This is an appeal by the Government from the dismissal of an indictment against William Allan Jones which charged him with intercepting telephone conversations of his estranged wife and using the contents of the intercepted communications in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2511(l)(a) and (d) (1970).1 Relying principally on the decision of the Fifth Circuit in Simpson v. Simpson, 490 F.2d 803 (5th Cir. 1974), the District Court held that Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 was not intended to reach interspousal wiretaps placed on telephones in the marital home. On appeal the Government argues 1.) that the District Court followed improper procedures in dismissing the indictment before trial, and 2.) that there is no statutory exception for interspousal wiretaps.
Prior to arraignment, Appellee filed a number of motions with the District Court including a motion for a bill of particulars and a motion to dismiss the indictment for failure to state an offense. At the arraignment before District Judge Frank W. Wilson, Appellee argued that his case fell within an implied statutory exception for inter-spousal wiretaps and offered to submit affidavits and exhibits. Appellee also offered to withdraw his request for a bill of particulars if the Government would stipulate to the ownership of the house where the tapped telephone was located and the name of the person to whom the telephone was registered. The District Judge granted the motion for a bill of particulars although he stated that the parties could file stipulations in lieu of the bill if they so agreed. He denied Appellee’s motion to dismiss the indictment without prejudice indicating that the motion could be renewed at a later date on the basis of the bill of particulars and the affidavit.
In the bill of particulars the Government stated that the residence was owned by the grandmother of Appellee; that the telephone number was listed in Appellee’s name; that Appellee and his wife separated in July of. 1974 and had not lived together as man and wife after that date; that Appellee filed for divorce on September 25, 1974; that on October 7, 1974 his wife was granted a restraining order by the Chancery Court prohibiting Appellee from “coming about” her; that on January 20, 1975 the divorce decree was granted; and that on one or more occasions Appellee had intercepted his wife’s telephone conversations outside the curtilage of the residence. Appellee submitted an affidavit with exhibits attached wherein he stated that he paid the rent on the premises and the telephone bills during the period in question; that he and his wife continued a sexual relationship even though he had moved out of the house in late July of 1974; that he returned to the house on occasion to babysit; that on October 18, 1974 while babysitting he became suspicious that his wife was involved in an extramarital affair and placed a recording device on the telephone; that the recordings of the intercepted telephone calls confirmed his suspicions; and that he used the recordings to obtain a divorce. On December 3, 1975, District Judge Bailey Brown, sitting by designation, ruled on the basis of the proffered materials that Appellee’s conduct fell within an implied exception to 18 U.S.C. § 2511(l)(a) for purely interspousal wiretaps placed on telephones within the *664marital home and he dismissed all counts of the indictment.2
The Government contends that the District Court erroneously considered factual allegations in the bill of particulars and Appellee’s affidavit in ruling on the motion to dismiss. They cite a number of older cases which hold that a court may not look beyond the face of an indictment in ruling on a motion to dismiss. See Las Vegas Merchant Plumbers Ass’n v. United States, 210 F.2d 732, 741 (9th Cir. 1954); United States v. Westbrook, 114 F.Supp. 192, 199 (W.D.Ark.1953); United States v. Quinn, 116 F.Supp. 802, 803 (E.D.N.Y.1953). The Government also charges that it was error to order it to submit a bill of particulars when the indictment was sufficient on its face to apprise Appellee of the charges against him. See United States v. Perez, 489 F.2d 51, 71 (5th Cir. 1973); United States v. Marks, 364 F.Supp. 1022, 1030 (E.D.Ky.1973).
Rule 12 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, as recently amended,3 states:
(b) Any defense, objection, or request which is capable of determination without the trial of the general issue may be raised before trial by motion.
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(e) A motion made before trial shall be determined before trial unless the court, for good cause, orders that it be deferred for determination at the trial of the general issue or until after verdict, but no such determination shall be deferred if a party’s right to appeal is adversely affected. Where factual issues are involved in determining a motion, the court shall state its essential findings on the record.
The rule was written to encourage the making of motions prior to trial. See Notes of the Advisory Committee to the 1975 Amendments to Fed.R.Crim.P. 12, reprinted in 8 J. Moore, Federal Practice H 12.01[3] at 12-7, 8 (2d ed. 1976) (hereinafter Moore). District courts are directed to dispose of all motions before trial if they are capable of determination without trial of the general issue.4 Fed.R.Crim.P. 12(b). Generally, motions are capable of determination before trial if they raise questions of law rather than fact. See United States v. Miller, 491 F.2d 638, 647 (5th Cir. 1974). However, Rules 12(e) and (g) clearly envision that a district court may make preliminary findings of fact necessary to decide the questions of law presented by pre-trial motion so long as the court’s findings on the motion do not invade the province of the ultimate finder of fact.5 See Moore H 12.04 *665at 12-24, 25. Thus, a defense is “ ‘capable of determination’ if trial of the facts surrounding the commission of the alleged offense would be of no assistance in determining the validity of the defense.” United States v. Covington, 395 U.S. 57, 60, 89 S.Ct. 1559, 1561, 23 L.Ed.2d 94 (1969).
The District Court was justified in deciding Appellee’s motion to dismiss the indictment before trial, because it raised the legal question of whether 18 U.S.C. § 2511(l)(a) was intended to apply to interspousal wiretaps. His motion was one in bar — for purposes of the motion he admitted the offense, interception of another’s wire communication, but argued the existence of a statutory exception for interspousal wiretaps which immunized him from prosecution.6 See United States v. Dorneau, 491 F.2d 473, 478 (2d Cir. 1974). The facts surrounding the alleged offense were virtually undisputed and trial of the substantive charges would not substantially assist the Court in deciding the legal issue raised by the motion to dismiss the indictment. The District Court was not limited to the face of the indictment in ruling on the motion to dismiss. See e. g., United States v. Seeley, 301 F.Supp. 811 (D.R.I.1969). Rule 12 vests the Court with authority “to determine issues of fact in such manner as the court deems appropriate.” Notes of the Advisory Committee to Fed.R.Crim.P. 12, reprinted in 8 Moore ¶ 12.01[3] at 12-8. Appellee in his affidavit did not contradict the essential allegations in the indictment and the bill of particulars so the Court properly considered it in ruling on the motion.7 See Fed.R. *666Crim.P. 47. See also 8 Moore ¶ 12.04 at 12-26. The Court also was within its authority in ordering the Government to submit a bill of particulars to supplement the allegations in the indictment so that it could determine whether there was a factual basis for ruling on the motion to dismiss the indictment. Cf. 8 Moore f 7.06[2] at 7-35. Under the circumstances, the issue of whether Appellee was exempt from prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 2511(l)(a) was capable of determination prior to trial and was properly raised by a motion to dismiss the indictment. See Watson v. United States, 141 U.S.App.D.C. 335, 439 F.2d 442, 453-54 & n. 11 (1970).
We now turn to the basic contention of Appellee that he was exempt from prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 2511(l)(a). The language of 18 U.S.C. § 2511(l)(a) and (d) is straightforward and comprehensive:
(1) Except as otherwise specifically provided in this chapter any person who—
(a) willfully intercepts, endeavors to intercept, or procures any other person to intercept or endeavor to intercept, any wire or oral communication;
(d) willfully uses, or endeavors to use, the contents of any wire or oral communication, knowing or having reason to know that the information was obtained through the interception of a wire or oral communication in violation of this subsection;
shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
As the Supreme Court stated in United States v. Giordano, 416 U.S. 505, 514, 94 S.Ct. 1820, 1826, 40 L.Ed.2d 341 (1974), “[t]he purpose of the legislation . was effectively to prohibit ... all interceptions of oral and wire communications, except those specifically provided for in the Act . . . .” Despite the unambiguous language of the statute, the District Court chose to follow the Fifth Circuit’s holding in Simpson v. Simpson, 490 F.2d 803 (5th Cir. 1974), that this section was not intended to prohibit purely inter-spousal wiretaps placed on telephones in the marital home. Because we interpret the statute’s legislative history differently than did the Court in Simpson and because we believe that this case is distinguishable from Simpson both legally and factually, we reverse.
Simpson v. Simpson was a civil suit under 18 U.S.C. § 2520 (1970),8 brought by a woman against her former husband. The husband, harboring uncertainties as to his wife’s faithfulness, attached a recording device to the telephone lines at their home and recorded conversations between his wife and another man which the Court described as “mildly compromising.” 490 F.2d at 804. He used the recordings to obtain an uncontested divorce. Id. Although the Simpson Court admitted that the “naked language” of Title III was all-inclusive, they concluded that Congress did not intend to intrude into domestic conflicts normally left to state law. Id. The Simpson Court reviewed the Act’s legislative history and based their conclusion on the lack of a positive expression of Congressional intent to include purely interspousal wiretaps within the Act’s prohibitions. Id. The Court distinguished electronic surveillance by a third-party, which they stated would violate the Act even if instigated by a spouse, because they viewed it as “an offense against a spouse’s privacy of a much greater magnitude than is personal surveillance by the other spouse.” 490 F.2d at 809. The Simpson Court concluded with a caveat:
As should be obvious from the foregoing, we are not without doubts about our decision. However, we have concluded that the statute is not sufficiently definite and specific to create a federal cause of action for the redress of appellant’s *667grievances against her former husband. Our decision is, of course, limited to the specific facts of this case. No public official is involved, nor is any private person other than appellee, and the locus in quo does not extend beyond the marital home of the parties. 490 F.2d at 810
Ordinarily a court will not refer to legislative history in construing a statute which is clear on its face. See e. g., United States v. Oregon, 366 U.S. 643, 648, 81 S.Ct. 1278, 6 L.Ed.2d 575 (1961). The language of § 2511(l)(a) quite clearly expresses a blanket prohibition on all electronic surveillance except under circumstances specifically enumerated in the statute.9 See United States v. Giordano, supra, 416 U.S. at 514, 94 S.Ct. 1820. The natural presumption when construing a statute is that Congress meant what it said. However, the Simpson Court concluded that, despite the literal language of the section, the absence of positive proof of congressional intent to include interspousal wiretaps in the Act’s prohibitions indicated that Congress did not intend to reach that activity. 490 F.2d at 805. The District Court in this case adopted Simpson’s analysis of the statute’s legislative history and concluded that, as a matter of law, Appellee was immune from prosecution for intercepting and recording his wife’s telephone conversations. This conclusion is untenable because it contradicts both the explicit language of the statute and the clear intent of Congress expressed in the Act’s legislative history.
This section was enacted as part of Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. Pub.L. No. 90-351 § 802 (June 19, 1968), 1 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1968, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., at p. 255. Title III was drafted to fill loopholes in the existing law.10 See Hearings Before a Subcomm. of the Senate Comm. on the Judiciary, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., at 4 (1967) (remarks of Sen. Long). The Senate Report on the bill described the problem addressed by Title III:
The tremendous scientific and technological developments that have taken place in the last century have made possible today the widespread use and abuse of electronic surveillance techniques. As a result of these developments, privacy of communication is seriously jeopardized by these techniques of surveillance. Commercial and employer-labor espionage is becoming widespread. It is becoming increasingly difficult to conduct business meetings in private. Trade secrets are betrayed. Labor and management plans are revealed. No longer is it possible, in short, for each man to retreat into his home and be left alone. Every spoken word [relative] to each man’s personal, marital, religious, political, or commercial concerns can be intercepted by an unseen auditor and turned against the speaker to the auditor’s advantage.
*668S.Rep. No. 1097, reprinted in U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1968, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., at p. 2154. Although the primary-target of the bill was organized crime, the Senate Report makes it clear that the purpose of the bill was to establish an across-the-board prohibition on all unauthorized electronic surveillance:
Title III has as its dual purpose (1) protecting the privacy of wire and oral communications, and (2) delineating on a uniform basis the circumstances and conditions under which the interception of wire and oral communications may be authorized. To assure the privacy of oral and wire communications, title III prohibits all wiretapping and electronic surveillance by persons other than duly authorized law enforcement officers engaged in the investigation or prevention of specified types of serious crimes, and only after authorization of a court order obtained after a showing and finding of probable cause.
Id. at p. 2153. (Emphasis added).
The Simpson Court noted that the majority of the legislative history dealt with electronic surveillance by law enforcement officials and found the discussion of private surveillance to be inconclusive on the desired scope of the Act’s prohibitions. 490 F.2d at 807. However, the legislative history leaves no doubt that the Act was intended to reach private electronic surveillance 11 and that Congress was aware that a major area of use for surveillance techniques was the preparation of domestic relations cases.12 Professor Robert Blakey, publicly credited with being the author of
*669Title III,13 testified before the Subcommittee on Administrative Practice and Procedure of the Senate Judiciary Committee that:
[PJrivate bugging in this country can be divided into two broad categories, commercial espionage and marital litigation.14
Congressional awareness that the Act’s prohibition of private surveillance would be applicable to domestic relations investigations is reflected in the comments of Senator Hruska, one of the co-sponsors of the bill, which were joined by Senators Dirksen, Scott and Thurmond:
A broad prohibition is imposed on private use of electronic surveillance, particularly in domestic relations and industrial espionage situations.15
Our review of the legislative history of this section, testimony at congressional hearings, and debates on the floor of Congress, inescapably lead to the conclusion that 18 U.S.C. § 2511(l)(a) establishes a broad prohibition on all private electronic surveillance and that a principal area of congressional concern was electronic surveillance for the purposes of marital litigation.16
*670The Simpson Court was privy to many of the same materials which were reviewed by this Court. See 490 F.2d at 806-809 nn. 8-16. However in Simpson their importance was discounted because the Court distinguished between unaided surveillance by a spouse and surveillance involving a third-party, even if instigated by the spouse. 490 F.2d at 809. This distinction has been seized upon in a subsequent case. See Remington v. Remington, 393 F.Supp. 898, 901 (E.D.Pa.1975). In our view, it is a classic “distinction without a difference.” For purposes of federal wiretap law, it makes no difference whether a wiretap is placed on a telephone by a spouse or by a private detective in the spouse's employ.17 The end result is the same — the privacy of the unconsenting parties to the intercepted conversation has been invaded. It is important to recognize that it is not just the privacy of the targeted spouse which is being violated, but that of the other party to the conversation as well. See generally Comment, Interspousal Electronic Immunity, 7 Tol.L. Rev. 185, 209 (1975). Justice Brandeis aptly described the “evil” of wiretapping in his dissenting opinion to Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 475-76, 48 S.Ct. 564, 571, 72 L.Ed. 944 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting):
The evil incident to invasion of the privacy of the telephone is far greater than
that involved in tampering with the mails. Whenever a telephone line is tapped, the privacy of the persons at both ends of the line is invaded and all conversations between them upon any subject, and although proper, confidential and privileged, may be overheard. Moreover, the tapping of one man’s telephone line involves the tapping of the telephone of every other person whom he may call or who may call him. As a means of espionage, writs of assistance and general warrants are but puny instruments of tyranny and oppression when compared with wire-tapping.
The view expressed by Justice Brandéis in Olmstead that there is a constitutional right to privacy in wire communications was later accepted by a majority of the Supreme Court in Berger v. New York, 388 U.S. 41, 87 S.Ct. 1873,18 L.Ed.2d 1040 (1967), and in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967). Title III was drafted to meet the standards enunciated in Berger for constitutional electronic surveillance and to conform with Katz. See 1 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1968, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., at p. 2153. The implication is clear then that the Congress enacted Title III to protect the privacy of all persons conversing over the telephone and that their privacy is shielded from invasion by third parties and spouses alike.18
*671As a matter of statutory construction, the conclusion reached in Simpson is also questionable. The explicit language of 18 U.S.C. § 2511(l)(a) is that “any person” who violates the section is liable to punishment “except as otherwise specifically provided.” If Congress had intended to create another exception to Title Ill’s blanket prohibition of unauthorized wiretaps they would have included a specific exception for interspousal wiretaps in the statute. Cf. Remington v. Remington, 393 F.Supp. at 901. As noted previously, Congress was well aware that wiretaps were frequently used to investigate domestic relations cases. We also dispute the implication in Simpson that the limited attention given to private electronic surveillance in the legislative history, relative to that afforded surveillance by law enforcement personnel, reflects Congress’ equivocation on the scope of Title III in the private sector. The more plausible explanation is that it was the consensus of Congress that there is “no justification” for private electronic surveillance so that debate centered on the more volatile issue of law enforcement surveillance.19
This interpretation is consistent with the pervasive theme of Title III that electronic surveillance should be sharply curtailed and in no instance be undertaken without strict judicial authorization and supervision. See United States v. Giordano, 416 U.S. at 514, 519 n. 8, 94 S.Ct. 1820; United States v. Chavez, 416 U.S. 562, 581, 94 S.Ct. 1849, 40 L.Ed.2d 380 (1974) (Douglas, J., concurring).
If there is an interspousal exception to the wiretap act, it would have to be narrowly circumscribed to comport with the intent of Congress in enacting Title III. The Simpson Court admitted as much by restricting their decision to its facts. 490 F.2d at 810. Cases subsequent to Simpson have cited it for the existence of an inter-spousal immunity to federal wiretap law, but each court has distinguished Simpson on its facts and found that the wiretap in question was illegal. See United States v. Schrimscher, 493 F.2d 848, 851 (5th Cir. 1974); Remington v. Remington, 393 F.Supp. at 901. See also Rickenbaker v. Rickenbaker, 226 S.E.2d 347; at 352 (N.C.S. Ct.1976). Cf. Markham v. Markham, 265 So.2d 59 (C.A.Fla. 1st Dist. 1972), aff’d 272 *672So.2d 813 (Fla.S.Ct.1973). But see Beaber v. Beaber, 41 Ohio Misc. 95, 322 N.E.2d 910 (C. P. Stark Co. 1974). In United States v. Schrimsher the Fifth Circuit declined to apply Simpson to a different factual setting. In Schrimsher the defendant was a disgruntled lover who hid himself in his former lover’s home to monitor her telephone calls. 493 F.2d at 850. The Court held Simpson was not controlling because the defendant was not married to the person whose telephone he tapped, he was not part of her household, and he had no legal right to be on the premises. Id. at 851. In Remington v. Remington the Court distinguished Simpson because the defendant had involved third parties in the installation of the wiretap used to record her husband’s telephone conversations. 393 F.Supp. at 901. This, the Remington Court concluded, constituted a “gross invasion” of privacy which was not excepted from federal wiretap law. Id.
Even if Simpson was correctly decided on its facts, this case is clearly distinguishable. In Simpson the Court was concerned about the scope of the civil remedies under § 2520.20 The Court stated that Congress had not sought to create “a federal remedy for marital grievances” when it provided civil remedies for aggrieved persons. 490 F.2d at 807 n. 7. The Simpson Court based its decision, at least in part, on a desire to avoid a conflict between the civil remedies granted by the federal statute and the doctrine of interspousal immunity from civil action in tort recognized by many states. Id. The Court concluded that Congress did not intend to override the doctrine of interspousal immunity and “intrude into the marital relation within the marital home”, normally a subject for state law. Id. at 807. This analysis is faulty when applied to this case in a number of respects. One problem is that state law is far from uniform on the' doctrine of interspousal immunity. A number of states have decided the doctrine is antiquated and have abandoned it.21 There is also substantial doubt whether a doctrine of state tort law should have any influence in defining a cause of action expressly created by federal statute, particularly when Congress could have included a similar provision in the statute and failed to do so. See Remington v. Remington, 393 F.Supp. at 901-02. The most telling difference between this case and Simpson however, is that we are here concerned with construing the scope of a criminal statute. Even in states which recognize interspousal immunity, that immunity does not apply to criminal prosecutions.22 As noted above, Title III protects the privacy of all parties to an intercepted communication, and the fact that one party to a tapped conversation is the spouse of the defendant should have no bearing whatsoever on the availability of criminal penalties.23
*673This case is also distinguishable on its facts. In Simpson the wiretapping incident took place while the couple were living together as man and wife. Here, it is undisputed that Appellee and his wife were separated at the time of the electronic surveillance. Appellee had moved out of the house in July of 1974 and by October 18th when the surveillance device was installed he was under a restraining order from the Chancery Court to prevent him from “coming about” his wife. Also, in Simpson the Court stressed that “the locus in quo [of the wiretap] does not extend beyond the marital home of the parties.” 490 F.2d at 810. Here, it is doubtful whether there was a “marital home” within the Simpson Court’s meaning of the term, and the surveillance was conducted from outside the residence where the telephone was located. While we are not convinced that the location of the surveillance device has any relevance in ascertaining the scope of the statute,24 we mention this only to emphasize that Appellee and his wife were not sharing a domicile at the time of the interception. As in Schrimsher, Appellee had no legal right to be on the premises, see 493 F.2d at 851, and, as in Remington, the marriage by that time had become one in name more than fact. See 393 F.Supp. at 901. Under these circumstances, we do not find applicable the implied interspousal exception to the wiretap statute recognized in Simpson.
The District Court did not err in ruling on the motion to dismiss before trial but was in error in dismissing the indictment against Appellee for failure to state an offense. The allegations in the indictment clearly state violations of 18 U.S.C. § 2511(l)(a) and (d), for wrongful interception and use of wire communications. We reach this conclusion reluctantly because we share the concern of other courts which have grappled with this problem that application of federal wiretap law to essentially domestic conflicts may lead to harsh results in individual cases. However, the plain language of the section and the Act’s legislative history compels interpretation of the statute to include interspousal wiretaps. It is not for this Court to question the wisdom of Congress and to establish an implied exception to a federal statute by judicial fiat. Only Congress has the authority to amend 18 U.S.C. § 2511. Accordingly, the judgment of the District Court is reversed and the case is remanded for trial.