The Fourth Amendment Prohibits Carte Blanche Review Of Email Accounts By The Government

Those office employees who have rolled the dice and sent emails clearly not suitable for work would be glad to know that their email accounts are protected from government intrusion by the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Warshak, 631 F.3d 266, 282-88 (6th Cir. 2010). The government must obtain a search warrant to search a person's emails – just as it would in order to open letters located inside a person's mailbox. Every search warrant must particularly describe (1) the place to be searched, and (2) the persons or things (or in some cases the electronic communications) to be seized. This is easy when a warrant seeks traditional mail. The place to be searched is the suspect's mailbox, and the things to be seized are, in most cases, the letters addressed to the suspect. However, in the digital realm, whether a description of a place to be searched is sufficiently particular is a complicated question. Thus, a recent decision from the District of Kansas concerning the particularity requirements to search warrants seeking email communications stored in accounts provided by third-parties such as Google is significant for both electronic discovery purposes and Fourth Amendment law. In re Search Warrants for Info. Associated with Target Email Accounts, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 123129 (D. Kan. August 27, 2013).

In 2013, the government alleged that individuals (the "Targets") purchased stolen computer equipment that they knew to be stolen and transported the equipment from Kansas to New Jersey. As part of the government's investigation, it requested that the court issue search warrants to obtain the Targets' electronic communications from five providers of electronic communication services, Google, Yahoo!, Verizon, GoDaddy, and Skype (collectively, the "Providers"). The government sought the contents of all the Targets' emails, instant messages and chat logs, and would need the Providers' assistance to obtain this information.

In previous cases involving search warrants served on electronic communications service providers, courts have issued broad warrants for the government. See United States v. Taylor, 764 F.Supp.2d 230 (D. Me. 2011); United States v. Bickle, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 94921 (D. Nev., July 21, 2011); United States v. Bowen, 689 F.Supp.2d 675 (S.D.N.Y. 2010). However, in this case, rather than simply rubber stamp the warrant applications, the court denied the government's warrant applications because they violated the Fourth Amendment's...