Are any of your phone lines being recorded for “quality assurance”? Make sure your company policies cover how and when this is done and that employees are aware of it. South Bend, Indiana, Police Department is in court because the recording process that was set up on certain extensions years ago was still going on, yet the officers using those lines were not aware of it.
At the heart of the matter is they want to determine if the content of the calls can be revealed in court. If the recordings were done legally as part of the standard police recording system, then the content can be revealed. If the recordings are determined to be illegal, then the content must remain confidential.
Are the tapes at the heart of the South Bend Police Department wiretapping case ever going to be heard?
That is the question we may be a little closer to getting an answer to now that a federal bench trial is underway in South Bend.
A judge is trying to determine if the recordings were legally or illegally made. That decision will determine the course of the case and whether or not it will put us any
closer to learning what was on those tapes.
There are 3 parties in this case, the city of South Bend, the South Bend Common Council and the four police officers and one of their wives whose conversations got recorded.
The attorney for the Common Council is arguing that the recordings were made legally under the Federal Wiretap Act and therefore the contents can be revealed.
But the other attorneys (for the city and for the individuals who had their conversations recorded) are arguing that the recordings were made as the result of a mistake. They argue that the recordings were not made in compliance with the Federal Wiretap Act and therefore cannot be revealed.
Based on testimony and briefs in the case, it was revealed for the first time what started this whole domino effect of officers lines being recorded without their knowledge.
It all started back when Thomas Fautz was the Chief of Police around 2004, and several officers agreed to have their lines recorded. But then as the years passed, promotions were made, department officials changed office locations, extension numbers changed, and the recorded line just was temporarily forgotten.
It wasn’t until 2011 when communications officials at the police department stumbled upon the fact that one of the individuals being recorded had no knowledge his line was one of the ones being taped.
Ed Sullivan, the attorney representing the City of South Bend in the case, says, “Federal law would prohibit the use and disclosure of the recorded phone calls in which the people on that call didn’t know they were being recorded. There is an exception in police departments, but only if you follow the rules and we don’t think the rules were followed in the prior years and prior administrations.”
Spence Walton is the attorney representing the South Bend Common Council.
“The recording system itself and its purpose is done for law enforcement purposes, and under the law, if the recording system is being done to capture tips and evidence for use by the police department, the device itself, the recording system itself, is an exclusion from the wiretap act and therefore the recordings are being legally recorded,” said Walton.
Walton says the recordings fall within the limits of the federal wiretap law and should be able to be disclosed.
However ,the city and the attorney for those four officers say the department had no policies or manuals or procedures that specifically govern how the department’s reporting system was used, and as a result, these recordings were not made in the scope of regular police business.
They also are trying to paint Karen DePaepe, the former communications director for the department who lost her job over this, as a civilian employee who took it upon herself to conduct her own investigation into the recorded line she discovered before bringing it to the attention of her superiors. Lawyers for the city and the officers contend that was improper.