Cite as: 515 U. S. 593 (1995)
Opinion of Stevens, J.
Amendment challenge to respondent's conviction for disclosing a wiretap application under § 2232(c), I believe the Court of Appeals correctly construed § 2232(c) to invalidate respondent's conviction under that statute.
When respondent was convicted of disclosing a 30-day wiretap authorization that had expired months before the disclosure, he was convicted of an attempt to do the impossible: interfere with a nonexistent wiretap. Traditionally, the law does not proscribe an attempt unless the defendant's intent is accompanied by "a dangerous probability that [the unlawful result] will happen." Swift & Co. v. United States, 196 U. S. 375, 396 (1905) (Holmes, J.). Whether such a dangerous probability exists, of course, depends ultimately on what result we interpret the statute as having declared unlawful. See 2 W. LaFave & A. Scott, Substantive Criminal Law § 6.3, pp. 44-45 (1986). In this case, there was no dangerous probability that respondent actually would reveal the existence of a wiretap or wiretap application because none existed to reveal. We should abjure a construction of a criminal statute that leads to criminalizing nothing more than an evil intent accompanied by a harmless act, particularly when, as here, the statutory language does not clearly extend liability so far. Cf. Simpson v. United States, 435 U. S. 6, 14-15 (1978).
Indeed, the text of § 2232(c) favors a reading that requires,
as an essential element of the offense, the possibility of interference with an authorized interception. Both the second and third clauses of the statute support this straightforward interpretation. The second clause requires that the defendant intend to impede "such interception." That phrase refers to an interception that the defendant knows a federal officer "has been authorized or has applied for authorization" to make. After the authorization expires, no "such interception" can occur. Moreover, to infer that "such interception" includes any interception that might be made pursuant to any subsequent reauthorization severely undermines the
607
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