Oregon Obtaining and Interception of Communications Statute

Oregon bars a person from obtaining or attempting to obtain the whole or part of a telecommunication or radio communication to which the person is not a participant unless at least one participant has consented, so a participant to a phone call may record it under this clause without telling the other participants, while a stranger to the call needs only one participant's consent.

A separate clause bars obtaining any part of a conversation unless all participants are specifically informed that their conversation is being obtained, a duty that binds a participant to an in-person or video-conferencing conversation as much as a stranger to it. A conversation for this purpose is an oral communication that is not a telecommunication or radio communication, and it includes a communication occurring through a video conferencing program.

One exception to the conversation rule reaches a person recording during a felony that endangers human life. Another reaches a public or semipublic meeting such as a hearing, trial, press conference or class if recorded with an unconcealed device or through a video conferencing program. A third reaches a private meeting or conference if all others involved knew or reasonably should have known that the recording was being made.

Separate exceptions cover an open recording of an on-duty law enforcement officer made from a place the recorder may lawfully be, an officer's own body-worn or vehicle camera, and certain custodial interview recordings.

A person who, intending to capture alleged unlawful activity, records a video-conferencing conversation as a participant or with one participant's consent is also exempt from the notice rule if the person is coordinating with law enforcement, an attorney or an enforcement or regulatory body, or reasonably believes the recording may be used as evidence.

Subscribers and their family members recording in their own homes, and a telecommunication or radio company's own employees acting to construct, maintain or operate its service, are also exempt from the participant-consent and specific-notice provisions. It is also barred to obtain a conversation or communication from another person while knowing or having good reason to believe it was first obtained in a prohibited way, or to use or divulge one obtained by prohibited means.

Neither of those two bars reaches a person who took no part in first obtaining the conversation or communication where it concerns a matter of public concern. A related section separately makes it a Class A misdemeanor for a person who is not a party to a wire or oral communication to willfully intercept it, or procure its interception, where none of the parties has consented. A willful violation of these sections is a Class A misdemeanor.

The general misdemeanor sentencing statutes cap a Class A misdemeanor at 364 days' imprisonment. They separately cap its fine at $6,250. The civil damages action at ORS 133.739 reaches a communication intercepted, disclosed or used in violation of ORS 133.724 or 133.737, the court-order interception and law-enforcement disclosure sections. ORS 133.739(3) nonetheless preserves whatever other private civil remedy for invasion of privacy the common law otherwise gives.