Originally Posted by
polonius
You seem to be contradicting yourself. The carve-out legislation was aimed at protecting the telcos from customer lawsuits because they shared customer information without a warrant. If such disclosures are already discretionary, then there wouldn't be any grounds for suit or need for a shield law.
Co-operate? Sure. Reveal private or privileged information? No. The police, acting on tip that OBL is hiding in upstate New York and is known to have a haemorrhoid problem, can walk into a pharmacy, show a picture of OBL, and ask, "has this guy been in here?" But that doesn't mean they can say, "give us all the names of your customers who have bought haemorrhoid creme in the last six months." If the police got my name that way and came knocking on my door looking for OBL, I'd be suing the pharmacy. At my company or any other, the response to such a request would be, "We'd be happy to provide that information upon production of a warrant."
If the disclosures were mandatory there would be no need for a shield law. The fact that the government can't force a business to turn over records without a warrant is the whole purpose for the shield laws. (Note: certain businesses have statutory requirements that force records inspections without a warrant, such as firearms dealers.)
Think about it, most companies would be more willing to give the police business records without a warrant if they knew that they were suit proof when doing so.
You company may respond with "get a warrant" but most do not and are not required to.
In your mind you think that company records are in some way statutorily required to remain private when it comes to a law enforcement request.
If that were the case any information gathered by that police officer by that request would not be permissible because the officer has knowingly caused the company to break the law.