The Biden Audio Leak Is a Warning to All of Us in Court Reporting

If you’re a working court reporter or run a reporting agency, the recent leak of President Joe Biden’s deposition audio should send a chill down your spine—not because of the political buzz, but because of what it means for the future of our profession and the integrity of the legal record.

This moment is a clear sign of what happens when the record falls into the wrong hands—and why we, the professionals trained to protect it, must stay at the center of this process.

We’ve Always Been the Responsible Charge

As court reporters, we’ve long served as the “Responsible Charge” of the record. It’s not just a title—it’s a duty. We are the ones who protect the record’s confidentiality, accuracy, and chain of custody. In 24 states, we’re licensed professionals held to legal and ethical standards that define our work and our responsibility to the justice system.

Let’s be real: when a reporter is in the room, attorneys know they can trust that what’s said will be recorded faithfully and handled professionally. We’ve earned that trust by doing our jobs with integrity, case after case, year after year.

What Happens When the Government Handles the Audio?

The Biden leak is a perfect example of what can go wrong when legal audio ends up in the hands of a bureaucracy instead of a professional court reporter.

Yes, some folks online are quick to point out, “It wasn’t a deposition—it was an interview.” But that’s exactly the point. Without court reporters in the picture, interviews like this will start to follow the same protocol as depositions: recorded, archived, and leaked. The lines blur fast when ethical oversight disappears. What’s next? Depositions without us, stored on some server, with no one accountable for protecting the record?

When digital recordings are stored on government servers or shared with departments who don’t understand our ethical boundaries, they become vulnerable. More hands, more access, less accountability. That’s how leaks happen.

Can you imagine if this became the norm? If every deposition had the potential to end up on the internet? Clients, witnesses, attorneys—no one would feel safe speaking openly. That’s the start of a chilling effect on justice itself.

Court Reporters Don’t Leak

Here’s the thing the legal world needs to be reminded of: court reporters don’t leak.

Even when subpoenaed, many of us are trained to hold firm and let the court compel release through proper legal channels. We don’t hand over audio on a whim, and we never release confidential information without authorization. That’s not just ethics—it’s our professional culture.

Meanwhile, the systems being pushed as “efficient” replacements for reporters—automated recording tools, remote file storage, off-site transcription—open the door to exactly the kind of breach we just witnessed on the national stage.

Why This Matters to All of Us

Whether you’re a freelancer handling daily depos or an agency owner juggling assignments and contracts, this affects you.

If the legal community loses faith in the privacy of depositions, we all lose business. Clients may avoid scheduling depos altogether. Witnesses may clam up. Agencies may face new liability. This isn’t a one-off political headline—this is a direct threat to the trust we’ve built and the future of our work.

A Time to Speak Up and Step Forward

Now is the time for every court reporter and agency to remind clients, law firms, and even the courts why we matter. We are not outdated. We are not optional. We are the Responsible Charge.

Let’s talk about our ethics. Let’s share our role in protecting the record. Let’s push back against the idea that automation can replace human judgment, discretion, and accountability.

Because once the integrity of the record is compromised, there’s no going back.

Closing Thoughts

If this Biden audio leak tells us anything, it’s that we need to hold the line. The legal system works best when court reporters are in the room, focused, listening, documenting, and protecting. That’s who we are.

Let’s keep showing the world—and the legal community—what Responsible Charge really means.

Published by stenoimperium

We exist to facilitate the fortifying of the Stenography profession and ensure its survival for the next hundred years! As court reporters, we've handed the relationship role with our customers, or attorneys, over to the agencies and their sales reps. This has done a lot of damage to our industry. It has taken away our ability to have those relationships, the ability to be humanized and valued. We've become a replaceable commodity. Merely saying we are the “Gold Standard” tells them that we’re the best, but there are alternatives. Who we are though, is much, much more powerful than that! We are the Responsible Charge. “Responsible Charge” means responsibility for the direction, control, supervision, and possession of stenographic & transcription work, as the case may be, to assure that the work product has been critically examined and evaluated for compliance with appropriate professional standards by a licensee in the profession, and by sealing and signing the documents, the professional stenographer accepts responsibility for the stenographic or transcription work, respectively, represented by the documents and that applicable stenographic and professional standards have been met. This designation exists in other professions, such as engineering, land surveying, public water works, landscape architects, land surveyors, fire preventionists, geologists, architects, and more. In the case of professional engineers, the engineering association adopted a Responsible Charge position statement that says, “A professional engineer is only considered to be in responsible charge of an engineering work if the professional engineer makes independent professional decisions regarding the engineering work without requiring instruction or approval from another authority and maintains control over those decisions by the professional engineer’s physical presence at the location where the engineering work is performed or by electronic communication with the individual executing the engineering work.” If we were to adopt a Responsible Charge position statement for our industry, we could start with a draft that looks something like this: "A professional court reporter, or stenographer, is only considered to be in responsible charge of court reporting work if the professional court reporter makes independent professional decisions regarding the court reporting work without requiring instruction or approval from another authority and maintains control over those decisions by the professional court reporter’s physical presence at the location where the court reporting work is performed or by electronic communication with the individual executing the court reporting work.” Shared purpose The cornerstone of a strategic narrative is a shared purpose. This shared purpose is the outcome that you and your customer are working toward together. It’s more than a value proposition of what you deliver to them. Or a mission of what you do for the world. It’s the journey that you are on with them. By having a shared purpose, the relationship shifts from consumer to co-creator. In court reporting, our mission is “to bring justice to every litigant in the U.S.” That purpose is shared by all involved in the litigation process – judges, attorneys, everyone. Who we are is the Responsible Charge. How we do that is by Protecting the Record. View more posts