Legal Question in Securities Law in California

Re: wire

Your question is in the wrong category; securities law is about stocks and bonds and that kind of stuff. Your question should be asked as a criminal law or possibly a constitutional law question to get a much greater number of answers, and probably better answers. I suggest you re-ask it under a more appropriate category. However, to save you some time in at least getting one lawyer's opinion, I'll take a shot at it.

Under California law, which probably mirrors federal law, recording a conversation without the knowledge and at least implied permission of all persons who are parties to the conversation can be either LEGAL or ILLEGAL.

Which category it falls into -- legal or illegal -- cannot be simply stated. It has to do with whether or not the parties to the conversation have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" or not.

What the heck is "a reasonable expectation of privacy," then????? Legal scholars, judges and lawyers argue over the fine points, but there are some pretty well-recognized guidelines:

1. If you place a telephone call to a friend from your personal telephone at home, you have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

2. If you place a phone call to a friend and the phone is obviously answered by a machine, your expectation of privacy evaporates, because you know good and well that the answering machine will record what you say.

3. If you call a business and the voicemail thing says your call may be monitored for training or quality-control purposes -- no expectation of privacy -- you've been warned.

4. If a criminal suspect talks to a police officer -- no exoectation of privacy. The suspect knows the cop's job is to investigate crime. Especially after Miranda warning given!

This is not a polished or researched dissertation on this subject; it'w what I remember from law school plus several years of working part-time as a law clerk in the public defender's office. I hope it is helpful. Again, I suggest you re-ask your question under the criminal law topic heading.