The federal Wiretap Act, codified at 18 U.S.C. 2510 to 2523, includes section 2512, which targets the device rather than the conversation. It makes it a crime to intentionally send, carry, manufacture, possess, sell or advertise a device designed primarily for secret interception, with a fine or up to five years in prison. Narrow exceptions exist for service providers and government agents.
Most articles on surveillance law ask what an individual may record. Section 2512 of Title 18 asks a different question: who may make, carry, sell or advertise a device built for secret interception. This page quotes the statute as published by the Cornell Legal Information Institute, read on 2026-10-19. It is a reading of the text, not legal advice.
What the federal Wiretap Act prohibits in section 2512
Paragraph (1) applies to anyone who “intentionally” does one of the following, in each case involving an “electronic, mechanical, or other device” that the person knows, or has reason to know, is designed so that it is “primarily useful for the purpose of the surreptitious interception of wire, oral, or electronic communications”:
- (a) sends it through the mail, or sends or carries it in interstate or foreign commerce;
- (b) manufactures, assembles, possesses or sells it, where the device or a component has been or will be mailed or moved in interstate or foreign commerce;
- (c) places an advertisement for it in a publication, or “disseminates by electronic means” an advertisement for it, including an advertisement for any other device that promotes its use for surreptitious interception.
The penalty is “fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.”
The words that carry the weight
The statute does not ban recording equipment as a category. The test is the design of the device, “primarily useful” for secret interception, together with the knowledge of the person handling it, which the text phrases as “knowing or having reason to know.” How a court applies that to a given product is a question this page does not answer.
The advertising clause
Clause (c)(ii) reaches an advertisement for “any other” device when the advertisement itself “promotes the use of such device for the purpose of the surreptitious interception.” So the wording of a sales page can matter separately from the hardware. The clause also requires that the person know the content of the advertisement.
Exceptions to the Wiretap Act in section 2512
- Paragraph (2): communication service providers and their agents or contractors acting “in the normal course of the business of providing that wire or electronic communication service,” and officers, agents, employees or contractors of the United States, a State or a political subdivision acting in the normal course of their activities.
- Paragraph (3): advertising such a device is not unlawful under this section if the advertisement goes “solely to a domestic provider of wire or electronic communication service or to an agency of the United States, a State, or a political subdivision thereof which is duly authorized to use such device.”
Paragraph (1) also begins “Except as otherwise specifically provided in this chapter,” so other provisions of the same chapter can change the result.
What the statute means by a device
Section 2512 borrows its key term from the definitions in section 2510. Paragraph (5) there says an “electronic, mechanical, or other device” means “any device or apparatus which can be used to intercept a wire, oral, or electronic communication,” and then lists exceptions. The first exception covers telephone or telegraph equipment furnished to a subscriber by a service provider in the ordinary course of its business and used in the ordinary course of business. The definition is broad on its own; what narrows section 2512 is the design test quoted above, “primarily useful for the purpose of the surreptitious interception” of communications.
One more definition is worth knowing for anyone who sells location hardware. Paragraph (12) of section 2510 defines “electronic communication” and then says it does not include “any communication from a tracking device.” That exclusion is part of the definition the chapter uses. This page does not draw a conclusion from it about any particular GPS tracker, because section 2512 speaks of “wire, oral, or electronic communications” together, and the way a product works decides which of those, if any, it touches.
Forfeiture under section 2513
The next section of the chapter deals with the device itself rather than the person. Section 2513 says that any electronic, mechanical, or other device “used, sent, carried, manufactured, assembled, possessed, sold, or advertised in violation of section 2511 or section 2512” of the chapter “may be seized and forfeited to the United States.”
The procedure is borrowed from customs law. The section applies the provisions on seizure, forfeiture, disposition, remission or mitigation, compromise of claims and awards to informers that are “contained in title 19 of the United States Code,” “insofar as applicable and not inconsistent with the provisions of this section.” The duties that customs law gives to a collector of customs are performed instead by officers, agents or other persons “authorized or designated for that purpose by the Attorney General.”
The statutory notes show section 2513 was added by Pub. L. 90-351 on June 19, 1968, the same law that created section 2512, and amended by Pub. L. 99-508 in 1986.
Questions a seller tends to ask
Does the law apply only to the manufacturer? No. Clause (b) of paragraph (1) names whoever “manufactures, assembles, possesses, or sells” such a device, provided the interstate-commerce condition is met, and clause (a) names whoever sends or carries it. A reseller is within the words of the section when the other conditions are present.
Can the listing copy matter even if the product is legal? The advertising clause is written so that it can. Clause (c)(ii) covers an advertisement for any other device when the advertisement “promotes the use of such device for the purpose of the surreptitious interception.” A product description that pitches secret listening is the kind of text that clause addresses.
What happens to the stock? Under section 2513, a device handled in violation of section 2512 may be seized and forfeited to the United States, through the customs-law procedure described above.
Is there an exception for selling to police? Paragraph (2) covers officers, agents, employees or contractors of the United States, a State or a political subdivision acting in the normal course of their activities, and paragraph (3) covers advertising sent solely to a domestic provider or to an agency duly authorized to use the device. Whether a given sale fits those words is a question for counsel.
Wiretap Act quick answers
Is it a federal crime to sell a device for secretly intercepting communications?
It can be. Section 2512 reaches anyone who intentionally manufactures, possesses or sells a device they know, or have reason to know, is primarily useful for surreptitious interception, when the interstate-commerce condition is met. The penalty is a fine or up to five years in prison, or both.
What are the exceptions to the federal Wiretap Act in section 2512?
Paragraph (2) covers communication service providers and government officers, agents or contractors acting in the normal course of their work. Paragraph (3) covers advertising sent solely to a provider or an authorized agency. Other provisions of the chapter can change the result.
Sources
- 18 U.S.C. 2512, as published by Cornell LII: law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2512
- 18 U.S.C. 2513: law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2513
- 18 U.S.C. 2510 (definitions): law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2510
The statutory notes show section 2512 was added by Pub. L. 90-351 on June 19, 1968. It was amended by Pub. L. 99-508 on October 21, 1986, by Pub. L. 103-322 on September 13, 1994, by Pub. L. 104-294 on October 11, 1996, by Pub. L. 105-112 on November 21, 1997, and by Pub. L. 107-296 on November 25, 2002. Pub. L. 115-278 renumbered that 2002 provision in 2018. A licensed attorney can say how the section applies to a particular product or listing.
Behind this review
TrueSpyTech does not operate a test lab, and no article here rests on a unit we plugged in ourselves. Research pulls the spec sheets and the relevant law, the pattern in owner reports fills in what a spec sheet will not admit, and an editor signs off before anything goes live. Ratings are locked before affiliate links go in, never after. The full protocol is on our How we review page.
Google lets you pick which sites come up first in your own results.
