"The Government stresses the fact that the telephone booth from which the petitioner made his calls was constructed partly of glass, so that he was as visible after he entered it as he would have been if he had remained outside. But what he sought to exclude when he entered the booth was not the intruding eye-- it was the uninvited ear. He did not shed his right to do so simply because he made his calls from a place where he might be seen. No less than an individual in a business office, in a friend's apartment, or in a taxicab, a person in a telephone booth may rely upon the protection of the Fourth Amendment. One who occupies it, shuts the door behind him, and pays the toll that permits him to place a call is surely entitled to assume that the words he utters into the mouthpiece will not be broadcast to the world. To read the Constitution more narrowly is to ignore the vital role that the public telephone has come to play in private communication." (Katz v. United States (1967) 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 .)

Public Telephones Tapped

Los Angeles County Judge Perry signed 5 wiretap orders for public telephones somewhere in Los Angeles County.

Invasions of privacy caused by 5 wiretap orders issued by Judge Perry for public telephones:

NUMBER OF PEOPLE INTERCEPTED ON PUBLIC TELEPHONES 12,492 13,574 27,976 37,228 39,932 Total 131,202 PEOPLE.....

NUMBER OF INCRIMINATING CONVERSATIONS OBTAINED 1 1 1 4 4 ........................Total 10