◆ SpookStack

re a: “ ¢ 190 dis. 2 Nardone ef al. vs. United States. 9 There is a manifest difference between the case of a private ine dividual who intercepts a message from amotives of curiosity or te further personal ends, and that of a responstble official ened: in the governmental duty of uncovering erime and bringing eriminals to justice. It is fair to conclude that the word “person’’ as here used was intended to include the former but not the latter. This accords with the well-settled general rule stated by Justice Story in United States v. Hoar, 2 Mason 311, 314-315, 26 Fed. Cas. 329, 330: ‘In general, acts of the legislature are meant to regulate and direct the acts and rights of eitizens; and in most cases the reason- ing applicable to them applies with very different, and often con- trary foree tO the government itself, It appears to me, therefore, to be a safe rule founded in the principles of the common law, that the general words of a statute ouglit not to include the govern- ment, or affect its rights, unless that construction be elear and in- disputable upon the text of the act.’’ And see In the Matter of Wil of For, 52 N. ¥. 530, 535. Compare State v. Gorham, 110 Wash. 330; Balthasar v. Pacific Elec. Ry. Co., 187 Cal. 302, 303-208, A case in point is that of People v. Hebberd (Sup. Ct. N. Y.), 96 Misc. 617, 620-621. “ In the investigations of the congressional commiltees, referred to in the opinion of the court, it appeared that the Attorney General had ordered that no tapping of wires should be permitted without the personal direction of the chief of the bureau, after consultation with the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the case; and that such means were to be adopted only’as an emergency method. The Attorney General himself appeared before one of the committees and pointed out thiut erime had become highly organized, with é6trong political connections and illezal methods of procedure; that gangsters and desperate criminals had equipped themselyes with every modern convenience and invention; that modern gangsters have no regard for life, property, deceney or anything else; and he had no doubt that they tapped wires leading to offices of the United States attorneys to find out what was being done. He cited the case of a Bureau of Investigation agent who had been found shot to death under circumstances which indicated that a fang of narcotic traffickers had murdered him; and be posed the question whether, if it had appeared that the perpetrators of the erime could be de- tected and brought to justice by tapping their telephone WATes, nevertheless, that ought not to be dune.