Legal Question in Criminal Law in Massachusetts

Disclosing when you record, the Wiretap Statute, Mass law

Here is a link to the statute:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/2511.shtml

It is best to be conservative, and disclose that the conversation may be recorded. Are you planning to record only when required by law? That would be a tricky proposition. For example, what do you do when a cell phone registered to an owner in Florida makes a call while he is in Massachusetts? You can see some of the problems...

As you note, Mass is a 2 party consent state. Some parties require the permission of only one party. Federal law applies to everyone in the US.

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Dangerous to record phone conversation without notice to caller!

Excellent advice from Attorney Workman. I think he meant to type "Some STATES need only 1 party consent." With the caveat that I have neither researched nor even thought of the scenarios you and/or Atty Workman described, it seems logical that Federal law would apply to communications across state lines. Read the Fed statute and then be conservative as Atty Workman says. The same ambiguous situation would arise if, say, a Mass. customer of Fleet bank, called the Customer Service number while on a trip to California and charged the call to his/her Mass. phone number. Would the Mass court look at the call as being a MAss-Mass call or a Calif-Mass call? Treacherous waters, I'd say, not to give notice to the party calling in to your firm.

Wiretap in Massachusetts

Both Massachusetts law and federal law apply to telephone calls originating orreceived in Massachusetts. Therefore you need consent of both parties to atelephone call from say Florida to Massachusetts or California to Massachusettsbefore you record the call. It is a felony under Massachusetts law to secretly recordor monitor telephone calls.