Cite as: 532 U. S. 514 (2001)
Syllabus
interests at stake, and remanded the case with instructions to enter summary judgment for respondents.
Held: The First Amendment protects the disclosures made by respondents in this suit. Pp. 522-535.
(a) Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, as amended, generally prohibits the interception of wire, electronic, and oral communications. Title 18 U. S. C. § 2511(1)(a) applies to the person who willfully intercepts such communications and subsection (c) to any person who, knowing or having reason to know that the communication was obtained through an illegal interception, willfully discloses its contents. Pp. 522-524.
(b) Because of this suit's procedural posture, the Court accepts that the interception was unlawful and that respondents had reason to know that. Accordingly, the disclosures violated the statutes. In answering the remaining question whether the statutes' application in such circumstances violates the First Amendment, the Court accepts respondents' submissions that they played no part in the illegal interception, that their access to the information was obtained lawfully, and that the conversations dealt with a matter of public concern. Pp. 524-525.
(c) Section 2511(1)(c) is a content-neutral law of general applicability. The statute's purpose is to protect the privacy of wire, electronic, and oral communications, and it singles out such communications by virtue of the fact that they were illegally intercepted—by virtue of the source rather than the subject matter. Cf. Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U. S. 781, 791. On the other hand, the prohibition against disclosures is fairly characterized as a regulation of speech. Pp. 526-527.
(d) In New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U. S. 713, this Court upheld the press' right to publish information of great public concern obtained from documents stolen by a third party. In so doing, this Court focused on the stolen documents' character and the consequences of public disclosure, not on the fact that the documents were stolen. Ibid. It also left open the question whether, in cases where information has been acquired unlawfully by a newspaper or by a source, government may punish not only the unlawful acquisition, but also the ensuing publication. Florida Star v. B. J. F., 491 U. S. 524, 535, n. 8. The issue here is a narrower version of that question: Where the publisher has lawfully obtained information from a source who obtained it unlawfully, may the government punish the ensuing publication based on the defect in a chain? The Court's refusal to construe the issue more broadly is consistent with its repeated refusal to answer categorically whether the publication of truthful information may ever be punished consistent with the First Amendment. Accordingly, the Court considers whether,
515
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007