Terms Used In Maryland Code > COURTS AND JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS > Title 10 > Subtitle 4 - Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance

• Administrator: includes an executor and a personal representative. See
• Aggrieved person: means a person who was a party to any intercepted wire, oral, or electronic communication or a person against whom the interception was directed. See
• Aural transfer: means a transfer containing the human voice at any point between and including the point of origin and the point of reception. See
• Communications common carrier: means any person engaged as a common carrier for hire in the transmission of wire or electronic communications. See
• Contents: when used with respect to any wire, oral, or electronic communication, includes any information concerning the identity of the parties to the communication or the existence, substance, purport, or meaning of that communication. See
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• Defendant: In a civil suit, the person complained against; in a criminal case, the person accused of the crime.
• Electronic communication: means any transfer of signs, signals, writing, images, sounds, data, or intelligence of any nature transmitted in whole or in part by a wire, radio, electromagnetic, photoelectronic, or photooptical system. See
• Electronic communication service: means any service that provides to users of the service the ability to send or receive wire or electronic communications. See
• Electronic storage: means :
  
  (i) Any temporary, intermediate storage of a wire or electronic communication incidental to the electronic transmission of the communication; and
  
  (ii) Any storage of a wire or electronic communication by an electronic communication service for purposes of backup protection of the communication. See
• Fraud: Intentional deception resulting in injury to another.
• Grand jury: agreement providing that a lender will delay exercising its rights (in the case of a mortgage,
• Injunction: An order of the court prohibiting (or compelling) the performance of a specific act to prevent irreparable damage or injury.
• Intercept: means the aural or other acquisition of the contents of any wire, electronic, or oral communication through the use of any electronic, mechanical, or other device. See
• Investigative or law enforcement officer: means any officer of this State or a political subdivision of this State, who is empowered by law to conduct investigations of or to make arrests for offenses enumerated in this subtitle, any sworn law enforcement officer of the federal government or of any other state or a political subdivision of another state, working with and under the direction of an investigative or law enforcement officer of this State or a political subdivision of this State, and any attorney authorized by law to prosecute or participate in the prosecution of such offenses. See
• Judge of competent jurisdiction: means a judge of any circuit court within the State having jurisdiction over the offense under investigation. See
• Lease: A contract transferring the use of property or occupancy of land, space, structures, or equipment in consideration of a payment (e.g., rent). ^{Source: OCC}
• Lien: A claim against real or personal property in satisfaction of a debt.
• Litigation: A case, controversy, or lawsuit. Participants (plaintiffs and defendants) in lawsuits are called litigants.
• minor: means an individual under the age of 18 years. See
• Oath: A promise to tell the truth.
• Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
• Oral communication: means any conversation or words spoken to or by any person in private conversation. See
• Person: means any employee or agent of this State or a political subdivision thereof, and any individual, partnership, association, joint stock company, trust, or corporation. See
• Probable cause: A reasonable ground for belief that the offender violated a specific law.
• Prosecute: To charge someone with a crime. A prosecutor tries a criminal case on behalf of the government.
• Readily accessible to the general public: means , with respect to a radio communication, that the communication is not:
  
  (i) Scrambled or encrypted;
  
  (ii) Transmitted using modulation techniques the essential parameters of which have been withheld from the public with the intention of preserving the privacy of the communication; or
  
  (iii) Except for tone-only paging device communications, transmitted over frequencies reserved for private use and licensed for private use under federal or State law. See
• Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
• Telephone solicitation theft: means conduct of a person that:
  
  (i) Constitutes the offense of theft or attempted theft; and
  
  (ii) Involves the use of a telephone to solicit the payment of money. See
• Trial: A hearing that takes place when the defendant pleads "not guilty" and witnesses are required to come to court to give evidence.
• User: means any person or entity that:
  
  (i) Uses an electronic communication service; and
  
  (ii) Is duly authorized by the provider of the service to engage in that use. See