ABSTRACT
CELL PHONE PRIVACY OR PIRACY? The First Amendment generally protects the dissemination of accurate, newsworthy information, but what happens when the news content is seized illegally-will the right to free expression be upheld? In the spring of 1993 Gloria Bartnicki was surprised to hear her voice on the radio, which was airing an intercepted cell-phone conversation between Bartniki and a teacher’s union leader. Ms. Bartnicki was the chief negotiator for the teacher’s union of the Wyoming Valley West School District near Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and her conversation with the president of the local teacher’s union, Anthony Kane Jr., had taken a dark turn. “If they’re not going to move for 3 percent,” Kane was heard to say, “we’re gonna have to go to their, their homes . . . to blow off their front porches, we’ll have to do some work on some of those guys.”
