Owen J. Roberts

“ The Attorney General himself appeared before one of the committees and pointed out that crime had become highly organized, with strong political connections and illegal methods of procedure; that gangsters and desperate criminals had equipped themselves with every modern convenience and invention; that modern gangsters have no regard for life, property, decency or anything else ”

“ I think the word 'person' used in this statute does not include an officer of the federal government, actually engaged in the detection of crime and the enforcement of the criminal statutes of the United States, who has good reason to believe that a telephone is being, or is about to be, used as an aid to the commission or concealment of a crime. ”

“ There is a manifest difference between the case of a private individual who intercepts a message from motives of curiosity or to further personal ends, and that of a responsible official engaged in the governmental duty of uncovering crime and bringing criminals to justice. ”

“ True it is that after this court's decision in the Olmstead case Congressional committees investigated the wire-tapping activities of federal agents. Over a period of several years bills were introduced to prohibit the practice, all of which failed to pass. An Act of 1933 included a clause forbidding this method of procuring evidence of violations of the National Prohibition Act. [5] During 1932, 1933 and 1934, however, there was no discussion of the matter in Congress, and we are without contemporary legislative history relevant to the passage of the statute in question. ”

“ Taken at face value the phrase 'no person' comprehends federal agents, and the ban on communication to 'any person' bars testimony to the content of an intercepted message. Such an application of the section is supported by comparison of the clause concerning intercepted messages with that relating to those known to employes of the carrier. ”

“ The first is where an act, if not so limited, would deprive the sovereign of a recognized or established prerogative title or interest. [6] A classical instance is the exemption of the state from the operation of general statutes of limitation. ”