18 U.S.C. § 3127
Section 3127 · Definitions for chapter
This is § 301 of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986
Amended 4 times on record
Applied in 73 court decisions — leading case United States v. Forrester (2008)
Most recently applied in United States of America v. José Luis Guerrero Nuñez, et al. (February 2025)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
As used in this chapter—
(1) the terms “wire communication”, “electronic communication”, “electronic communication service”, and “contents” have the meanings set forth for such terms in section 2510 of this title;
(2) the term “court of competent jurisdiction” means—
(A) any district court of the United States (including a magistrate judge of such a court) or any United States court of appeals that—
(i) has jurisdiction over the offense being investigated;
(ii) is in or for a district in which the provider of a wire or electronic communication service is located;
(iii) is in or for a district in which a landlord, custodian, or other person subject to subsections (a) or (b) of section 3124 of this title is located; or
(iv) is acting on a request for foreign assistance pursuant to section 3512 of this title; or
(B) a court of general criminal jurisdiction of a State authorized by the law of that State to enter orders authorizing the use of a pen register or a trap and trace device;
(3) the term “pen register” means a device or process which records or decodes dialing, routing, addressing, or signaling information transmitted by an instrument or facility from which a wire or electronic communication is transmitted, provided, however, that such information shall not include the contents of any communication, but such term does not include any device or process used by a provider or customer of a wire or electronic communication service for billing, or recording as an incident to billing, for communications services provided by such provider or any device or process used by a provider or customer of a wire communication service for cost accounting or other like purposes in the ordinary course of its business;
(4) the term “trap and trace device” means a device or process which captures the incoming electronic or other impulses which identify the originating number or other dialing, routing, addressing, and signaling information reasonably likely to identify the source of a wire or electronic communication, provided, however, that such information shall not include the contents of any communication;
(5) the term “attorney for the Government” has the meaning given such term for the purposes of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure; and
(6) the term “State” means a State, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and any other possession or territory of the United States.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
References in Text
The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, referred to in par. (5), are set out in the Appendix to this title.
Amendments
2009—Par. (2)(A). Pub. L. 111–79 substituted “that—” and cls. (i) to (iv) for “having jurisdiction over the offense being investigated; or”.
2001—Par. (1). Pub. L. 107–56, §216(c)(4), struck out “and” after “ ‘electronic communication’,” and inserted “, and ‘contents’ ” after “ ‘electronic communication service’ ”.
Par. (2)(A). Pub. L. 107–56, §216(c)(1), added subpar. (A) and struck out former subpar. (A) which read as follows: “a district court of the United States (including a magistrate judge of such a court) or a United States Court of Appeals; or”.
Par. (3). Pub. L. 107–56, §216(c)(2), substituted “dialing, routing, addressing, or signaling information transmitted by an instrument or facility from which a wire or electronic communication is transmitted, provided, however, that such information shall not include the contents of any communication” for “electronic or other impulses which identify the numbers dialed or otherwise transmitted on the telephone line to which such device is attached” and inserted “or process” after “device” wherever appearing.
Par. (4). Pub. L. 107–56, §216(c)(3), inserted “or process” after “means a device” and substituted “or other dialing, routing, addressing, and signaling information reasonably likely to identify the source of a wire or electronic communication, provided, however, that such information shall not include the contents of any communication;” for “of an instrument or device from which a wire or electronic communication was transmitted;”.
1988—Pub. L. 100–690 renumbered section 3126 of this title as this section.