What, Was That Your Data I Lost In Between The Couch Cushions For 15 Months?

United States v. Metter, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 155130 (E.D.N.Y. 2012)

In a ruling Thursday, a New York federal court held that the FBI took too long to examine a defendant’s imaged hard drive after it was obtained via warrant. “The government’s more than fifteen-month delay in reviewing the seized electronic evidence”, wrote an acerbic Judge Dora Irizarry, “under the facts and circumstances of this case, constitutes an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment.” Judge Irizarry found that the government had shown no intent even to begin a review of the materials seized to determine relevance, and that in that context the search was not accomplished within a “reasonable” time within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.

Maybe this is another sign that the federal courts are beginning to come to grips with the indefinite persistence and searchability of digital records, and are trying to set some limit beyond which Fourth Amendment notions of a “reasonable” length of time come into play. So, the good news is that by this ruling, the government can’t simply sit on all of your business and personal data for ever without reviewing its relevance to an ongoing case; the bad news is that as a district court ruling, its applicability to broader issues like indefinite government seizure of domain names or asset forfeiture is limited. (h/t: Cybercrime Review, The Volokh Conspiracy)

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