Topic Library — Wiretapping, Phone Cloning, and Illegal Surveillance (Year 1 Foundations)

School: Minister Destiny Testimony Schools Track: Law Enforcement Class: Topic Library — Year 1 (Foundations) Founded and presented by: Muslim Ordained Minister Destiny Marie Morgan

A note on what this school is: this is community-designed training — Minister Destiny's program, built from lived experience in the neighborhoods being policed. It is not agency policy and does not replace your department's training, general orders, or the law. Where this program proposes new approaches, they are taught and labeled as proposals. Nothing here is legal advice.

Before you start

• This school never collects your name. Progress and quiz answers stay on your device; pass the unit quiz (80% or higher, retakes allowed) and your certificate downloads with a blank name line to fill in after saving. Answers are not shown.
• Surveillance is the most powerful — and the most tightly limited — tool in American policing. This unit teaches the constitutional frame first and the procedure second, in that order, because every lawful tap, phone search, and location record in your career will be judged against the frame. Nothing here teaches evading the Constitution or your department's policy; it teaches the limits that make surveillance evidence survive.

The lesson

Part 1. The constitutional frame — people, not places

The Fourth Amendment protects "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures," and it requires warrants based on probable cause that particularly describe the place to be searched and the things to be seized. Every surveillance question in this unit is a version of two questions that text forces: was there a search, and if so, was it reasonable — usually meaning authorized in advance by a judge, on probable cause, within stated limits?

For decades the first question turned on property. In Olmstead v. United States (1928), federal agents tapped telephone lines from outside the suspects' property, without entering anything. The Supreme Court held that the Fourth Amendment was not violated: there had been no physical trespass, and a conversation traveling over a wire was not a tangible thing that could be seized. Under Olmstead, surveillance that touched no property was, constitutionally, no search at all — however private the conversation.

Katz v. United States (1967) ended that era. Agents had attached a listening device to the outside of a public telephone booth and recorded a man's calls. The Court held the recording was a search anyway, in the sentence every officer should know: the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person seeks to preserve as private may be protected even in a place open to the public. Justice Harlan's concurrence gave the test courts still use, in two plain questions. First, did the person actually expect privacy — did they act as someone keeping something private, as Katz did by shutting the booth door? Second, is that expectation one society is prepared to recognize as reasonable? Both must be yes. Berger v. New York, decided the same year, is the bridge to modern wiretap law: the Court struck down a state eavesdropping statute because its orders lacked the safeguards the Fourth Amendment demands — no requirement of belief in a particular offense, no particular description of the conversations sought, and durations so long they operated like a general warrant. Berger reads today as a checklist Congress answered the next year with Title III.

Part 2. Title III done right — the strictest process in American law

Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, codified at 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510–2523, is how Congress built a wiretap process strict enough to satisfy Katz and Berger. Officers call an authorization under it a Title III order, and it is deliberately harder to get than an ordinary search warrant. Learn its load-bearing parts, in §§ 2516 and 2518.

Who may authorize the application. A federal application may be authorized only by a senior Justice Department official specially designated under § 2516 — the Attorney General, the Deputy or Associate Attorney General, an Assistant Attorney General, or certain designated deputies in the Criminal or National Security Divisions. A state application may be made only by the principal prosecuting attorney of the state or a subdivision, and only where a state statute authorizes it. A line officer does not decide to seek a tap; the decision starts at the top of the prosecuting office.

What the application must show. Under § 2518 the applicant must give the judge a full statement of facts showing probable cause that an individual is committing, has committed, or is about to commit a particular offense listed in § 2516; probable cause that particular communications about that offense will be captured; and a particular description of the facilities or place, the type of communications sought, and the person, if known. Then comes the requirement that defeats more applications than any other: necessity. The application must state fully whether other investigative procedures have been tried and failed, or why they reasonably appear unlikely to succeed if tried, or too dangerous. A wiretap is the last resort, and the judge — not the applicant — decides whether the showing earns it.

How the interception must be run. An order may authorize interception for no longer than 30 days; an extension requires a new application meeting the same standards. While listening, the team must minimize — conduct the interception so as to reduce the capture of communications the order does not cover, in practice by stopping or limiting listening when a call is plainly outside the order. Recordings must be made available to the issuing judge and sealed as the statute directs, so the record the court later reviews is the record actually made. After the order ends, the persons named — and others the judge directs — must be served with notice (an inventory), generally within 90 days unless a judge postpones it for good cause. The system also reports on itself: judges and prosecutors file the reports published each year as the Wiretap Report under § 2519. Hold Part 2 as one discipline: senior authorization, probable cause of a listed offense, necessity, particularity, 30 days, minimization, sealing, notice. Part 7 shows what happens when any one is cut.

Part 3. The phone in the suspect's hand — Riley and the warrant rule

At arrest, officers may search the arrestee's person and the area within immediate control — the search incident to arrest — to protect officers and preserve evidence. In Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014), the Supreme Court held unanimously that this exception does not reach the digital contents of a cell phone seized from an arrestee. The reasoning tracks the exception's own purposes: digital data cannot be used as a weapon against an officer, and once the phone is secured, the evidence-preservation risk can be handled by securing the device — isolating it from the network, for example — while a warrant is sought. Against those limited risks the Court weighed what a modern phone is: a device holding years of messages, photographs, location history, health and financial records — in the Court's judgment, a search categorically more intrusive than emptying a pocket. The rule is short enough to memorize: seize and secure the phone; get a warrant to search its contents.

Three field consequences follow. At booking, inventory the device as property under your policy, but do not treat booking as permission to scroll: the contents wait for the warrant. In cars and containers, the same line holds — finding a phone during a lawful vehicle search gives you the device, not its data. Consent is the remaining door, and it is narrower than it sounds. Consent must be voluntary; it can be limited in scope ("you may look at my photos" is not consent to read messages); and it can be withdrawn — when a person withdraws consent, searching stops, and anything already lawfully obtained is documented as it was at that moment. Record who consented, to what, and when consent ended, in exact words. A consent search you cannot describe precisely is a warrant you should have gotten.

Part 4. Location evidence — Jones, Carpenter, and the geofence question

Location evidence asks where a person has been, and the Court has answered in two different doctrinal voices. In United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012), agents attached a GPS device to a vehicle — outside the warrant's time and place limits — and monitored it for 28 days. The Court held the attachment and monitoring were a search, on trespass grounds: the government had physically occupied private property, an "effect," to obtain information, and that alone made it a search under the original understanding of the Fourth Amendment. Two concurrences took the longer view: five justices in total, across the concurring opinions, expressed concern that prolonged location monitoring can invade reasonable expectations of privacy even without a physical trespass. Jones therefore teaches both a rule — do not attach trackers without valid authority — and a warning that duration itself matters.

Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. 296 (2018), supplied the expectation-of-privacy half. The government had obtained 127 days of cell-site location information (CSLI) — the carrier's time-stamped record of which towers a phone connected to — using court orders under the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2703, which requires only specific and articulable facts showing reasonable grounds to believe the records are relevant and material. The Court held that acquiring at least seven days of historical CSLI is a search: cell phones log location automatically and continuously, producing a detailed chronicle of movements that reaches back years, and a person keeps a reasonable expectation of privacy in the whole of those movements. An order under § 2703 is not enough for that category of records; the government generally needs a warrant supported by probable cause. The Court called its decision narrow — it did not disturb ordinary business-records practice — but for location work the operational rule is clear: extended CSLI means warrant first.

Geofence warrants — orders requiring a provider to identify devices present within a defined area and time window — sit beyond Carpenter's holding, and courts are divided on how, and whether, they can satisfy particularity when the initial search sweeps in many uninvolved people's devices. This unit teaches no holding on them, because no single settled one exists. Treat any geofence request as a warrant question for prosecutors and the issuing court, expect heightened scrutiny of breadth and minimization, and never describe the technique as settled law.

Part 5. Eyes and sensors on the home — Kyllo and what comes next

The home stands at the core of the Fourth Amendment, and technology aimed at it gets the strictest reading. In Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27 (2001), agents used a thermal imager from a public street to measure heat escaping from a home, suspecting indoor marijuana growing lamps. The Court held the scan was a search: where the government uses sense-enhancing technology not in general public use to learn details of the home that would previously have required physical entry to discover, it has searched the home, and a warrantless search of a home is presumptively unreasonable. Note what the Court refused to do: it would not sort "intimate" details from ordinary ones — inside the home, the line it drew protects the home itself, not a judge's after-the-fact ranking of what was seen.

Around that settled core, much is unsettled, and this unit labels it so. Aerial observation and pole cameras are the standing example: courts have reached different conclusions about prolonged camera surveillance of a home's exterior and curtilage, turning on duration, vantage, and technology — an open question in many jurisdictions, not a permission. The field rule that survives the uncertainty is Kyllo's: the more a tool reveals what unaided observation from a lawful vantage could not, and the longer it watches the home, the more you should treat the question as a warrant question and put it to a prosecutor before, not after. Drones add one careful line: FAA airspace rules govern whether a flight is lawful as aviation; they are not a privacy warrant, and compliance with them does not answer the Fourth Amendment question about what the drone's sensors collect.

Part 6. When the suspect is the surveiller — stalkerware and illegal taps

Everything above limits the government. This Part is about the surveillance you will be called to stop. Victims of stalking and coercive control report a consistent cluster of facts: a partner who knows messages before they are sent, appears at locations never shared, quotes private conversations, or "guesses" passwords and movements too accurately. Behind those reports officers find the tools of private illegal surveillance: stalkerware apps hidden on the victim's phone that copy messages, photos, and live location; a phone account quietly cloned or moved by SIM swap so calls and codes reach a second device; location sharing turned on and concealed; and recorders or cameras placed in the home. The companion Law Enforcement unit "Hidden Technology in the Home" carries the scene work in depth; this unit's job is the legal frame and the intake posture.

Two points carry that frame. First, the suspect's own surveillance is evidence, not a private arrangement: the stalkerware dashboard, the second phone receiving cloned traffic, the suspect's recordings and messages can document interception, stalking, and protective-order violations, and they are preserved like any other evidence — photographed, documented, and seized or copied only as the law and your policy authorize, because the victim's phone is also a crime scene that must keep working as her lifeline. Second, enforcement against the sellers is real: in 2021 the Federal Trade Commission banned Support King, LLC — the company behind the SpyFone app — and its CEO from the surveillance business, alleging the apps let purchasers secretly monitor users' movements, messages, and online activity, and ordered the illegally collected data deleted and device owners notified. "It was sold openly" is no defense to using such a tool on a person without consent.

The intake posture is three verbs: believe, document, and preserve. Believe the report enough to investigate it — uncanny knowledge is a fact pattern, not a coincidence. Document the victim's account in her own words, the devices and accounts involved, and every access the suspect should not have had. Preserve before you clean: removing an app or resetting a phone before evidence is secured can destroy the proof — and where a suspect monitors in real time, safety planning with the victim comes before any step that would alert him. Coordinate with victim advocates and prosecutors early; these cases are charged on the quality of the preservation.

Part 7. Getting it wrong costs the case — suppression and the professional stake

Title III carries its own exclusionary rule, and it has no soft edges. Under 18 U.S.C. § 2515, whenever a wire or oral communication has been intercepted in violation of the chapter, "no part of the contents" and "no evidence derived therefrom" may be received in evidence in any trial, hearing, or other proceeding. Section 2518(10)(a) gives the aggrieved person the motion to suppress on grounds that the communication was unlawfully intercepted, that the order was insufficient on its face, or that the interception was not made in conformity with the order. The statute therefore excludes not only the calls themselves but what the calls led to — the meeting watched, the package seized, the second phone found — when that evidence derives from the unlawful interception.

That derivative reach is the fruit of the poisonous tree in plain form: evidence a court treats as the product of an earlier illegality falls with the illegality, because admitting it would let the violation pay. One defective authorization, one blown necessity showing, one unsealed recording or an interception run past its order can end not a single exhibit but the prosecution built on it. Beyond the case, constitutional violations carry civil exposure — claims under Bivens against federal officers and under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against state and local officers are the general vehicles courts recognize, taught here in outline as general information only. And the professional stake outlasts any lawsuit: surveillance credibility is cumulative, and the affidavit a judge grants next year is granted because this year's applications were exact. The limits in Parts 1–5 are not obstacles to the work. They are the work, done in the only order that survives a courtroom.

Words to know — Wiretapping, Phone Cloning, and Illegal Surveillance

• Interception — acquiring the contents of a wire, oral, or electronic communication, as it is being transmitted, through a device.
• Reasonable expectation of privacy — the Fourth Amendment test from Katz: a person actually expected privacy, and that expectation is one society is prepared to recognize as reasonable.
• Particularity — the constitutional requirement that a warrant or order describe specifically the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized — for a wiretap, the offense, the facilities, and the type of communications.
• Necessity requirement — Title III's rule that an applicant must show other investigative procedures have been tried and failed, or reasonably appear unlikely to succeed if tried or too dangerous.
• Minimization — conducting an authorized interception so as to reduce the capture of communications the order does not cover.
• Title III order — a court order under 18 U.S.C. § 2518 authorizing interception of wire, oral, or electronic communications, for no more than 30 days at a time.
• Cell-site location information (CSLI) — a carrier's time-stamped record of which cell towers a phone connected to, which can reconstruct the phone's movements over time.
• Geofence warrant — a warrant asking a provider to identify devices present within a defined area and time window; also called a reverse-location warrant.
• Stalkerware — software secretly installed on a person's device to monitor their messages, activity, and location without their knowledge.
• Suppression — a court's exclusion of evidence from use at trial because it was obtained in violation of the Constitution or a governing statute.

Myths vs facts — Wiretapping, Phone Cloning, and Illegal Surveillance

• Myth: A phone found on a suspect can be searched like a wallet. Fact: Under Riley, the digital contents of a cell phone seized at arrest generally require a warrant. You may seize and secure the phone; you may not scroll it on the search-incident exception.
• Myth: If no one physically entered anything, no search happened. Fact: That was Olmstead's rule, and Katz replaced it. Electronic interception of a private conversation is a search even when the device sits outside the room, the booth, or the property line.
• Myth: A court order under the Stored Communications Act is always enough for phone records. Fact: Carpenter held that government acquisition of seven or more days of historical cell-site location information is a search requiring a warrant; the lesser § 2703 order does not suffice for that category.
• Myth: A wiretap, once approved, lets the team listen to everything on the line for as long as the case needs. Fact: A Title III order lasts no more than 30 days, covers only the described communications about the listed offense, and must be run with minimization. Extensions require a new application meeting the same standards.
• Myth: Surveillance software sold openly online is legal for anyone to use on a partner's phone. Fact: Secretly monitoring a person's device without consent can violate wiretap and stalking laws, and the FTC banned the SpyFone seller from the surveillance business in 2021. Open sale is not consent, and it is not a defense.

Think it through — Wiretapping, Phone Cloning, and Illegal Surveillance

The situation: A narcotics investigation has identified a coordinator who, surveillance suggests, directs deliveries by phone. Informant tips are inconsistent, two weeks of physical surveillance have produced meeting locations but no communications evidence, and a records check shows the phone is a prepaid device replaced once already. Your sergeant asks you to draft the outline of a Title III application — and a colleague suggests "starting the tap this weekend under the sergeant's go-ahead, and papering it Monday, so we don't lose the delivery."

Walk it through: (1) The frame — Part 1: intercepting the calls is a search under Katz, full stop; there is no version of this interception that happens outside the Fourth Amendment. (2) Authorization — Part 2: a sergeant's go-ahead is not authorization. A federal application needs a specially designated senior Justice Department official under § 2516; a state application needs the principal prosecuting attorney acting under a state statute. The application goes to a judge, not up the chain of command alone. (3) The showings — Part 2: your outline must carry probable cause of a § 2516 listed offense, probable cause that particular communications about it will be captured, a particular description of the facility and the communications sought, and necessity — where your two weeks of surveillance and inconsistent tips are not background color but the core of the showing: what was tried, what it produced, and why it cannot finish the job. (4) The colleague's shortcut — Parts 2 and 7: interception before an order is an unlawful interception. Under § 2515 the calls and everything derived from them — including the delivery your colleague hopes to catch — would be excluded, and the lawful tap you could have had is poisoned with the unlawful one. Decline, document the suggestion factually if your policy requires it, and finish the application. The weekend is a cost; the case is the price of the alternative.

Cases & codes to study — Wiretapping, Phone Cloning, and Illegal Surveillance

Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (Supreme Court of the United States, 1928)

• The facts: Federal agents tapped the telephone lines of suspects in a Prohibition-era liquor conspiracy from outside their property, without any physical entry, and used the recorded conversations at trial.
• The question: Does using wiretapped private telephone conversations as evidence violate the Fourth or Fifth Amendment?
• The ruling and the outcome: The Court held it did not: with no physical trespass and no seizure of a tangible thing, the wiretap fell outside the Fourth Amendment. The convictions stood. Katz overruled this reasoning in 1967.
• Why it matters to you: Olmstead is the "before" picture. Any argument that surveillance is lawful because nothing was physically entered is an argument from a case that no longer governs.
• 📄 Court document: https://m.openjurist.org/277/us/438 (the full opinion text)

Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (Supreme Court of the United States, 1967)

• The facts: FBI agents attached an electronic listening and recording device to the outside of a public telephone booth and recorded one side of a man's wagering calls; the recordings were used to convict him.
• The question: Is electronic eavesdropping on a conversation in a telephone booth a search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment, even without physical entry?
• The ruling and the outcome: Yes. The Court held the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places; Katz justifiably relied on the privacy of the booth, and the warrantless eavesdropping violated the Fourth Amendment. The conviction was reversed.
• Why it matters to you: Katz supplies the test you will apply for your whole career: an actual expectation of privacy that society recognizes as reasonable. Interception is a search before it is anything else.
• 📄 Court document: https://chanrobles.com/usa/us_supremecourt/389/347/case.php (the full opinion text)

Berger v. New York, 388 U.S. 41 (Supreme Court of the United States, 1967)

• The facts: New York's eavesdropping statute allowed judges to order 60 days of recording-device surveillance on a showing of reasonable ground to believe evidence of a crime might be obtained; recordings from such orders were used to convict Berger of conspiracy to bribe.
• The question: Does a statute authorizing eavesdropping orders without particularized probable cause, particular description, and strict duration limits violate the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments?
• The ruling and the outcome: Yes. The Court held the statute unconstitutional on its face — too broad in its sweep — and the conviction could not stand on it. Congress wrote Title III the following year against Berger's checklist of defects.
• Why it matters to you: Berger explains why Title III looks the way it does. Every strict element in Part 2 answers a defect named in this case.
• 📄 Court document: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/388/41 (the full opinion text)

Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (Supreme Court of the United States, 2014)

• The facts: After a traffic stop led to arrest on weapons charges, officers searched the digital contents of a smartphone seized from Riley's person — once at the scene and again at the station — and used what they found to charge an earlier shooting.
• The question: May police, without a warrant, search digital information on a cell phone seized from an arrestee under the search-incident-to-arrest exception?
• The ruling and the outcome: No, unanimously. Digital data cannot harm an officer, the phone can be secured while a warrant is sought, and the privacy intrusion is categorically greater than a physical search of the person. The judgment against Riley was reversed.
• Why it matters to you: Seize and secure the phone; get a warrant for its contents. Riley is the rule you will apply more often than any other in this unit.
• 📄 Court document: https://www.oyez.org/cases/2013/13-132 (Oyez case page — facts, question, and holding)

United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (Supreme Court of the United States, 2012)

• The facts: Agents obtained a warrant to attach a GPS device to a vehicle within 10 days in the District of Columbia, but installed it on the 11th day in Maryland, then monitored the vehicle's movements for 28 days in a narcotics investigation.
• The question: Does attaching a GPS device to a vehicle and using it to monitor the vehicle's movements constitute a search under the Fourth Amendment?
• The ruling and the outcome: Yes. The Court held the physical attachment to an "effect" to obtain information was a trespassory search, and affirmed the reversal of the conviction. Concurring justices would also have found prolonged monitoring unconstitutional on expectation-of-privacy grounds.
• Why it matters to you: A tracker is a search, an expired or out-of-place warrant is no warrant, and duration matters — five justices signaled that long-term monitoring raises its own constitutional problem.
• 📄 Court document: https://www.oyez.org/cases/2011/10-1259 (Oyez case page — facts, question, and holding)

Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. 296 (Supreme Court of the United States, 2018)

• The facts: Investigating a robbery series, the government obtained orders under the Stored Communications Act — not warrants — compelling carriers to produce 127 days of cell-site location information, 12,898 location points, for Carpenter's phone.
• The question: Does the government's acquisition of historical cell-site location information violate the Fourth Amendment when obtained without a warrant based on probable cause?
• The ruling and the outcome: Yes, 5–4. Acquiring at least seven days of historical CSLI is a search, because the records form a detailed, automatic chronicle of a person's movements in which the person retains a reasonable expectation of privacy. The conviction was reversed and the case sent back.
• Why it matters to you: For extended location history, the § 2703 order is the wrong instrument. Warrant first — and count the days in every records request you write.
• 📄 Court document: https://www.oyez.org/cases/2017/16-402 (Oyez case page — facts, question, and holding)

Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27 (Supreme Court of the United States, 2001)

• The facts: Suspecting indoor marijuana cultivation, agents scanned a home from a public street with a thermal imager and found the garage roof and a side wall unusually hot; the scan helped support a warrant, and the search found a growing operation.
• The question: Does using a thermal-imaging device to measure heat emanating from a home constitute a search under the Fourth Amendment?
• The ruling and the outcome: Yes. Using sense-enhancing technology not in general public use to learn details of the home that would previously have required physical entry is a search, presumptively unreasonable without a warrant. The judgment was reversed and the case sent back on the warrant question.
• Why it matters to you: Kyllo is the home-surveillance rule: capability, not vantage point, decides. If the tool sees what the unaided eye lawfully present could not, treat it as a warrant question.
• 📄 Court document: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/533/27 (the full opinion text)

The law itself — read the real words

• U.S. Const. amend. IV (U.S. Constitution) — the right against unreasonable searches and seizures, and the warrant requirements of probable cause, oath, and particular description that this entire unit applies. Read it: https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/kids/constitution/text/billofrights.html
• 18 U.S.C. § 2516 (U.S. Code) — who may authorize a wiretap application: designated senior Justice Department officials federally, and the principal prosecuting attorney under a state statute for state applications, for the offenses the section lists. Read it: https://law.justia.com/codes/us/2019/title-18/part-i/chapter-119/sec-2516/
• 18 U.S.C. § 2518 (U.S. Code) — the procedure at the core of this unit: application contents, probable cause and necessity findings, particularity, the 30-day limit, minimization, sealing, and post-surveillance notice. Read it: https://law.justia.com/codes/us/2020/title-18/part-i/chapter-119/sec-2518/
• 18 U.S.C. § 2515 (U.S. Code) — the prohibition on use: contents of an unlawfully intercepted communication, and evidence derived from them, may not be received in evidence in any proceeding. Read it: https://law.justia.com/codes/us/2012/title-18/part-i/chapter-119/section-2515/
• 18 U.S.C. § 2703 (U.S. Code) — the Stored Communications Act's rules for compelling providers to disclose communications and records, including the subsection (d) order standard that Carpenter held insufficient for seven or more days of historical CSLI. Read it: https://law.justia.com/codes/us/2014/title-18/part-i/chapter-121/sec.-2703/

Where to read the real thing, free: CourtListener (https://www.courtlistener.com) — free opinions; Oyez (https://www.oyez.org) — case pages and oral-argument audio; supremecourt.gov — opinions of the Supreme Court; uscode.house.gov — the official U.S. Code; Google Scholar case law (https://scholar.google.com) — choose "Case law."

Try this — Wiretapping, Phone Cloning, and Illegal Surveillance

• ☐ State the two Katz questions from memory, then apply them to a phone booth, a parked car, and a suspect's smartphone — and say where each answer changes.
• ☐ Outline a Title III application for a hypothetical listed offense, labeling each required element: authorizing official, probable cause, particularity, necessity, duration, minimization, sealing, notice.
• ☐ Practice the Riley sequence out loud: seize, secure, isolate from the network under your policy, and apply for the warrant — without opening a single app.
• ☐ Take a mock records request and count the days of CSLI it seeks. If the count reaches seven, rewrite it as a warrant application.
• ☐ Review your department's policies on consent searches and on stalkerware reports, and write down the exact intake steps — believe, document, preserve — you would take on a victim's first report.

Resources to keep — Wiretapping, Phone Cloning, and Illegal Surveillance

• 911 — for immediate danger to any person on an encounter.
• United States Courts — uscourts.gov — educational materials on the Fourth Amendment and the criminal process, and the annual Wiretap Reports under 18 U.S.C. § 2519.
• Department of Justice — justice.gov — federal information on civil rights and federal criminal procedure.
• Federal Trade Commission — ftc.gov — consumer and enforcement information on stalkerware and illegal surveillance businesses, including the SpyFone action.
• mass.gov — official Massachusetts information, including court information.
• 988 (call or text) — Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, if an encounter leaves you or a resident in crisis and support is needed now.

What you earned / what's next — Wiretapping, Phone Cloning, and Illegal Surveillance

✅ Wiretapping, Phone Cloning, and Illegal Surveillance complete (quiz score 80% or higher): You can state the Katz test and Berger's safeguards, run the Title III checklist of authorization, probable cause, necessity, particularity, duration, minimization, sealing, and notice, apply Riley to phones at arrest, choose the warrant Carpenter requires for extended location records, apply Kyllo to sensors aimed at the home, take a stalkerware report that preserves the case, and explain why one unlawful interception can exclude an entire prosecution.

Your certificate

Minister Destiny Testimony Schools Certificate of Completion — Wiretapping, Phone Cloning, and Illegal Surveillance

This certificate is presented by Muslim Ordained Minister Destiny Marie Morgan

Awarded to: ______________________________ (write your name here after you download — your name is never collected or stored by this school)

Date completed: ______________

Congratulations. You have learned surveillance as a constitutional craft — the strongest tool in policing, held inside the strictest limits in American law, exactly where it belongs. — Minister Destiny Marie Morgan

This is a certificate of educational completion from Minister Destiny Testimony Schools. It is not a state license, a government certification, or legal training for representing anyone. School rank and completion are school achievements only — not a law-enforcement rank, title, or credential.

What's next: Return to the Topic Library for your next Year 1 Foundations unit.

Sources

• United States Courts (uscourts.gov) — Fourth Amendment educational materials and the Wiretap Reports page (https://www.uscourts.gov/data-news/reports/statistical-reports/wiretap-reports/) — the annual § 2519 report to Congress.
• National Archives transcription of the Bill of Rights via the archived White House text page (https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/kids/constitution/text/billofrights.html) — the Fourth Amendment text.
• Department of Justice (justice.gov) — federal information on civil rights and criminal procedure.
• Federal Trade Commission (ftc.gov) — press release, "FTC Bans SpyFone and CEO from Surveillance Business and Orders Company to Delete All Secretly Stolen Data" (September 1, 2021) (https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2021/09/ftc-bans-spyfone-and-ceo-from-surveillance-business) — the SpyFone ban used in Part 6.
• Oyez (oyez.org) — case pages for Riley v. California (https://www.oyez.org/cases/2013/13-132), United States v. Jones (https://www.oyez.org/cases/2011/10-1259), and Carpenter v. United States (https://www.oyez.org/cases/2017/16-402) — facts, questions, holdings verified.
• Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute (law.cornell.edu) — full opinions for Berger v. New York (https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/388/41) and Kyllo v. United States (https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/533/27).
• LibreTexts, Criminal Procedure: A Free Law School Casebook (biz.libretexts.org) — open courseware checked for the Katz test, particularity, exclusion, and Jones materials.
• Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (Supreme Court of the United States 1928) — wiretapping without physical trespass held outside the Fourth Amendment; reasoning overruled by Katz.
• Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (Supreme Court of the United States 1967) — the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places; the reasonable-expectation-of-privacy test.
• Berger v. New York, 388 U.S. 41 (Supreme Court of the United States 1967) — eavesdrop orders require particularity, probable cause of a particular offense, and strict limits; New York statute held unconstitutional.
• Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (Supreme Court of the United States 2014) — police generally may not search digital information on a cell phone seized incident to arrest without a warrant.
• United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (Supreme Court of the United States 2012) — attaching a GPS device to a vehicle and monitoring it for 28 days is a trespassory search.
• Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. 296 (Supreme Court of the United States 2018) — government acquisition of seven or more days of historical cell-site location information is a search requiring a warrant.
• Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27 (Supreme Court of the United States 2001) — sense-enhancing technology not in general public use, used to learn details of the home, is a search.
• U.S. Const. amend. IV (U.S. Constitution) — protection against unreasonable searches and seizures; warrant requirements.
• 18 U.S.C. § 2516 (U.S. Code) — authorization for interception applications and the listed offenses.
• 18 U.S.C. § 2518 (U.S. Code) — procedure for interception: applications, findings, duration, minimization, sealing, notice, and suppression motions under subsection (10)(a).
• 18 U.S.C. § 2515 (U.S. Code) — prohibition on use as evidence of unlawfully intercepted communications and evidence derived from them.
• 18 U.S.C. § 2703 (U.S. Code) — Stored Communications Act required disclosure of customer communications and records, including the subsection (d) order standard.
• 18 U.S.C. § 2519 (U.S. Code) — reports on authorized interceptions, published annually as the Wiretap Report.

Your Progress — On Your Device Only — Wiretapping, Phone Cloning, and Illegal Surveillance

• Learning outcomes: On completing this unit, the student can:
• state the Katz reasonable-expectation-of-privacy test in its two questions and explain how it replaced Olmstead's trespass-only rule
• list Berger's safeguards and match each to the Title III element that answers it
• recite the Title III checklist under 18 U.S.C. §§ 2516 and 2518 — authorizing official, listed offense, probable cause, particularity, necessity, 30-day limit, minimization, sealing, and notice
• apply Riley v. California to a phone seized at arrest, including the limits of consent searches
• distinguish Jones (trespass) from Carpenter (expectation of privacy) and state the warrant rule for seven or more days of historical CSLI, while describing geofence warrants as an unsettled question
• apply Kyllo v. United States to sense-enhancing technology aimed at the home
• take an illegal-surveillance report using the believe, document, and preserve posture, and explain the FTC's SpyFone action as enforcement context
• explain suppression under 18 U.S.C. §§ 2515 and 2518(10)(a), including exclusion of evidence derived from an unlawful interception
• Study time: Approximately 1 hour — an estimate covering reading, activities, and the test. Students move at their own pace.
• Assessment: A 10-question test drawn only from this unit's lesson. 80% or higher passes and earns the unit certificate. Answers are not shown; your score is saved only in your own browser on this device, and retakes are allowed.
• Level: Topic Library — Year 1 (Foundations) · Law Enforcement school · working rank on completion path: Freshman → Sophomore.
• Version: Version 1.0 — October 2026.

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