A new report from TMZ claims that Taylor Swift threatened Kanye West with criminal prosecution back in February over the leaked phone call recording between the two. "Demand is hereby made that you immediately destroy all such recordings, provide us of assurance that this has been done, and also assurance that these recordings have not been previously disseminated," reads a letter that Swift's attorney reportedly sent to Kanye. It claims that the recording was illegal because Swift did not consent to it.
It's possible that she is technically correct. Newsweek published a fairly extensive look at this idea, pointing out that several states, most notably California, are "two-party consent" states. This means that both people on a phone call have to consent to the recording in order for it to be legal. The majority of states, however, are "one-party consent," meaning the recording is lawful as long as one person approves of it.
The report from TMZ claims that the recording was made in Los Angeles, in which case it would in fact be illegal. However, it's not currently clear if that is true. If, for example, the recording was made in a one-party state like New York, then Swift likely wouldn't have much legal standing.
The recording, released by Kim Kardashian on Snapchat Sunday night, appears to feature Taylor Swift approving the controversial lyrics to Kanye's song "Famous." She later publicly denounced the song and claimed she had never heard it, leading many to call her a liar and a hypocrite. The whole incident has since gained a ton of traction on social media, with #KimExposedTaylorParty producing a seemingly never ending series of memes about the whole situation. We'll have to stay tuned to see if any more legal drama emerges from the incident, but it's clear that Swift didn't want the recording to be made public.
