Tag: search and seizure
Judge Delivers Rebuke to Prosecutors in Sentencing NSA Official
The recent sentencing of a government intelligence official saw a dramatic and unusual rebuke of the U.S. Department of Justice by a federal judge. Four years after searching the home of National Security Agency official Thomas Drake, who was suspected of illegally leaking classified information to a reporter, and more than year after actually indicting… Read More
Ifrah Law’s Blog Wrap-Up, May 1-13
This is the fifth of a regular series of posts that summarize and wrap up our latest thoughts that have appeared recently on Ifrah Law’s blogs. 1. Bank Hit With FCA Complaint Over Mortgage Lending The Justice Department uses a Civil-War era statute in a very unusual context – to try to recover more than… Read More
Supreme Court May Examine GPS Surveillance Issue
Last October, we reported on a unanimous ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, holding that prosecutors must obtain a warrant before attaching a GPS device to a criminal suspect’s car. The court found in that case that the act of attaching such a device to a suspect’s vehicle is a… Read More
Ifrah Law’s Semi-monthly Blog Wrap-up, January 15-31
This is the first of a regular series of posts that summarize and wrap up our latest thoughts that have appeared recently on Ifrah Law’s two blogs. 1. Can Police Read a Suspect’s Text Messages Without a Warrant? What happens when the usual rules of search and seizure collide with the new world of information in… Read More
California Court OKs Warrantless Search of Cell Phone
The text messages in a defendant’s cell phone are in no way different, for the purposes of a police search after an arrest, from the defendant’s clothing or a cigarette package. That was the holding of the California Supreme Court on January 3, 2011, in People v. Diaz, a case in which the state’s highest… Read More
ISPs Take Note: Court Rules E-mails Have Full 4th Amendment Protection
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit has just issued a trail-blazing opinion that is good news for anyone who has ever sent an e-mail – and that needs to be carefully read and adhered to by all Internet service providers (ISPs). We noted six months ago that ISPs have been all too… Read More
Is a GPS Device Covered Under the Fourth Amendment?
Can prosecutors attach a Global Positioning System device to a criminal suspect’s car without a warrant in order to track his movements for weeks or even months? The D.C. Circuit answered this very 21st-century criminal procedure question last August with a resounding “no.” An ideologically diverse panel composed of Judges Douglas Ginsburg, David Tatel, and… Read More
Fourth Amendment the Loser in BALCO Ruling
A recent ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit is a win for Major League Baseball players whose drug-testing records must now be returned to them after they were improperly seized in a 2002 federal steroids probe. But it’s not a win for Fourth Amendment values. In a September 13, 2010,… Read More
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