Court Opinion

ID: 9461031
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:04:23.662044+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:51.862099
License: Public Domain

RICHARD H. CHAMBERS,
Circuit Judge (dissenting):
I would affirm. I would follow what was said in the Alter case, United States v. Alter, 482 F.2d 1016 (9 Cir. 1973), rather than telling the district court that it didn’t read Alter right. Further, the record shows that defendant says he must have been subjected to electronics surveillance because (his opinion) the grand jury questions “could not have been asked without wire tapping.” I would guess that there are 10,000 cases of an informer for every one of electronic surveillance. I would not put the government to its proof on the basis of the legal opinion of Yielguth, which does not exclude the more probable source. Whatever Vielguth did, it has not been suggested that he lived alone in a windowless room and stayed there alone year in and year out.
As to the government’s response, if one was required as the majority holds, I would hold now that the response was insufficient. The affidavits are replete with the statement, “To my knowledge.” That, to me, is an obfuscation carrying with it all of the clarity of that pitiful phrase, “and/or”, so prevalent in the 1930’s.
As I have indicated in my concurrence in United States v. Weir, 495 F.2d 879 at 882 (9th Cir. 1974), I think that when the government does the best it can reasonably do in responding to suggestions of illegal electronic surveillance that is usually enough, but “to my knowledge” is a substitute for nothing.