Court Opinion

ID: 9721855
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:10:55.501632+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:28.923953
License: Public Domain

Liacos, J.
(dissenting). This case comes before us on a record inadequate to warrant the position taken by the majority opinion. The effective result of the majority opinion will be, I fear, to encourage dragnet surveillance of telephone subscribers, innocent as well as law breakers, without probable cause. This decision will serve as justification for secret surveillance of anyone who happens, by intention or inadvertence, to communicate over the suspect telephone. Such secret surveillance will also reach those who dial the suspect telephone without regard to whether a call is completed. Whether such surveillance is deemed to be a “search” in constitutional terms, Federal or State, the interests affected are significant, but, as the majority admit, the adversaries here do not purport to represent them. Only an amicus brief by the Civil Liberties Union purports, in part, to assert the interests of the persons whose telephone numbers may be recorded.
Additionally, as the majority also admit, the “record in this case . . . provides no adequate basis for reaching any conclusion about the constitutional rights of persons who dial the number of the surveyed telephone line.” Supra at 589. I agree, but point out that this record also is inadequate to determine whether the statutory procedures and safeguards of G. L. c. 272, § 99, were met. A more appropriate approach to this case would be to require the parties to supplement the record or to remand the matter for further findings of fact by the judge.
*597So far as the Federal case law is concerned, I have no disagreement with the constitutional analysis of the majority opinion. I would, however, have gone further to indicate my disagreement with the Federal approach and to explore the protections bestowed by art. 14 of our Declaration of Rights, as the amicus brief urges and the majority admit to be possible.1
I do not disagree with the majority that the use of pen registers and cross frame unit traps is governed by G. L. c. 272, § 99. However, I would not reach the question whether the Superior Court had authority in this case to order assistance by the telephone company to install the cross frame unit trap. My reasons are as follows.
*598The original warrant, issued February 16, 1979, is not in the record. Neither does the record contain an application showing that there was probable cause to issue the original warrant. G. L. c. 272, § 99 E 2; § 99 F 1, 2 a. We are thus unable to determine its general validity. We are also unable to know whether the language of the warrant, quoted in the judge’s findings,2 was supported by a showing of probable cause at the outset in regard to the claim that other parties were calling the suspect telephone for criminal purposes. The Commonwealth may have shown probable cause that telephone A was in use for criminal purposes within G. L. c. 272, § 99 F 2 a, b, but that showing, without more, does not support a finding of probable cause that another telephone (telephone B) is being so used. Cf. Commonwealth v. Smith, 370 Mass. 335, 344-345 (1976) (“any person present” warrant permissible only with probable cause to believe that all persons present are involved in criminal activity); Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85 (1979) (probable cause to search bar and bartender for heroin does not imply probable cause to search customers). Nothing in this record shows that the original warrant was based on probable cause as to telephone B or any other telephone.
The record reveals that on February 27, 1979, and March 1, 1979, hearings were held in camera. The transcript of those hearings shows that (a) no further application as to probable cause was submitted and (b) no evidence was taken. Indeed, as the judge candidly admits, his finding of probable cause as to telephone B (and C, D, E, etc.) that might be caught up in the trap is based solely on the original finding of probable cause, on February 16, and the representations of counsel. Putting aside the question of staleness arising from a finding on February 16, 1979, in regard to an order issued on March 2, 1979, see, e.g., Commonwealth v. *599Vitello, 367 Mass. 224, 261 (1975); Sgro v. United States, 287 U.S. 206 (1932), I find nothing in this record as to what the original surveillance produced. Apart from the district attorney’s unverified remarks, the record is barren of anything which would establish that other persons were calling the suspect telephone number for criminal purposes. General Laws c. 272, § 99 J 1, plainly states the requirements for the renewal of a warrant; a new application under oath must be submitted and must set forth the results of interceptions thus far conducted. If the March 2 order is an extension of the first warrant, compliance with § 99 J 1 must be shown. The requirement of a showing of probable cause to warrant the issuance of the order as to the cross frame unit trap was assumed by the trial judge. Yet there was no compliance with the procedural requirements of § 99 J 1.
It is difficult to ascertain whether this order is simply one for technical assistance or, in reality, an extension of the original warrant. The original warrant was issued on February 16, 1979. It was good for thirty days but permitted an interception of no more than fifteen days. G. L. c. 272, § 99 I 2. The date of the commencement of the intercept is not revealed but the district attorney indicated on February 27, 1979, that it was in its ninth day; that would make the fifteenth day fall on March 5, 1979. The judge and the parties seem to have assumed, however, that the cutoff date was March 2. The order for the cross frame unit trap is dated March 5, entered on the docket on March 15, under a date of March 1, and the judge refers to it in his findings as being entered on March 2. It is apparent from the face of the order that the trap was to be installed within thirty-six hours after service on the company (the time of service not being shown) and was to continue for not more than seven days over a period not to exceed twenty-two days. It is impossible to ascertain the dates when surveillance under the original warrant and under this order actually terminated. On a view most favorable to the government, it appears that the surveillance by virtue of the trap would extend beyond the fifteen days originally authorized. Hence, in my view, *600a new surveillance device for an extended period of time was ordered without showing of probable cause or compliance with the statute.3
In these circumstances, I cannot agree with the conclusion of the majority of the court. I would decline to reach the question reported absent a clear showing that the very statutory requirements the court holds to apply to such devices have been met. Otherwise, the language of the majority opinion that “to treat cross frame unit traps as governed by § 99 . . . will ensure that the procedural protections of § 99 will be available to the users of telephones in this Commonwealth” rings a hollow tone indeed.

 The United States Supreme Court has said: “[A] State is free as a matter of its own law to impose greater restrictions on police activity than those this Court holds to be necessary upon federal constitutional standards.” Oregon v. Hass, 420 U.S. 714, 719 (1975) (emphasis in original). We have taken such a view in other cases. See Commonwealth v. Soares, 377 Mass. 461, 475-477 (1979); Commonwealth v. Ortiz, 376 Mass. 349, 358 (1978). Other State courts have also relied on State law to afford greater protection to individuals than is required by Federal constitutional decisions. See People v. Longwill, 14 Cal. 3d 943 (1975); People v. Brisendine, 13 Cal. 3d 528 (1975); State v. Kaluna, 55 Hawaii 361 (1974) ; People v. Beavers, 393 Mich. 554 (1975); State v. Johnson, 68 N.J. 349 (1975); State v. Florance, 270 Or. 169 (1974); Commonwealth v. McLaughlin, 475 Pa. 97 (1977); and State v. Opperman, 89 S.D. 25 (1975). Thus, even though it has been held that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to warrantless use of a pen register, Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979), we can, and indeed we should, hold that art. 14 forbids war-rantless use of a pen register or of a cross frame unit trap.
Article 14 protects “the control we have over information about ourselves” (emphasis in original). Fried, Privacy, 77 Yale L.J. 475, 482 (1968). Contrary to the “assumption of the risk” argument in Smith, supra at 744, this interest is not necessarily extinguished on voluntary communication of private information to another. Apparently impersonal records of a telephone company or bank can be assembled into a “virtual current biography.” Burrows v. Superior Court, 13 Cal. 3d 238, 247 (1974). See California Bankers Ass’n v. Shultz, 416 U.S. 21, 78-79 (1974) (Powell, J., concurring). Furthermore, the reality of modern life precludes a rational argument that the decision to convey telephone numbers to the telephone company is “voluntary.” See People v. McKunes, 51 Cal. App. 3d 487 (1975) (State Constitution forbids seizure of telephone records without probable cause). Cf. Burrows v. Superior Court, supra; Commonwealth v. DeJohn, 486 Pa. 32 (1979) (bank records).

 “Also authorized is the installation of a pen register or other device, if practicable, designated for the purpose of ascertaining the telephone numbers called by the subjects . . . and the telephone numbers of instruments used in making calls to the suspect telephone in furtherance of the conspiracy.”

 I need not reach the question whether this order, or the original warrant, meets the requirements of particularity set forth in G. L. c. 272, § 99 I 3. Cf. art. 14 of the Declaration of Rights.