SSB contends that section 632 should not be interpreted to apply in such a situation, because application of the statute in this setting would constitute a disfavored "extraterritorial" application of the statute.
"This is an odd application of the statute".
"This is an odd application of the statute". Risling reported from Los Angeles.
751, 28 U.S.C.A. §§ 17, 349a, 380a, 401, confers power upon this Court to review, on direct appeal, a ruling against the constitutionality of an act of Congress when the ruling of unconstitutionality is made in the application of the statute to a particular circumstance, as in this appeal, rather than upon the challenged statute as a whole.
The legislatively prescribed purpose of the 1967 invasion of privacy statute, however, is "to protect the privacy of the people of this state" (§ 630), and that purpose certainly supports application of the statute in a setting in which a person outside California records, without the Californian's knowledge or consent, a telephone conversation of a California resident who is within California.
It was the first application of the statute to defendants not charged with selling or trafficking in drugs.
Those issues involved the construction and application of the statute and the Constitution of the state.
We find that the Court of Appeals was correct in affirming the chancellor's application of the statute to the present case.
"This is the break-in period for the new law," Mr. Borgsmiller said, adding that the exact application of the statute would depend on election board rulings on specific cases that could arise.
He said there was a "substantial body of case law indicating that there is no constitutional impediment to detention of grand jury witnesses, and the unquestioned application of the statute to grand jury witnesses over a period of decades".
