Court Opinion

ID: 9641307
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:28:09.749802+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:36.520731
License: Public Domain

AUGUSTUS N. HAND, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I concur in the opinion of Judge LEARNED HAND in the above case and also with the opinion (Per Curiam) in United States v. Fallon, 2 Cir., 112 F.2d 894, because the results reached seem to follow inevitably from the recent decisions of the Supreme Court which have construed the Federal Communications Act as preventing the use of telephonic messages obtained through interception, without the consent of the sender, as evidence in criminal prosecutions.
It may be that the views expressed by Judge CLARK in his dissenting opinion will prevail and I should be gratified if the Supreme Court would go even so far. But it is difficult for me to see how such a line can be drawn in view of the reasons given for the decisions in Nardone v. United States, 302 U.S. 379, 58 S.Ct. 275, 82 L.Ed. 314; Weiss v. United States, 308 U.S. 321, 60 S.Ct. 269, 84 L.Ed. 298; and Nardone v. United States, 308 U.S. 338, 60 S.Ct. 266. 84 L.Ed. 307.
I am convinced that prohibition of the use of wire taps to detect the activities of criminals, who choose to conduct their negotiations by means of the telephone, imposes great and at times insurmountable obstacles upon the prosecuting authorities in the detection and prosecution of crime, nor do I see the fundamental difference between evidence ■ obtained in this way and by many other methods of detection, which I suppose to be permissible, except for the scope given to the provisions of the Federal Communications Act.
In the face of the foregoing Supreme Court decisions any remedy must rest with the Congress who, in my opinion, can con*891stitutionally permit wiretapping by government authorities with or without such safeguards against abuse as Congress may see fit to impose. Unless and until Congress chooses to act in the premises, the prosecutor must do the best he can without evidence obtained in such ways.