CA6: Govt properly filtered attorney calls in wiretap

On a health care fraud wiretap, the government lawfully used Hindu translators as “contractors” assisting in the wiretap, and attorney-client privileged calls were properly filtered out. No violation of either Title III or the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Patel, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 17463, 2014 FED App. 0706N (6th Cir. September 8, 2014), amended 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 20437, 2014 FED App. 0793N (6th Cir. October 21, 2014)*:

Taking all of the circumstances of the wiretap into account, the agents and the prosecutor charged with supervising the operation acted reasonably and did not violate the defendants’ Fourth Amendment or statutory rights. See Scott, 436 U.S. at 137-40. We recognize the inherent danger in allowing government agents on a filter team to listen to a target’s conversations with his attorneys without minimization. See In re Grand Jury Subpoenas, 454 F.3d 511, 523 (6th Cir. 2006). There was no proof presented, however, that the monitoring agents and translators failed to abide by the limitations set forth in the wiretap authorization orders. This is not a case like United States v. George, 465 F.2d 772, 775 (6th Cir. 1972), where the “protective limitations” of the wiretap authorization order “were completely defeated.” Moreover, the evidentiary record in this case is far different from the factual records presented to the courts in United States v. Renzi, 722 F. Supp. 2d 1100 (D. Ariz. 2010), and United States v. Simels, No. 08-CR-640, 2009 WL 1924746 (E.D.N.Y. July 2, 2009). In those cases, the district courts suppressed all evidence obtained through electronic surveillance because the proof established that agents unlawfully intercepted privileged attorney-client calls. Here, no such proof was presented. Because the district court did not err in ruling that the government met the minimization requirement of the wiretap statute, we affirm on this ground.