Court Opinion

ID: 9711194
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:26:12.388816+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:02.747444
License: Public Domain

Eldridge, J.,

dissenting :

Although I recognize that the issue is a close one, I do not share the majority’s view that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in the numbers dialed into a telephone system. Consequently, I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that no search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment is implicated by the police’s having a pen register installed to record the numbers dialed from the telephone at the defendant’s home.
In Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 88 S. Ct. 507, 19 *175L.Ed.2d 576 (1967), the Supreme Court held (389 U. S. at 353, emphasis supplied):
“The Government’s activities in electronically listening to and recording the petitioner’s words violated the privacy upon which he justifiably relied while using the telephone booth and thus constituted a ‘search and seizure’ within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.”
In my opinion, there similarly exists a privacy upon which one justifiably relies with respect to the telephone numbers which he dials in his own home.
Mr. Justice Harlan both joined the majority opinion in Katz and further explained the applicable principles in a concurring opinion, stating (389 U. S. at 361):
“As the Court’s opinion states, ‘the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places.’ The question, however, is what protection it affords to those people. Generally, as here, the answer to that question requires reference to a ‘place.’ My understanding of the rule that has emerged from prior decisions is that there is a twofold requirement, first that a person have exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy and, second, that the expectation be one that society is prepared to recognize as ‘reasonable.’ Thus a man’s home is, for most purposes, a place where he expects privacy, but objects, activities, or statements that he exposes to the ‘plain view’ of outsiders are not ‘protected’ because no intention to keep them to himself has been exhibited. On the other hand, conversations in the open would not be protected against being overheard, for the expectation of privacy under the circumstances would be unreasonable.”
As pointed out in the above quotation, “for most purposes” a person expects privacy in his own home. I know of no sound basis for concluding that there is an exception to this general proposition in regard to telephone numbers which a person *176dials on his home telephone. It is not like a conversation “in the open.” When the average person dials a number in the privacy of his home, he does not contemplate, nor should he reasonably contemplate, that he is exposing the information “to the ‘plain view’ of outsiders.”
The principles set forth by the majority and by Mr. Justice Harlan in Katz lead me to the conclusion that the Fourth Amendment does apply when the police have a pen register installed to record the numbers dialed from one’s telephone. The same conclusion has been reached by several cases in the United States Courts of Appeal. Application of United States For Order, Etc., 546 F. 2d 243, 245 (8th Cir. 1976), cert. denied, Southwestern Bell Telephone Company v. United States, 434 U. S. 1008, 98 S. Ct. 716, 54 L.Ed.2d 750 (1918); Application of U. S. In Matter of Order, Etc., 538 F. 2d 956, 959 (2d Cir. 1976), reversed on other grounds, United States v. New York Tel. Co., 434 U. S. 149, 98 S. Ct. 364, 54 L.Ed.2d 376 (1977); United States v. Illinois Bell Tel. Co., 531 F. 2d 809, 813 (7th Cir. 1976); United States v. John, 508 F. 2d 1134, 1141 (8th Cir. 1975), cert. denied, 421 U. S. 962, 95 S. Ct. 1948, 44 L.Ed.2d 448 (1975); United States v. Falcone, 505 F. 2d 478, 482 n. 21 (3d Cir. 1974), cert. denied, 420 U. S. 955, 95 S. Ct. 1339, 43 L.Ed.2d 432 (1975).
The principal basis for the view that the use of a pen register does not constitute a search for purposes of the Fourth Amendment seems to be the conclusion of some judges that there is no justifiable expectation of privacy with respect to numbers dialed because “[telephone subscribers are fully aware that records will be made of their toll calls.” United States v. Baxter, 492 F. 2d 150, 167 (9th Cir. 1973), cert. denied, 416 U. S. 940, 94 S. Ct. 1945, 40 L.Ed.2d 292 (1974). See also Hodge v. Mountain States Tel. & Tel. Co., 555 F. 2d 254, 256, 266 (9th Cir. 1977); United States v. Clegg, 509 F. 2d 605, 610 (5th Cir. 1975). This theory is relied on by the majority in the instant case.
However, the mere fact that a person who thinks about it would realize that the numbers dialed in completed long distance calls would have to be recorded for billing purposes, does not, in my judgment, warrant the conclusion that no *177reasonable expectation of privacy exists generally with respect to telephone numbers dialed. Such calls represent only a small percentage of those made by the average individual. The overwhelming majority of calls made by the average person are local and do not involve toll charges. Moreover, as to. calls outside of one’s local area, many are not answered or result in busy signals. Nevertheless, the pen register records even these. Because one’s expectation of privacy in a particular type of situation may not be fully realized in a minority of instances does not necessarily make that expectation unreasonable.
The majority’s attempted analogy between United States v. Miller, 425 U. S. 435, 443, 96 S. Ct. 1619, 48 L.Ed.2d 71 (1976), and the situation in the instant case is unpersuasive. In Miller, with regard to checks and deposit slips, the Supreme Court observed that the “depositor takes the risk, in revealing his affairs to another, that the information will be conveyed by that person to the government.” But it was not the telephone company which instigated the installation of the pen register in the instant case. Miller is thus distinguishable by the fact that here, absent the government’s intrusion, the telephone company could not have revealed any information to the government, regarding Smith’s calls. Normally the telephone company does not, in any meaningful sense, possess information about local telephone calls which it could pass on. The mere fact that machines (switching equipment) owned by the telephone company responded in certain ways to the defendant’s dialing numbers cannot reasonably be construed as a transfer of information by the defendant to the telephone company. There is no indication in this case that the telephone company’s machinery preserved a record of the numbers dialed, nor that any telephone company employee did or could be expected to observe the process. The defendant, by the simple act of dialing local numbers, did not reasonably intend to reveal information; he merely made use of machinery in particular ways which, without the police intrusion, would have remained fully private.
*178In sum, I agree with the position suggested by Mr. Justice Powell, dissenting in part in United States v. Giordano, 416 U. S. 505, 548, 553-554, 94 S. Ct. 1820, 1842, 1845, 40 L.Ed.2d 341 (1974), that the permissibility of law enforcement officials using a pen register depends upon compliance with the requirements of the Fourth Amendment.
Judge Digges has authorized me to state that he concurs with the views expressed herein.