Court Opinion

ID: 9427012
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:19:27.519369+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:04.507115
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stevens,
with whom Mr. Justice Brennan and Mr. Justice Marshall join,
dissenting in part.
Today’s decision appears to present no radical departure from this Court’s prior holdings. It builds upon previous intimations that a federal district court’s power to issue a search warrant under Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 41 is a flexible one, not strictly restrained by statutory authorization, and it applies the same flexible analysis to the All Writs Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1651 (a). But for one who thinks of federal courts as courts of limited jurisdiction, the Court’s decision is difficult *179to accept. The principle of limited federal jurisdiction is fundamental; never is it more important than when a federal court purports to authorize and implement the secret invasion of an individual's privacy. Yet that principle was entirely ignored on March 19 and April 2, 1976, when the District Court granted the Government’s application for permission to engage in surveillance by means of a pen register, and ordered the respondent to cooperate in the covert operation.
Congress has not given the federal district courts the power either to authorize the use of a pen register, or to require private parties to assist in carrying out such surveillance. Those defects cannot be remedied by a patchwork interpretation of Rule 41 which regards the Rule as applicable as a grant of authority, but inapplicable insofar as it limits the exercise of such authority. Nor can they be corrected by reading the All Writs Act as though it gave federal judges the wide-ranging powers of an ombudsman. The Court’s decision may be motivated by a belief that Congress would, if the question were presented to it, authorize both the pen register order and the order directed to the Telephone Company.1 But the history and consistent interpretation of the federal court’s power to issue search warrants conclusively show that, in these ?reas, the Court’s rush to achieve a logical result must await congressional deliberation. From thp beginning of our Nation’s history, we have sought to prevent the accretion of arbitrary police powers in the federal courts; that accretion is no less dangerous and unprecedented because the first step appears to be only minimally intrusive.
I
Beginning with the Act of July 31, 1789, 1 Stat. 29, 43, and concluding with the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 82 Stat. 197, 219, 238, Congress has enacted a *180series of over 35 different statutes granting federal judges the power to issue search warrants of one form or another. These statutes have one characteristic in common: they are specific in their grants of authority and in their inclusion of limitations on either the places to be searched, the objects of the search, or the requirements for the issuance of a warrant.2 This is not a random coincidence; it is a reflection of a concern deeply imbedded in our revolutionary history for the abuses that attend any broad delegation of power to issue search warrants. In the colonial period, the oppressive British practice of allowing courts to issue “general warrants” or “writs of assistance” 3 was one of the major catalysts of the struggle for independence.4 After independence, one of the first state constitutions expressly provided that “no warrant ought to be issued but in cases, and with the formalities, prescribed by the laws.” 5 This same principle motivated the adoption of *181the Fourth Amendment and the contemporaneous, specific legislation limiting judicial authority to issue search warrants.6
It is unnecessary to develop this historical and legislative background at any great length, for even the rough contours make it abundantly clear that federal judges were not intended to have any roving commission to issue search warrants. Quite properly, therefore, the Court today avoids the error committed by the Courts of Appeals which have held that a district court has “inherent power” to authorize the installation of a pen register on a private telephone line.7 Federal courts have no such inherent power.8
*182While the Court's decision eschews the notion of inherent power, its holding that Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 41 authorizes the District Court's pen register order is equally at odds with the 200-year history of search warrants in this country and ignores the plain meaning and legislative history of the very Rule on which it relies. Under the Court’s reading of the Rule, the definition of the term “property” in the Rule places no limits on the objects of a proper search and seizure, but is merely illustrative. Ante, at 169. The Court treats Rule 41 as though it were a general authorization for district courts to issue any warrants not otherwise prohibited. Ante, at 170. This is a startling approach. On its face, the Rule grants no such open-ended authority. Instead, it follows in the steps of the dozens of enactments that preceded it: It limits the nature of the property that may be seized and the circumstances under which a valid warrant may be obtained. The continuing force of these limitations is demonstrated by the congressional actions which compose the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968.
In Title III of that Act, Congress legislated comprehensively on the subject of wiretapping and electronic surveillance. Specifically, Congress granted federal judges the power to authorize electronic surveillance under certain carefully defined circumstances. As the Court demonstrates in Part II of its opinion (which I join), the installation of pen register devices is not encompassed within that authority. What the majority opinion fails to point out, however, is that in Title IX of that same Act, Congress enacted another, distinct provision extending the power of federal judges to issue search *183warrants. That statute, which formed the basis of the 1972 amendment to Rule 41, authorized the issuance of search warrants for an additional class of property, namely, “property that constitutes evidence of a criminal offense in violation of the laws of the United States.” 18 U. S. C. § 3103a. In order to understand this provision, it must be remembered that, prior to 1967, “mere evidence” could not be the subject of a constitutionally valid seizure. Gouled v. United States, 255 U. S. 298. In Warden v. Hayden, 387 U. S. 294, this Court removed the constitutional objection to mere-evidence seizures. Title IX was considered necessary because, after Warden v. Hayden, there existed a category of property — -mere evidence — which could be the subject of a valid seizure incident to an arrest, but which could not be seized pursuant to a warrant. The reason mere evidence could not be seized pursuant to a warrant was that, as Congress recognized, Rule 41 did not authorize warrants for evidence.9 Title IX was enacted to fill this gap in the law.10
*184Two conclusions follow ineluctably from the congressional enactment of Title IX. First, Rule 41 was never intended to be a general authorization to issue any warrant not otherwise prohibited by the Fourth Amendment. If it had been, Congress would not have perceived a need to enact Title IX, since constitutional law, as it stood in 1968, did not prohibit the issuance of warrants for evidence.11
Second, the enactment of Title IX disproves the theory that the definition of “property” in Rule 41 (h) is only illustrative. This suggestion was first put forward by the Court in Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347. The issue was not briefed in Katz, but the Court, in dicta, indicated that Rule 41 was not confined to tangible property. Whatever the merits of that suggestion in 1967, it has absolutely no force at this time. In 1968 Congress comprehensively dealt with the issue of electronic searches in.-Title III. In the same Act, it provided authority for expanding the scope of property covered under Rule 41. But the definition of property in the Rule has never changed. Each item listed is tangible,12 and the final reference to “and any other tangible items” surely must now be read as describing the outer limits of the included category.13 It strains *185credulity to suggest that Congress, having carefully circumscribed the use of electronic surveillance in Title III, would then, in Title IX, expand judicial authority to issue warrants for the electronic seizure of “intangibles” without the safeguards of Title III.14 In fact, the safeguards contained in Rule 41 make it absurd to suppose that its draftsmen thought they were authorizing any form of electronic surveillance. The paragraphs relating to issuance of the warrant, Rule 41 (c), the preparation of an inventory of property in the presence of the person whose property has been taken, Rule 41 (d), and the motion for a return of property, Rule 41 (e), are almost meaningless if read as relating to electronic surveillance of any kind.
To reach its result in this case, the Court has had to overlook *186the Rule’s specific language, its specific safeguards, and its legislative background. This is an extraordinary judicial effort in such a sensitive area, and I can only regard it as most unwise. It may be that a pen register is less intrusive than other forms of electronic surveillance. Congress evidently thought so. See S. Rep. No. 1097, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 90 (1968). But the Court should not try to leap from that assumption to the conclusion that the District Court’s order here is covered by Rule 41. As I view this case, it is immaterial whether or not the attachment of a pen register to a private telephone line is a violation of the Fourth Amendment. If, on the one hand, the individual’s privacy interest is not constitutionally protected, judicial intervention is both unnecessary and unauthorized. If, on the other hand, the constitutional protection is applicable, the focus of inquiry should not be whether Congress has prohibited the intrusion, but whether Congress has expressly authorized it, and no such authorization can be drawn from Rule 41. On either hypothesis, the order entered by the District Court on March 19, 1976, authorizing the installation of a pen register, was a nullity. It cannot, therefore, support the further order requiring the New York Telephone Company to aid in the installation of the device.
II
Even if I were to assume that the pen register order in this case was valid, I could not accept the Court’s conclusion that the District Court had the power under the All Writs Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1651 (a), to require the New York Telephone Company to assist in its installation. This conclusion is unsupported by the history, the language, or previous judicial interpretations of the Act.
The All Writs Act was originally enacted, in part, as § 14 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, 1 Stat. 81.15 The Act was, and *187is, necessary because federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction having only those powers expressly granted by Congress,16 and the statute provides these courts with the procedural tools — the various historic common-law writs— necessary for them to exercise their limited jurisdiction.17 The statute does not contain, and has never before been interpreted as containing, the open-ended grant of authority to federal courts that today's decision purports to uncover. ' Instead, in the language of the statute itself, there are two fundamental limitations on its scope. The purpose of any order authorized by the Act must be to aid the court in the exercise of its jurisdiction;18 and the means selected must be analogous to a common-law writ. The Court's opinion ignores both limitations.
*188The Court starts from the premise that a district court may issue a writ under the Act “to effectuate and prevent the frustration of orders it has previously issued in its exercise of jurisdiction otherwise obtained.” Ante, at 172. As stated, this premise is neither objectionable nor remarkable and conforms to the principle that the Act was intended to aid the court in the exercise of its jurisdiction. Clearly, if parties were free to ignore a court judgment or order, the court’s ability to perform its duties would be undermined. And the court’s power to issue an order requiring a party to carry out the terms of the original judgment is well settled. See Root v. Woolworth, 150 U. S. 401, 410-413. The courts have also recognized, however, that this power is subject to certain restraints. For instance, the relief granted by the writ may not be “of a different kind” or “on a different principle” from that accorded by the underlying order or judgment. See id., at 411-412.19
*189More significantly, the courts have consistently recognized and applied the limitation that whatever action the court takes must be in aid of its duties and its jurisdiction.20 The fact that a party may be better able to effectuate its rights or duties if a writ is issued never has been, and under the language of the statute cannot be, a sufficient basis for issuance of the writ. See Sampson v. Murray, 415 U. S. 61; Commercial Security Bank v. Walker Bank & Trust Co., 456 F. 2d 1352 (CA10, 1972); J. Moore, B. Ward, & J. Lucas, 9 Moore’s Federal Practice ¶ 110.29 (1975).
Nowhere in the Court’s decision or in the decisions of the lower courts is there the slightest indication of why a writ is necessary or appropriate in this case to aid the District Court’s jurisdiction. According to the Court, the writ is necessary because the Company’s refusal “threatened obstruc*190tion of an investigation , Ante, at 174. Concededly, citizen cooperation is always a desired element in any government investigation, and lack of cooperation may thwart such an investigation, even though it is legitimate and judicially sanctioned.21 But unless the Court is of the opinion that the District Court’s interest in its jurisdiction was coextensive with the Government’s interest in a successful investigation, there is simply no basis for concluding that the inability of the Government to achieve the purposes for which it obtained the pen register order in any way detracted from or threatened the District Court’s jurisdiction. Plainly, the District Court’s jurisdiction does not ride on the Government’s shoulders until successful completion of an electronic surveillance.
If the All Writs Act confers authority to order persons to aid the Government in the performance of its duties, and is no longer to be confined to orders which must be entered to enable the court to carry out its functions, it provides a sweeping grant of authority entirely without precedent in our Nation’s history. Of course, there is precedent for such authority in the common law — the writ of assistance. The use of that writ by the judges appointed by King George III was one British practice that the Revolution was specifically intended to terminate. See n. 3, supra. I can understand why the Court today does not seek to support its holding by reference to that writ, but I cannot, understand its disregard of the statutory requirement that the writ be “agreeable to the usages and principles of law.”
*191III
The order directed against the Company in this case is not particularly offensive. Indeed, the Company probably welcomes its defeat since it will make a normal profit out of compliance with orders of this kind in the future. Nevertheless, the order is deeply troubling as a portent of the powers that future courts may find lurking in the arcane language of Rule 41 and the All Writs Act.
I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

 In fact, Congress amended Title III when presented with a similar question. See ante, at 177-178, n. 25.

 The statutes enacted prior to 1945 are catalogued in the Appendix to Mr. Justice Frankfurter’s eloquent dissent in Davis v. United States, 328 U. S. 582, 616-623.

 These writs authorized the indiscriminate search and seizure of unde-scribed persons or property based on mere suspicion. See N. Lasson, The History and Development of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution 51-55 (1937). The writs of assistance were viewed as particularly oppressive. They commanded "all officers and subjects of the Crown to assist in their execution,” and they were not returnable after execution, but rather served as continuous authority during the lifetime of the reigning sovereign. Id., at 53-54.

 The importance of the colonial resistance to general writs and writs of assistance in our history has been emphasized in several Supreme Court cases, e. g., Frank v. Maryland, 359 U. S. 360, 363-365; Henry v. United States, 361 U. S. 98, 100-101; Stanford v. Texas, 379 U. S. 476, 481-485, and is set forth in detail in Lasson, supra, and Fraenkel, Concerning Searches and Seizures, 34 Harv. L. Rev. 361 (1921).

 Article XIV of the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780. The Fourth Amendment was patterned after this provision. See Harris v. United States, 331 U.S. 145, 158 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting).

 It was not until 1917 that Congress granted the federal courts, as part of the Espionage Act, broad powers to issue search warrants. 40 Stat. 217, 228 (allowing warrants for stolen property, property used in the commission of a felony, and property used to unlawfully aid a foreign government). These provisions of the Espionage Act formed the basis of Rule 41. See Notes of Advisory Committee on Rules, 18 U. S. C. App., p. 4512. It is clear that the Espionage Act did not delegate authority to issue all warrants compatible with the Fourth Amendment. After the Act, Congress continued to enact legislation authorizing search warrants for particular items, and the courts recognized that, if a warrant was not specifically authorized by the Act — or another congressional enactment— it was prohibited. See Colyer v. Skeffington, 265 F. 17, 45 (Mass. 1920), rev’d on other grounds, 277 F. 129 (CA1 1922). See also Warden v. Hayden, 387 U. S. 294, 308 n. 12.

 See United States v. Southwestern Bell Tel. Co., 546 F. 2d 243, 245 (CA8 1976); United States v. Illinois Bell Tel. Co., 531 F. 2d 809 (CA7 1976) (semble).

 I recognize that there are opinions involving warrantless electronic surveillance which assume that courts have some sort of nonstaturory power to issue search warrants. See United States v. Giordano, 416 U. S. 505, 554 (Powell, J., concurring); Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347; Osborn v. United States, 385 U. S. 323. That assumption was not, however, necessary to the decisions in any of those cases, and Katz may rest on a reading of Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 41, see discussion, infra, at 184-185. Admittedly, Osborn appears to rely in part on a nonstatutory order to permit a secret recording of a conversation with a lawyer who attempted to bribe a witness. But, as the Court subsequently made clear in United States v. White, 401 U. S. 745, prior judicial authorization was not a necessary element of that case. Moreover, since the court in Osborn was *182concerned with the integrity of its own procedures, the argument that it possessed an inherent power to authorize a nonstatutory investigation had far greater strength than it has in the context of an ordinary criminal investigation. Cf. American Tobacco Co. v. Werckmeister, 146 F. 375 (CA2 1906), aff’d, 207 U. S. 284 (use of All Writs Act to seize goods in the support of the court’s jurisdiction).

 In the edition of his treatise written after the decision in Warden v. Hayden in 1967 and prior, to the 1972 amendment to Rule 41, Professor Wright acutely observed:
“Immediately after the Hayden decision there was an apparent anomaly, since the case held that evidence might be seized, but Rule 41 (b) did not authorize issuance of a search warrant for evidence. This would have meant that evidence might be seized where a search may permissibly be made without a warrant, but not in a search under warrant. This would have been wholly inconsistent with the strongly-held notion that, save in a few special classes of cases, a warrant should be a prerequisite to a search, and it would have encouraged police to search without a warrant. Congress, which can move more quickly than the rulemaking apparatus, responded by passage of a statute making it permissible to issue a search warrant for ‘property that constitutes evidence of a criminal offense in violation of the laws of the United States.’ This supplements, and may well soon swallow up, the other grounds for a search warrant set out in Rule 41 (b).” (Footnotes omitted.) 3 C. Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure § 664 (1969).

 See comments of Senator Allott, who introduced Title IX in the Senate, 114 Cong. Rec. 14790 (1968).

 Indeed, under the Court’s flexible interpretation of Rule 41, the entire series of statutes that belie the “inherent power” concept, was also an exercise in futility because the silence of Congress would not have prohibited any warrant that did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Many of these statutes remain in effect, e. g., 49 U. S. C. § 782 (seizure of certain contraband); 19 U. S. C. § 1595 (customs duties; searches and seizures); and Rule 41 (h) expressly provides that Rule 41 “does not modify any act, inconsistent with it, regulating search, seizure and the issuance and execution of search warrants . . . .”

 Rule 41 (h) provides in part:
“The term 'property’ is used in this rule to include documents, books, papers and any other tangible objects.”

 The Court acknowledges that the amendment to- Rule 41 (b) eliminated a “restriction” against the seizure of mere evidence. Ante, at 170-171, n. 18. What the Court refers to as a “restriction” was nothing more than silence- — -the absence of an express grant of authority. Since the *185Rule is just as silent on the subject of seizing intangibles as it was on the subject of seizing mere evidence, it is difficult to understand why the Court does not recognize the same “restriction” against such seizures.

 The Court argues that it “would be anomalous to permit the recording of conversations by means of electronic surveillance while prohibiting the far lesser intrusion accomplished by pen registers.” Ante, at 170. But respondent does not claim that Congress has prohibited the use of pen registers. Admittedly there is now no statute either permitting or prohibiting the use of such devices. If that use is a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment — a question the Court does not decide— there is nothing anomalous about concluding that it is a forbidden activity until Congress has prescribed the safeguards that should accompany any warrant to engage in it. Even if an anomaly does exist, it should be cured by Congress rather than by a loose interpretation of “property” under Rule 41 which may tolerate sophisticated electronic surveillance techniques never considered by Congress and presenting far greater dangers of intrusion than pen registers. See Michigan Bell Tel. Co. v. United States, 565 F. 2d 385 (CA6 1977) (indicating the increasing sophistication of surveillance techniques similar to pen registers); cf. United States v. Pretzinger, 542 F. 2d 517 (CA9 1976) (use of electronic tracking devices). It is significant that Title III limits the types of criminal investigations for which electronic surveillance may be used; no such limit is expressed in Rule 41 or is implicit in the Court’s reasoning today.

 The statute was also derived from § 13 of the Judiciary Act, which concerned writs of mandamus and prohibition, 1 Stat. 80, and a statute *187dealing with writs of ne exeat, 1 Stat. 334. The All Writs Act now reads:
“(a) The Supreme Court and all courts established by Act of Congress may issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law.”

 This proposition was so well settled by 1807 that Mr. Chief Justice Marshall needed no citation to support the following statement:
“As preliminary to any investigation of the merits of this motion, this court deems it proper to declare that it disclaims all jurisdiction not given by the constitution, or by the laws of the United States.
“Courts which originate in the common law possess a jurisdiction which must be regulated by their common law, until some statute shall change their established principles; but courts which are created by written law, and whose jurisdiction is defined by written law, cannot transcend that jurisdiction. It is unnecessary to state the reasoning on which this opinion is founded, because it has been repeatedly given by this court; and with the decisions heretofore rendered on this point,, no member of the bench has, even for an instant, been dissatisfied.” Ex parte Bollman, 4 Cranch 75, 93.

 See Harris v. Nelson, 394 U. S. 286, 299.

 This Court has frequently considered this requirement in the context of orders necessary or appropriate in the exercise of appellate jurisdiction. See J. Moore, B. Ward, & J. Lucas, 9 Moore’s Federal Practice ¶¶ 110.27-110.28 (1975). Here, we are faced with an order that must be necessary or appropriate in the exercise of a district court’s original jurisdiction.

 These restraints are necessary concomitants of the undisputed fact that the All Writs Act does not provide federal courts with an independent grant of jurisdiction. McIntire v. Wood, 7 Cranch 504; Rosenbaum v. Bauer, 120 U. S. 450. The factors mentioned above may be relevant in determining whether the court has ancillary jurisdiction over the dispute. See Dugas v. American Surety Co., 300 U. S. 414; Labette County Commr’s v. Moulton, 112 U. S. 217; Morrow v. District of Columbia, 135 U. S. App. D. C. 160, 417 F. 2d 728 (1969). In this case, the District Court’s order was entered against a third party — the Telephone Company. The Court never explains on what basis the District Court had jurisdiction to enter this order. Possibly, the District Court believed that it had ancillary jurisdiction over the controversy, or that the failure of the Company to aid the Government posed a federal question under 28 U. S. C. § 1331. See Board of Education v. York, 429 F. 2d 66 (CA10 1970), cert. denied, 401 U. S. 954. Since I believe that the District Court could not enter its order in any event since it was not in aid of its jurisdiction, I do not find it necessary to reach the question whether there was jurisdiction, apart from the All Writs Act, over the “dispute” between the Government and the Telephone Company. However, the Court’s failure to indicate the basis of jurisdiction is inexplicable.

 The Court’s failure to explain why the District Court’s order was in aid of its jurisdiction is particularly notable when compared to the rationale of the prior Court cases on which it relies. See, e. g., Harris v. Nelson, 394 U. S. 286, 299 (“the habeas corpus jurisdiction and the duty to exercise it being present, the courts may fashion appropriate modes of procedure .... Where their duties require it, this is the inescapable obligation of the courts”) (emphasis added); FTC v. Dean Foods Co., 384 U. S. 597, 604 (injunction issued under All Writs Act upheld because it was necessary “to preserve the status quo while administrative proceedings are in progress and •prevent impairment of the effective exercise of appellate jurisdiction”) (emphasis added).
The Court apparently concludes that there is no functional distinction between orders designed to enable a party to effectuate its rights and orders necessary to aid a court in the exercise of its jurisdiction. Ante, at 175 n. 23. The Court reaches this conclusion by pointing out that the orders in cases such as Harris v. Nelson, supra, protected a party’s rights. This is, of course, true. Orders in aid of a court’s jurisdiction will usually be beneficial to one of the parties before the court. The converse, however, is clearly not true. Not all orders that may enable a party to effectuate its rights aid the court in its exercise of jurisdiction. Compare Sampson v. Murray, 415 U. S. 61, with FTC v. Dean Foods Co., supra.

 A citizen is not, however, free to forcibly prevent the execution of a search warrant. Title 18 U. S. C. § 2231 imposes criminal penalties on any person who “forcibly assaults, resists, opposes, prevents, impedes, intimidates, or interferes with any person authorized to> serve or execute search warrants . . . .” This section was originally enacted as part of the Espionage Act of 1917, see n. 6, supra, and is the only statutory provision imposing any duty on the general citizenry to “assist” in the execution of a warrant.