DC Judge Smacks Down Government For Vague iPhone Search Warrant

from the 'with-a-computer'-doesn't-really-specify-a-search-method dept

Trying to pin down DC Magistrate Judge John Facciola is tricky. Early in March, he issued an order denying a government warrant for an email search, stating the following:

[T]he government continues to submit overly broad warrants and makes no effort to balance the law enforcement interests against the obvious expectation of privacy e-mail account holders have in their communications.

Although Attachment B provides a sufficiently particularized list of the data that the government will search for and seize, the Forensic Analysis section fails to provide this Court with the same level of detail as to the methodologies to be used to conduct the search. Specifically, the government fails to articulate how it will limit the possibility that data outside the scope of the warrant will be searched. For the reasons stated below, the government’s Application for a search and seizure warrant will, therefore, be denied.

The Court also requires a search protocol for a separate Fourth Amendment reason—to particularly describe the place to be searched. In a broad manner, describing the iPhone and its specific IMEI number certainly describes the “place to be searched” in a particular manner. But an electronic search is not that simple. An iPhone 4 has either 16 GB or 32 GB of flash memory, 10 which could allow storage of up to around two million text documents. Obviously no one—especially not a college student—would fill an iPhone with text documents, but it is inconceivable that the government would go file by file to determine whether each one is within the scope of the warrant. Instead, as the government has explained in extremely general terms, it will use some sort of “computer-assisted scans” to determine where to look because those scans will determine which parts will be exposed “to human inspection in order to determine whether it is evidence described by the warrant.”

It tells the Court nothing about what will actually happen and does not provide a means of searching so that this Court is assured that it is the type of particularized search that the Fourth Amendment demands. What the government has submitted is no better than the vague explanation in In re Search of Odys Loox that it will “image each device, search them, and keep all files.”

Until the government actually explains how the search will proceed, and thus how the government intends to limit its search of data outside the scope of the warrant, this warrant cannot be issued.

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So far, so good, as far as upholding the Fourth Amendment goes. Then later in the month, Facciola appeared to switch sides,a warrant application for a cell phone search because, as he saw it, there was no need for the police to obtain one. This determination was based on the warrant application's description of the phone as being "abandoned" by the suspect, when in all reality, it may have just been dropped inadvertently. This strange order put the police in the strange position of beingto obtain a warrant, something that could potentially jeopardize the prosecution's case if another judge later determines a warrant was, in fact, needed before performing the search of the phone.That backwards step has now been followed by another stepin terms of the Fourth Amendment. Facciola has again smacked down a government warrant request for being too broad and too unconcerned with potential privacy implications.Specifically, Facciola finds this warrant approved from others he has blocked in the past, but the government still seems hesitant to explain exactlyit plans to limit its search to just pertinent data and documents.Facciola notes that the fact that so much can be stored similarly increases the chance of abuse. All he's asking for is for the government to be more specific in its description of how it will minimize accessing data not related to the case at hand, and all the government has provided so far is vagaries like "computer-assisted scan" and "keyword searches."If Facciola sounds irritable, it's probably because this is thetime he's sent the government back to work on this particular warrant request. And this is the third time he's had to make this statement, one which still seems to elude the agency making the request.So, it appears Facciola's fighting for citizens' Fourth Amendment rights against a government that seems unwilling or unable to narrow the scope of its electronic searches. Of course, this protection seemingly only extends to citizens whose phones have been properly seized as evidence, rather than dropped/abandoned and claimed by pursuing law enforcement agents. If it's the latter, Facciola appears to believe it's an imposition on law enforcement to demand a warrant. Still, two out of three (in just this month alone) is a pretty good batting average for Americans' rights, something that tends to be subverted very easily by expansive judicial readings of the Third Party Doctrine.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, john facciola, search, warrants