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e & eo € se SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. No. 190.—Ocroser Term, 1937. Frank Carmine Nardone, Austin Tu. Callahan, Hugh Brown and Robert Gottfried, Petitioners, vs, . . The United States of America. for the Seeond Cireuit. On Writ of Certiorari to the United States Cir- - enit Court of Apprals [December 20, 1937.] Mr. Justice Scrurriann, dissenting. I think the word “person” used in this statute does not include an officer of the federal government, actually engaged in the detec- tion of crime and the enforcement of the criminal statutes of the Pnited 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 conceal- ment ofa crime. The decision just made will necessarily have the effect of enabling the most depraved criminals to further their eriminal plans over the telephone, in the secure knowledge that even if these plans involve kidnapping and murder, their telephone con- versations ean never be intercepted by officers of the law and re- vealed in court. If Congress thus intended to tie the hands of the government in its effort to protect the people against lawlessness of the most scrious character, it would have said so in a more definite way than by the use of the ambieuous word ‘‘person’’, Comaion- wealth v. Welosky, 276 Mass. 398, 403-404, 406, For that word has sometimes been construed to inelude the government and its officials, and sometimes not. Iam not aware of any case where it has been given that inclusive effeet in a situation such as we have here. Obviously, the situation dealt with in United States v. Ari- zona, 290 17 3. 174, was quite different. There, a federal statute forbade the construction of any bride, ete., in any port, efe., “until the consent of Congress shall have been obtained’ The mere building of the designated structure, in the absence of congresstonial ‘consent, violated the statute. There was no ambiguous tern, such as we have here, or anything else in the laneuaye, requiring con- struction,