Newsbreak Online - Why the Senate can hear Doble

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Why the Senate can hear Doble

Written by Prof. Harry L. Roque, Jr.
Friday, 24 August 2007
Republic Act 4200 entitled, "An Act to Prohibit and Penalized Wire Tapping and Other Related Violations of Private Communication and Other Purposes," Section 1 of the Act provides that “it shall be unlawful for any person, not being authorized by all the parties to any private communication or spoken word, to tap any wire or cable, or by using any other device or arrangement, to secretly overhear, intercept, or record such communication or spoken word by using a device commonly known as a dictaphone or dictagraph or detectaphone or walkie-talkie or tape recorder, or however otherwise described.” Gaanan vs. Intermediate Appellate Court, [145 SCRA 112 (1986)]: the use of a telephone extension for the purpose of overhearing a private conversation without authorization did not violate R.A. 4200 because a telephone extension devise was neither among those "device(s) or arrangement(s)" enumerated therein, following the principle that "penal statutes must be construed strictly.” The “Hello Garci” tape is a taped conversation conducted through cellular phones. The wording of the prohibition is relative to tapping “any wire or cable”, and cellular technology does away with both wires and cables. Thus, RA 4200 is inapplicable. In Navarro v. Court of Appeals, GR 121087 (Aug. 26, 1999), the Court differentiated between public and private conversations. Thus, it said that a heated exchange between two persons in the presence of a third who recorded secretly the exchange was not private in nature, and therefore even if secretly recorded, was admissible in evidence. A conversation between a President and an Election Commissioner involving the conduct of an election is NOT a private conversation. NOTE CLINTON IMPEACHMENT. New York times versus United States. There, New York Times won the right to publish stolen Pentagon Papers on the ground that they involve public concerns. Anent the right to privacy, the court ruled that it must yield to public interest. INTERACT WITH THIS ARTICLE
Last Updated ( Friday, 24 August 2007 )