps occurred within two years of the acts sought to be proved,4 allegedly with wiretap fruits. The question is presented, however, whether the 1970 Act’s procedure for determining taint governs this case and, if so, whether it is constitutional.
Congress specifically provided that the 1970 Act applies to all proceedings, whenever commenced, after its effective date. Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, ch. 223, 84 Stat. 935, § 703. Congress also clearly intended to alter the procedure set forth in Alderman for determining taint from pre-1968 wiretaps. H.R.Rep.No.91-1549, in 1970 U.S. Code Cong. & Admin.News, pp. 4007, 4027. The precise question here, however, is whether Congress intended to change the rule of Alderman for the cases actually before the Court and as to evidence introduced, and to which objection was made, before passage of the 1970 Act.
*614The statute’s wording would support restricting use of its procedure for determining taint to cases in which prospective admission of evidence was the subject of controversy; it applies “upon a claim by a party aggrieved that evidence is inadmissible . . . . ” 18 U.S.C. § 3504(a)(1) (1970). Nothing.I have found in the legislative history of the 1970 Act indicates that Congress intended the Act to apply to determinations, after its passage, on the propriety of the introduction of evidence before passage of the 1970 Act. While the statute as relevant here does not purport to change the propriety of admission of evidence, but rather changes only the method for determining admissibility, the Alderman Court recognized that the method of ascertaining taint may well determine whether evidence is admitted or excluded. See Alderman v. United States, supra, 394 U.S. at 183-185, 89 S.Ct. 961.
Not only do I find limitation of the 1970 Act to questions of introduction of evidence after the Act’s effective date plausible, but also I find such construction necessary to avoid serious doubt as to the statute’s constitutionality. I cannot dismiss United States v. Klein, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 128, 20 L.Ed. 519 (1872), as a case dealing solely with the Supreme Court’s right to determine the effect of a presidential pardon. Klein involved three questions concerning the effect of Congressional enactments. The first question was the effect of an 1867 statute on the President’s pardon powers. Id. at 141-142. The second question was the effect of an 1870 statute on the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction. Id. at 143-148. The final question was the effect of the 1870 act’s provisions prescribing the evidence that could be relied upon for certain findings and the result required on the basis of other findings. Id. The Court of Claims had, in 1869, rendered a decision in Klein’s favor, giving effect to the President’s grant of pardon and amnesty and using evidence proscribed by the 1870 act. The Supreme Court held that the 1867 statute did not impair the President’s pardon powers, and that the 1870 act neither divested the Supreme Court of jurisdiction acquired before the act’s passage nor required the Court to reverse the Court of Claims decision in accordance with the statute’s directive regarding the admission and effect of evidence. Id. I believe that Klein is apposite to and casts doubt upon the constitutionality of applying the 1970 Act to Ivanov. Because I feel that the intent of Congress that the 1970 Act apply here is not made clear by the statute’s language or history and that the application of the statute to this case might not be constitutional, I would find that the 1970 Act is inapplicable to this proceeding.
II. SCOPE OF SUPREME COURT MANDATE
In suggesting disposition on § 605 grounds, I must comment on a point raised by the government for the first time in its petition for rehearing but not reached by the majority. When this case was before the Supreme Court, the Solicitor General revealed that conversations involving Ivanov had been overheard through wiretaps. The question of a possible § 605 violation was not raised at that time. The Supreme Court thus addressed the matter as if only a potential Fourth Amendment violation’ were involved. Consequently, in remanding the case to the district court, the Supreme Court directed that “[t]he District Court should confine the evidence presented by both sides to that which is material to the question of the possible violation of a petitioner’s Fourth Amendment rights, to the content of conversations illegally overheard which violated those rights and to the relevance of such conversations to the petitioner’s subsequent conviction.” Alderman v. United States, supra, 394 U.S. at 186, 89 S.Ct. at 973. After arguing before the district court the validity of government action under § 605, the government now urges that only Fourth Amendment questions could be reached *615on remand consistent with the Supreme Court’s mandate.5
The Supreme Court has stated that “[w]hile a mandate is controlling as to matters within its compass, on the remand a lower court is free as to other issues.” Sprague v. Ticonic National Bank, 307 U.S. 161, 168, 59 S.Ct. 777, 781, 83 L.Ed. 1184 (1939). Such matters are open unless their “disposition . by the mandate . . . was necessarily implied in the claim in the original suit, and [the party’s failure to raise them constituted] an implied waiver.” Id. Since the § 605 issue was not raised prior to the remand, it was not necessarily disposed of by the Supreme Court mandate; and since the possibility of § 605 violation was not known to Ivanov at the time of his petition to the Court, his failure to raise the issue prior to remand cannot be deemed implied waiver. The obvious intent of the Supreme Court in framing its mandate was to limit proceedings on remand to issues connected with the government’s wiretapping. The legality of government action under § 605 is certainly such an issue.
Finding that the case should be disposed of on § 605 grounds, I would not reach the Fourth Amendment issues.
Judge Van Dusen joins in this opinion.
Judge Aldisert joins in this opinion except the discussion contained in the section headed “§ 605: Clause 2, Element (1).”

. Section 605 is written as a single sentence composed of four separable sentences joined by semi-colons and a proviso, not relevant here, modifying the entire section. For ease of discussion, I have numbered the separable sentences, each constituting a self-contained prohibition of different actions, in the order set forth in the statute and also assigned numbers to the elements required for violation of each prohibition. The second prohibition reads:
and no person not being authorized by the sender shall intercept any communication and divulge or publish the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning of such intercepted communication to any person; . . . .
47 U.S.C. § 605 (1970).

. While the majority has added a disclaimer of this conclusion, the intimation that such a conclusion might fairly be reached is essential to the majority’s position. If Congress ean limit executive actions useful to foreign affairs operations, there is no basis for distinguishing Nardone from this case. Yor-done certainly does not reflect fear of reading § 605 to mean what it says because such a reading would raise constitutional questions — yet the Court clearly allowed Congressional restriction of executive action.

. The fourth prohibition provides :
. . . and no person having received such intercepted communication or having become acquainted -with the contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning of the same or any part thereof, knowing that *613sucli information was so obtained, shall divulge or publish the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect or meaning of the same or any part thereof, or use the same or any information contained therein for his own benefit or for the benefit of another not entitled thereto,
47 U.S.O. § 605 (1970).

. Letter of June 2, 1969 from Attorney General Mitchell.

. It ax>pears that the government not only argued the § 605 question before the district court without indicating that this matter might be beyond the scope of the Supreme Court’s mandate, but further, the government apparently raised the matter of legality under § 605. Even if this question were arguably beyond the scope of the Supreme Court’s mandate, there is some question whether the government would be estopped from arguing this question here.