## Facts

- Larry Lee Ropp worked at Bristol West Insurance Group/Coast National Insurance Company in Orange County, California.
- Ropp allegedly targeted a coworker, Karen Beck, by installing a hardware keylogging device (“KeyKatcher”) on her desktop computer.
- The device was placed on the cable connecting Beck’s keyboard to the computer’s central processing unit (CPU).
- As Beck typed, the device recorded and stored electronic impulses traveling along the keyboard cable.
- A person with the device could later retrieve the stored data and convert it into text to determine what was typed.
- A federal grand jury indicted Ropp for attempting to intercept electronic communications in violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), 18 U.S.C. § 2511(1)(a).
- Ropp moved to dismiss the indictment for failure to state a federal offense.

## Issues

1. Whether capturing keystroke data between a keyboard and a CPU using a hardware keylogger constitutes an “interception” under 18 U.S.C. § 2511(1)(a).
2. Whether transmission of keystrokes from a keyboard to a CPU is an “electronic communication” under 18 U.S.C. § 2510(12), including the requirement that the transmission occur by a system affecting interstate or foreign commerce.

## Decision

- The court granted the motion to dismiss the indictment.
- The court rejected the argument that no interception occurred, treating the keylogger’s contemporaneous capture of keystroke impulses in transit as an interception.
- The court held the indictment failed because the captured keyboard-to-CPU impulses were not transmitted by a system affecting interstate or foreign commerce and therefore were not an “electronic communication” under § 2510(12).
- Because the “electronic communication” element was not satisfied, the charged conduct did not state an offense under § 2511(1)(a).

## Legal Principles

- Section 2511(1)(a) requires intentional interception of a “wire, oral, or electronic communication.”
- An “electronic communication” under § 2510(12) must involve a transfer of signals by a specified system that affects interstate or foreign commerce.
- Interception can include contemporaneous acquisition of signals while they are being transmitted.
- Capturing signals confined to a local keyboard-to-CPU cable does not satisfy the ECPA’s interstate-commerce “system” requirement, even if later communications from the computer might travel over commerce-affecting networks.

## Conclusion

The court dismissed the § 2511(1)(a) indictment because keystroke signals captured on the internal keyboard-to-CPU connection were not “electronic communications” as defined by the ECPA’s interstate-commerce requirement, notwithstanding that the keylogger’s conduct could be characterized as an interception of signals in transit.


United States v. Ropp, 347 F. Supp. 2d 831 (C.D. Cal. 2004)