{"id":5162,"date":"2011-03-20T13:24:32","date_gmt":"2011-02-06T10:21:29","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-02-06T10:21:29","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=5162","title":{"rendered":"CA4:  Violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act is not subject to the exclusionary rule"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) is not subject to the exclusionary rule. <a href=\"http:\/\/pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov\/opinion.pdf\/095114.P.pdf\">United States v. Clenney<\/a>, 631 F.3d 658 (4th Cir. 2011):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Furthermore, even if Clenney had shown that Fernald violated the ECPA and Virginia law, the exclusionary rule would not be the appropriate remedy for these violations. As noted, \u201cthere is no exclusionary rule generally applicable to statutory violations.\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/scholar.google.com\/scholar_case?case=3336942127525974535&amp;q=463+F.3d+547&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=2,4\">United States v. Abdi<\/a>, 463 F.3d 547, 556 (6th Cir. 2006); see <a href=\"http:\/\/scholar.google.com\/scholar_case?case=10233962544914635963&amp;q=57+F.3d+1290&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=2,4\">United States v. Oriakhi<\/a>, 57 F.3d 1290, 1295 n.1 (4th Cir. 1995). In the statutory context, suppression is a creature of the statute, and its availability depends on the statutory text: \u201cThe availability of the suppression remedy for &#8230; statutory, as opposed to constitutional, violations &#8230; turns on the provisions of [the statute] rather than the judicially fashioned exclusionary rule aimed at deterring violations of Fourth Amendment rights.\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/scholar.google.com\/scholar_case?case=14509071486451234032&amp;q=429+U.S.+413&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=2,4\">United States v. Donovan<\/a>, 429 U.S. 413, 432 n.22, 97 S. Ct. 658, 50 L. Ed. 2d 652 (1977).<\/p>\n<p>Turning to the statutes at issue, neither provides suppression of the evidence in federal court as a remedy. The ECPA empowers a victim of a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/uscode\/18\/usc_sec_18_00002703----000-.html\">\u00a7 2703(c)<\/a> violation to bring a civil action for appropriate relief against violators other than the United States and provides procedures for administrative discipline of federal officials involved. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/uscode\/uscode18\/usc_sec_18_00002707----000-.html\">18 U.S.C. \u00a7 2707<\/a>. There is no mention of a suppression remedy for such a violation, and \u00a7 2708 makes clear that \u201c[t]he remedies and sanctions described in this chapter are the only judicial remedies and sanctions for nonconstitutional violations of this chapter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, Congress has shown that it knows how to create a statutory suppression remedy. It did so in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/uscode\/18\/usc_sec_18_00002515----000-.html\">18 U.S.C. \u00a7 2515<\/a>, which provides for suppression of evidence obtained in violation of the statutes governing wiretaps. Yet it chose not to do so in the context of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/uscode\/18\/usc_sec_18_00002703----000-.html\">\u00a7 2703(c)<\/a> violations. Therefore, Congress has made clear  [*20] that it did not intend to suppress evidence gathered as a result of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/uscode\/18\/usc_sec_18_00002703----000-.html\">\u00a7 2703(c)<\/a> violations. See <a href=\"http:\/\/scholar.google.com\/scholar_case?case=15910121321498545836&amp;q=518+F.3d+1196&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=2,4\">United States v. Perrine<\/a>, 518 F.3d 1196, 1202 (10th Cir. 2008); <a href=\"http:\/\/scholar.google.com\/scholar_case?case=5611821785646747519&amp;q=318+F.3d+1039&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=2,4\">United States v. Steiger<\/a>, 318 F.3d 1039, 1049 (11th Cir. 2003).\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>b2evALnk.b2WPAutP <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=5162\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"pingsdone","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}