United States — Maine Act or statute

United States — Maine legislation

Maine Revised Statutes, Title 15, § 710: Offenses, 1973

This section prohibits intercepting, editing, disclosing, using, possessing, or selling devices for wire or oral communications, with listed exceptions, and requires communications common carriers to report possible…

interception devicesreporting compliancewire and oral communications

Professional statute overview

Enactment structure, operative effect and source provenance

Official source

01

Purpose and legislative effect

“This section prohibits intercepting, editing, disclosing, using, possessing, or selling devices for wire or oral communications, with listed exceptions, and requires communications common carriers to report possible violations and adopt compliance rules.”

Use this record to locate individual provisions, understand the instrument’s recorded structure, and move from a research summary to the exact source text.

02

How the instrument operates

  1. 01

    Start with the recorded version

    Enacted 1973 · Source version 1 Oct 2025. The date shown identifies this source expression and should not be treated as proof that no later change exists.

  2. 02

    Locate the controlling provision

    Use the provision map, part headings and full-text filter to move from the broad subject to the exact legal language.

  3. 03

    Read conditions and exceptions together

    Keep subsections, definitions, provisos and cross-references in context before drawing a legal conclusion.

  4. 04

    Verify currency and official wording

    Confirm later legislation, commencement notices and corrections with the official publisher before advice, filing or reliance.

03

Research entry points

Selected provisions across the instrument. Open any row to continue with the exact stored text.

Offenses

This section prohibits intercepting, editing, disclosing, using, possessing, or selling devices for wire or oral communications, with listed exceptions, and requires communications common carriers to report possible violations and adopt compliance rules.

Section 710

04

Source and current-law status

Source record view

Source record from legislature.maine.gov · Enacted 1973 · Source version 1 Oct 2025

Verify current force

The source record does not state a definitive current-law status. Check the official publisher and later amendments before relying on this text.

Source-indexed provision map

Sections and provisions

Search by section, heading, part or exact legal wording. Every result remains linked to the stored source record.

Showing 1 of 1 provisions

Commencement
§ 710OffensesCommencement

This section prohibits intercepting, editing, disclosing, using, possessing, or selling devices for wire or oral communications, with listed exceptions, and requires communications common carriers to report possible violations and adopt compliance rules.

1. Interception, oral communications prohibited. Any person, other than an employee of a communication common carrier, a law enforcement officer, an investigative officer, another employee of the Department of Corrections authorized to exercise law enforcement powers as described in Title 34‑A, section 3011 or a jail investigative officer or a jail employee acting at the direction of a jail investigative officer, carrying out practices otherwise permitted by this chapter, who intentionally or knowingly intercepts, attempts to intercept or procures any other person to intercept or attempt to intercept any wire or oral communication is guilty of a Class C crime. [PL 2013, c. 80, §2 (AMD).] 2. Editing of tape recordings in judicial proceedings prohibited. Any person who knowingly or intentionally edits, alters or tampers with any tape, transcription or other sound recording, or knows of such editing, altering or tampering, and presents that recording in any judicial proceeding or proceeding under oath, without fully indicating the nature of the changes made and the original state of the recording, is guilty of a Class C crime. [PL 1979, c. 663, §96 (AMD).] 3. Disclosure or use of wire or oral communications prohibited. A person is guilty of a Class C crime if the person: A. Intentionally or knowingly discloses or attempts to disclose to any person the contents of any wire or oral communication, knowing that the information was obtained through interception; or [PL 1979, c. 663, §97 (RPR).] B. Intentionally or knowingly uses or attempts to use the contents of any wire or oral communication, knowing that the information was obtained through interception. [PL 1979, c. 663, §97 (RPR).] [RR 2023, c. 2, Pt. D, §50 (COR).] 4. Duty to report. Any communications common carrier shall promptly report to the Attorney General any facts coming to its attention in the conduct of its business which may indicate a possible violation of this section and such carrier shall adopt reasonable rules to assure compliance with this subsection, provided such carrier shall not be liable to any person who may claim an injury arising out of any such report, if made in good faith. Any person violating this subsection shall be subject to a civil penalty not to exceed $5,000, payable to the State, to be recovered in a civil action. [PL 1979, c. 663, §98 (AMD).] 5. Possession of interception devices prohibited. A person, other than an employee of a communication common carrier, a law enforcement officer, an investigative officer, another employee of the Department of Corrections authorized to exercise law enforcement powers as described in Title 34‑A, section 3011 or a jail investigative officer or a jail employee acting at the direction of a jail investigative officer, carrying out practices otherwise permitted by this chapter, who has in that person's possession any device, contrivance, machine or apparatus designed or commonly used for intercepting wire or oral communications is guilty of a Class C crime. [PL 2013, c. 80, §3 (AMD).] 6. Sale of interception devices prohibited. A person who sells, exchanges, delivers, barters, gives or furnishes or possesses with an intent to sell any device, contrivance, machine or apparatus designed or commonly used for the interception of wire or oral communications as defined in this chapter is guilty of a Class B crime. This subsection shall not include devices manufactured under written contract for sale to common carriers, law enforcement agencies and the Department of Corrections, provided that the production of any such device shall not have commenced prior to the signing of the contract by both parties. [PL 1987, c. 680, §4 (AMD).]
Section 710Verify source

Legislative relationships

0 referenced instruments

Names are derived from the stored provision headings and citation-enrichment layer. Treat this as a research index and verify each relationship against the source text.

No structured legislative relationships were detected

The statute remains fully searchable by provision. Consult the source text for amendments and cross-references that have not yet been indexed.

Recorded versions and source checkpoint

1 version available in this collection

Current-law checkpoint
  • 1 Oct 2025 · currentEnglish

Source-linked research

Ask AI about this statute

The overview, provisions, and source records above are public. Continue in a separate conversation with this statute’s jurisdiction and source version attached.

No legal research model is currently available.

Sign in

About this LexChat collection

Statute information is organised from identified legislative sources for professional research. Corrections can be reported to hello@esheria.ai.