Recently, my wife and I were working in our backyard when we noticed a drone, floating by our yard just below tree-top level. As soon as we stood-up to look at the buzzing drone, it came closer to our position hovering just above our heads out of reach. 

Yes, drones have become ubiquitous. In Texas, they shoot them down like game birds. Cases are now starting to percolate into the common law of Michigan that examine the relationship between evidence obtained from invasive devices like drones, and our privacy. 

The Michigan Court of Appeals recently decided Long Lake Township v Maxon, an interesting case pitting evidence gathered by a drone against a couple's right to privacy on their own property. The Township cited the couple for an ordinance violation; the Township was informed relative to the Maxon's alleged zoning ordinance violation via drone surveillance footage; the drone footage was obtained without a warrant. 

The Maxons have a long history of litigation with Long Lake Township in Grand Traverse County over the Township's nuisance ordinance banning certain forms of salvage and junk operations. A settlement agreement had been governing relations between the parties since 2008, and prevented the Township from filing a violation against the homeowners. 

In 2018, however, the Township complained that the Maxons had expanded their salvage operation over the past decade. To prove their contention, they hired Zero Gravity Aerial to make photographic drone flights directly over the Maxon's property in the years 2010, 2016, 2017, and 2018. 

Throughout these years, the Township did not secure a warrant for the drone flights. The evidence collected clearly indicated an increase in the number of junked cars on the property. 

Citing their right to be free from government searches without a warrant based on probable cause, the Maxons moved to supress the evidence obtained from the drones. In denying their motion, the trial court judge ruled that the homeowners had no expectation of privacy in their yard based on the "fixed wing" doctrine; therefore, without a privacy interest, a warrant was not required and the evidence gathered from the Township drones could be used to prove their case. 

If a party has a reasonable justifiable expectation of privacy under the circumstances of a particular case, then the government must obtain a search warrant based on probable cause to invade that private sector. If there is no reasonable expectation under the circumstances, then no warrant is required. Within the jurisprudence of probable cause, warrantless searches are  presumptively disfavored by the courts. This case is interesting because it adds a drone surveillance component that was not present in earlier cases.

Michigan has a drone statute which states:

(1) A person shall not knowingly and intentionally operate an unmanned aircraft system to subject an individual to harassment. As used in this subsection, "harassment" means that term as defined in section 411h or 411i of the Michigan penal code, 1931 PA 328, MCL 750.411h and 750.411i.

  (2) A person shall not knowingly and intentionally operate an unmanned aircraft system within a distance that, if the person were to do so personally rather than through remote operation of an unmanned aircraft, would be a violation of a restraining order or other judicial order.

  (3) A person shall not knowingly and intentionally operate an unmanned aircraft system to violate section 539j of the Michigan penal code, 1931 PA 328, MCL 750.539j, or to otherwise capture photographs, video, or audio recordings of an individual in a manner that would invade the individual's reasonable expectation of privacy.

  (4) An individual who is required to register as a sex offender under the sex offenders registration act, 1994 PA 295, MCL 28.721 to 28.736, shall not operate an unmanned aircraft system to knowingly and intentionally follow, contact, or capture images of another individual, if the individual's sentence in a criminal case would prohibit the individual from following, contacting, or capturing the image of the other individual.

Long Lake v Maxon is one of the first cases to apply this statute to a proceeding. The Court of Appeals characterized the zoning ordinance proceeding as quasi-criminal given the state powers intersecting with private property. The appellate court conducts a tour de force of case law pertaining to our "expectation of privacy" within the Fourth Amendment search warrant context. Drones are distinguished from aircraft in the case; they are characterized as smaller, quieter and more discreet than fixed-wing manned aircraft.

The United States Supreme Court addressed these issues within the "aircraft" context and has opined that a property owner's reasonable expectation of privacy should not be, "at the mercy of advancing technology." The Court of Appeals agreed, holding:

We conclude that; much like the infrared imaging device discussed in Kyllo; low-altitude, unmanned, specifically-targeted drone surveillance of a private individual’s property is qualitatively different from the kinds of human-operated aircraft overflights permitted by Ciraolo and Riley. We conclude that drone surveillance of this nature intrudes into persons’ reasonable expectations of privacy, so such surveillance implicates the Fourth Amendment and is illegal without a warrant or a traditional exception to the warrant requirement.

 Notably, the published opinion contains a dissent from Judge Karen Fort Hood. She concludes that, since the Township operated the drone flights over the property just like any other drone operator, then the property owners did not have an expectation of privacy. 

Post #629

www.clarkstonlegal.com

Geofence warrants, also known as reverse location warrants, are new to the law enforcement toolbox. Now these warrants are quickly becoming recognized by law enforcement as an effective method to gathering evidence of crime.

In some cases, evidence gathered by multi-step reverse location warrants is the only evidence available in the case. These warrants are also getting attention from the national media and soon could be heading to the SCOTUS for a show-down with our privacy rights and the Fourth Amendment's probable cause requirement.

What is a Geofence Warrant?

In recent years, police, investigating a crime with few or no clues, have increasingly turned to almighty Google to help them find the perpetrator. First, law enforcement issues a warrant to Google requesting data about any and all devices present within certain spatial and temporal parameters matching an unsolved crime.

Google then responds to the multi-step warrant by transmitting to the requesting agency a log designating -anonymously- all registered devices that fit the warrant's parameters. Law enforcement then takes that anonymous raw data and determines which code-designated devices merit further information. These suspect devices then become the subject of a second warrant to Google; more personal and identifying information is requested. [Note: the SCOTUS has already held that law enforcement must first obtain a search warrant pursuant to the Fourth Amendment prior to forcing access to a suspect's password protected cell phone.]

After providing lip service to their policy of narrowly construing such warrant requests, Google responds by tapping into its Sensorvault database, created in 2009. Sensorvault is connected to Google's "Location History" service, as well as other location-based apps such as the Web & App Activity; a separate database.

We've all noticed when our iPhones or Android devices prompt us to enable the location history function. This allows Google to provide you with directions to anywhere in the world along with many other spatially-related information services.

The first-known Geofence warrant was issued in 2017 in North Carolina. The case related to the suspected arson of a 7-story apartment complex. Raleigh Police had no leads to bolster their suspicions; for a year, their investigation bore no fruit until they requested a warrant for information from Google.

Often, judges issue such warrants under seal to protect the privacy of the many users having nothing to do with the crime being investigated. The Raleigh Police, for example, have made reverse location warrant requests in murder and sexual assault cases in addition to the arson suspect.

Google now processes hundreds of such multi-step warrants weekly; that number is expected to rise significantly as law enforcement agencies become aware of this new investigative practice. You don't have to be a tech genius to realize the significance of such warrants for law enforcement.

One of the drawbacks to securing such warrants are the significant processing delays. The multi-step reverse location warrant requests have become so numerous, Google has a separate division dealing exclusively with such requests. 8-weeks to six-month delays are not uncommon; there are also two components to the request.

Geofence Warrants Provide Circumstantial Evidence of Crime.

Law enforcement has been securing location data from a specific suspect’s or witness’ digital devices for over a decade. Reverse location warrants, however, constitute a relatively new digital dragnet for when a case has gone cold, or has no viable clues.

This new multi-step warrant process is much more comprehensive than a cell tower data dump. For decades, police and prosecutors have been using data pulled from cell phone towers to solve crimes. 

Data from cell towers is limited and incomplete relative to the Sensorvault and Web & Activity App databases. For example, Google's data is ultra-precise and historically detailed, even when a suspect or witness does not place a call on their cell. In other words, Google's data depicts every aspect of our lives, not just the patterns elicited when actual calls are placed.

Such comprehensive information about suspects and witnesses constitute a veritable treasure trove of circumstantial evidence for law enforcement. Digital location tracking of a specific Android or iPhone device can produce circumstantial evidence of a suspect’s relationship to an unsolved crime. 

In every criminal jury trial here in Michigan, circumstantial evidence is commonly defined as: 

• Facts can be proved by direct evidence from a witness or an exhibit. Direct evidence is evidence about what we actually see or hear. For example, if you look outside and see rain falling, that is direct evidence that it is raining.

• Facts can also be proved by indirect, or circumstantial, evidence. Circumstantial evidence is evidence that normally or reasonably leads to other facts. So, for example, if you see a person come in from outside wearing a raincoat covered with small drops of water, that would be circumstantial evidence that it is raining.

• You may consider circumstantial evidence. Circumstantial evidence by itself, or a combination of circumstantial evidence and direct evidence, can be used to prove the elements of a crime. In other words, you should consider all the evidence that you believe.

Judges always instruct juries that an accused can be convicted solely on the basis of circumstantial evidence. Direct evidence tends to be higher-quality evidence, but circumstantial evidence is often sufficient to convict the accused.

There are no known cases, however, where a suspect has been charged solely on the basis of a geofence warrant. An independent criminal investigation must still be conducted using the reverse location data. 

Over time, however, a case based solely on circumstantial evidence cultivated from a geofence warrant is sure to present itself to the court's. In the proper judicial and appellate hands, a sensible policy can be fashioned going forward. At present, privacy concerns, relative to the law enforcement process -as envisioned by the drafters of the 4th Amendment- is at risk. 

Geofence Warrants Raise Privacy Concerns.

There can be many legitimate –non-criminal- reasons for an individual’s presence within the parameters of a reverse location warrant. In fact, usually, all but one device has a legitimate and potentially relevant reason for leaving a particular digital footprint.

Sensorvault and the Web & Activity App contains an enormous amount of our personal data. The database contains detailed historic records of our locations -both temporal and virtual- the products we use, the products we view, the identities of our friends, and it can match-up times associated with each of these and many other minutia of our daily lives. This, of course, raises significant privacy concerns.

Sometimes, however, law enforcement simply gets it wrong. This was the case for Jorge Molina who was mistakenly charged with murder in Phoenix, Arizona a few months ago. Mr. Molina’s case was recently profiled in the New York Times.

Turns out, Molina’s mother’s boyfriend used his vehicle on occasion. So while the reverse location warrant yielded some eventual fruit for law enforcement, it disrupted Mr. Molina’s life first by violating his privacy and precipitating a week-long incarceration.

Once you are identified as a witness or suspect, turning-off your Location History, opting out, or deleting the history can also be viewed as circumstantial evidence of guilt. Such acts can be held against a suspect, just as wiping a hard drive clean is often used against an accused. Covering your tracks constitutes circumstantial evidence of guilt; or at least it will be portrayed as such by the prosecutor.

Are Multi-Step Reverse Location Warrants Constitutional?

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution states that, "no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."  One concern with multi-step reverse location warrants is their wide spatial temporal breadth. 

Particularity is required under the Fourth Amendment, which calls for a limited search based on probable cause. Most geofence warrants, on the other hand, by their nature, seek raw data covering potentially thousands of individuals over a wide-span of time. 

In addition, the two-step warrant process scoops-up scores of innocent bystanders within its dragnet. Courts usually abhor the fishing-expedition technique for issuing warrants for the main reason that fishing expeditions are not based on probable cause.

Multi-step reverse location warrants can also be technical in nature. A neutral magistrate or judge, as well as law enforcement personnel, defer to Big Data technicians to properly tailor such warrant requests and the raw data resulting from the requests. 

The NYT examined initial warrants used the first-step of the geofence warrant process. Those warrants merely sited the fact that: a) most Americans have cell phones; and b) Google possessed location data for many of those phones.

Geofence Warrants Will Become A Pervasive Law Enforcement Technique.

Reverse location warrants are becoming a well-known jackpot among federal and state criminal investigators. In addition to the increased requests, it will not take long for law enforcement to overreach, placing the process squarely before the appellate courts, on its way to the SCOTUS.

Last year’s series of bombings around Austin, Texas presented a perfect opportunity to utilize geofence warrants. A series of geofence warrants for each bomb site would yield raw anonymous data pertaining to devices around those specific bombing locations at or about the time-frame of the explosions.

This data could then be mined for patterns of activity and for the presence of a common device appearing in several locations. Federal investigators could then bring the resources of the United States to bear on identifying the patterns or the commonly present devices.

This, of course, presumes that the bomber would be simple enough to have a geo-tracking device on his or her possession when committing these crimes. These days, however, try getting off the data grid. Data is collected when your phone is turned-off; when your vehicle is turned on; and with your every key-stroke tracked.

Even if a suspect does not carry a geo-tracking device, or has an older model vehicle not wired to the Internet, the presence of potential witnesses also can be identified. Some witnesses may not even realize they were near the scene of a crime until confronted by law enforcement investigators.


We here at the Law Blogger don't see these warrant requests going away anytime soon. Nor do we anticipate Google changing its stated policy of only providing information they are required by law to provide.

We Can Help.

Our criminal defense and appellate practices have provided us with decades of experience in such matters. If you or a family member are the subject of such a warrant request, or have intersected with law enforcement in any way, give us a call to discuss your options. 

www.clarkstonlegal.com
Post #625

By:  Timothy P. Flynn

This post is about the rights of a now famous arrest warrant fugitive, and about each of our rights to maintain private electronic data.

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees rights to all private citizens:

...to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

This important amendment arose, in part, as a response to abuses of power during the American Revolution associated with the reviled "writ of assistance"; a general search warrant that allowed the King's soldiers to toss your home with or without reason.

Fast forward to the 21st Century, which opened with unprecedented foreign terrorist attacks on our soil, and we see that our "papers and effects" have been digitized.  Most of us now have fairly robust electronic profiles as opposed to actual "papers and effects".

Now, 13-years into the e-Century, and a dozen years after the fateful 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, the federal government wants, and apparently gets, direct access to the Big Data of our private lives.  This access has been granted in the name of national security and is backed by the Patriot Act, and other powerful national security-based federal laws.

The extradition and federal prosecution of  Edward Snowden will test these opposing concepts of liberty and national security in the digital age.  Like the cases of Julian Assange and Aaron Swartz, Snowden's revelations about the federal government's snooping is becoming a digital clarion call.

Snowden, a former NSA contractor, made some significant disclosures about what the NSA has been doing, to the Guardian newspaper in London earlier in the month.  The feds have been hunting him with an international arrest warrant ever since for violations of the Espionage Act.

Apparently, Mr. Snowden is now on the move, internationally, as in Jason Bourne style.  Only this is real, not fiction.  Once the United States has Mr. Snowden either extradited or rendered back to the US, he will face criminal charges in federal court in Virginia for leaking the NSA's digital secrets to the media.

Since its inception in 1917 up to the current administration, Presidents have only charged 3 individuals with violating the Espionage Act.  President Obama has prosecuted 6 individuals under the Act.

What does this tell us about the balance between our rights to have our data secure from the prying eyes of the government, and the governments duty to protect our shores from invasion?  Can both interests be served simultaneously?

www.clarkstonlegal.com
info@clarkstonlegal.com

This case, State v Helen, arose out of North Carolina.  The facts, on the surface, were about as favorable as it gets for the prosecutor.

The accused had a tail light out.  [If I had a dime for every defendant I represented who was pulled over for a tail light...]  The officer stopped the motorist; the stop led to a search of his vehicle and, eventually, a drug conviction.

Here is the problem that arose on appeal: in North Carolina, there is a little known wrinkle in their motor vehicle code which provides that, so long as a motorist's other tail light is functioning, having one light out is not a violation.

This case went all the way to the North Carolina Supreme Court.  Now, if I was sitting on that High Court, my vote would be to reverse the conviction.  If the officer lacked probable cause to conduct a traffic stop, then basic Fourth Amendment constitutional law provides that the evidence seized in an illegal stop and search is excluded as the proverbial "fruit of the poisonous tree".

A constitutional "no-brainer", right?  Guess again.  The divided High Court essentially created a new traffic law by holding that, so long as the officer held a reasonable belief that a law had been broken, the search was legal.

But citizens, take note that this "reasonably-held-belief" standard does not work both ways.  If you, the motorist, reasonably believe that you are obeying the traffic laws, [say you are texting in a municipality where you believe no distraction ordinance has been adopted], but in fact, you are violating a provision of the traffic code, then your ignorance of this law is no defense and you can get a ticket.

The "take away" from this case from North Carolina is that ignorance of the law is ok if you are a peace officer, but not if you are an ordinary citizen.

www.clarkstonlegal.com
info@clarkstonlegal.com

Chief Justice John Roberts

On the penultimate business day in June, the United States Supreme Court concluded its term with the announcement of its historic decision in National Federation of Independent Business v Sebelius; the Obamacare case that tested the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.  As unlikely a jurist as could be found, a visibly uncomfortable Chief Justice John Roberts, announced that Obamacare was upheld in a 5-4 opinion that he authored.

The ACA was upheld on the somewhat questionable grounds of Congress' power to levy a tax.  More than a few legal scholars characterize the so-called "individual mandate" requiring individuals to secure health insurance or pay a penalty, as Congress levying a punishment, not a tax.  The consensus among these same scholars, however, is that challenging the constitutionality of the ACA was a colossal waste of time; legislation of this nature has routinely passed constitutional muster dating back to the social programs of the 1930s.

We here at the Law Blogger cannot wait for the contribution from our guest blogger, Professor Robert Sedler, to weigh in on this decision.  Stay tuned for that.

Here is a summary of some of the more significant decisions issued by SCOTUS this term:

• Churches are entitled to a "ministerial exception" to their adherence to state and federal employment laws, enabling them to hire whomever they want to stand at the pulpit; the remaining question in this case is how deep into the employee roster this ministerial exception goes.

• Police must secure a warrant, as required under the 4th Amendment's "search and seizure" clause, prior to attaching a GPS tracking device on a vehicle.

• Corporations and unions can spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns as the Court upheld it's game-changing Citizens United decision and applied it to a Montana law.

• An accused has a right to the effective assistance of legal counsel under the Sixth Amendment during the criminal plea-bargaining process.

• The prosecutor's expert witness may discuss laboratory test results [usually involving blood samples and DNA] without the live testimony of lab analysis that assisted in processing the sample, and this does not violate the "confrontation clause" of the Fifth Amendment.

• State criminal laws that require that a juvenile convicted of murder be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole are unconstitutional.

The justices will reconvene for the 2012-2013 term in October.  Must be nice to be one of nine justices on the High Court.  After deciding such weighty decisions that affect our lives, you really get to enjoy your summer!

www.clarkstonlegal.com

info@clarkstonlegal.com

Last Monday, the SCOTUS issued a 5-4 decision in what could turn into a seminal 4th Amendment case; United States vs Jones.  The High Court strongly embraced privacy here in the electronic age.

In 2004, Antoine Jones owned and operated a hopping night club in downtown Washington D.C.  His joint was so jumpin, it caught the attention of a joint drug task force consisting of the FBI and the Washington PD.

The task force staked out the club by filming all the action at the front door.  Also, Jones' cell phones were tapped and data dumped.  With this evidence in hand, the task force applied for and was granted a warrant to place a GPS tracking device on Jones' wife's Jeep Cherokee within 10-days and within the District of Colombia.

Problem: the GPS device was placed on Jones' vehicle on the 11th day, and in Maryland.  The vehicle was tracked for 28-days and a case for cocaine distribution was submitted for prosecution based, in part, on the evidence collected through the GPS tracker.

Prior to his first trial, Jones moved to suppress the GPS data; his motion was only granted in part.  The trial resulted in a hung jury.  Jones was tried again, and ultimately he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.

The federal appellate court, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, reversed Jones' conviction and SCOTUS granted the U.S. Solicitor's petition for certerorari.  On appeal, the government conceded to the botched execution of the warrant, arguing no warrant was needed in the first place.

Last November, when the case was orally argued before the United States Supreme Court, the Justices were clearly troubled by the government's argument.  An appellate lawyer can glean a lot about the likely outcome of a case from the questions justices and judges pose, or don't pose, during oral argument.

In Jones, Justice Steven Breyer likened the government's position to George Orwell's 1984, commenting to the Solicitor General, "If you win this case, there is nothing to prevent police or government from monitoring 24-hours a day, every citizen of the United States."

Chief Justice John Roberts wanted to know whether the Solicitor General's argument meant that the government could place tracking devices on the vehicles of the 9 Justices.

The opinions themselves, contain Justices' musings [dicta] on what the founders would have ruled back in 1791, regarding these confounded GPS devices.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a concurrence taking a broad view of our privacy protections guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment, against the many highly sophisticated new electronic tracking devices deployed by the government.  Justice Anthony Scalia, writing for the majority, tailored a more narrow view of privacy; couching his conclusion on the basic definition of a "search", and clearly demarcating our "expectation of privacy" to include satellite tracking device-free vehicles.  

Flatly rejecting the government's argument that the temporary installation of the GPS tracking device was not a search, the Scalia majority affirmed the DC Circuit's reversal of Jones' conviction, warning authorities they needed a probable cause warrant in order to attach tracking devices.

Other than Sotomayor's concurrence, which does not bind future courts, SCOTUS  did not provide a sweeping enhancement of privacy rights in the electronic age.

Dodging a serious sentencing bullet, life, Mr. Jones is now free to go; his conviction for distributing cocaine stays reversed.

http://www.clarkstonlegal.com/

info@clarkstonlegal.com

Since 2008, the Michigan State Police apparently have used devices in their patrol cruisers capable of extracting data from a driver's cell phone.  The troubling part is that it may be possible to tap your cell phone during a routine traffic stop.

The data extraction device, Cellbrite UFED, can pull existing, hidden, and deleted phone data, including your call history, text messages, contacts, and images; even your geotags. It can also extract ringtones which can be highly incriminating in some situations. These devices can crack into more than 3000 cellphone models and easily blow-thru passwords.

All this, of course, raises some legitimate concerns under the Fourth Amendment's "search and seizure" clause.   Do you have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the data contained in your cell phone once you take that puppy on the road?

Along these lines, the Michigan Chapter of the ACLU has filed a freedom of information act request with the MSP seeking detailed information on how the device is used.  In response, the MSP has issued their own press release asserting that they do not use the data extraction device during routine traffic stops, do not use the device without a prior search warrant, and cannot extract data from the phone without first having possession of the phone.

The MSP has also asserted that compliance with the ACLU's document request would be costly but they would be delighted to produce the records in exchange for a half million dollars to cover the costs.

Stay tuned for the law suit.  In the meantime, to protect your privacy when the lights and sirens erupt behind you on your next traffic stop, you should probably power down your phone.

Cellbrite UFED

http://www.clarkstonlegal.com/

info@clarkstonlegal.com

Whether a search of your computer is legal depends, in large part, on where the search takes place.  If you are singled-out at an international boarder, for example, you are going to be searched regardless of the presence of a "reasonable suspicion".

If you are in a place where you have a reasonable expectation of privacy, on the other hand, the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires probable cause prior to a justified police search of your digital data.

This issue is coming-up with increasing frequency as people travel with their digital lives at their side; and thanks to the increasing sophistication of law enforcement search methods.

Courts have determined that international borders are areas where government interests trump any reasonable expectation of privacy, if one even exists at all.  Customs agents at these boarders are trained to look for smugglers, terrrorists, and child pornographers.

The heightened search and seizure powers of Customs agents were tested in a recent case involving a local contract employee with the Walled Lake Consolidated Schools.  Two years ago, Craig Aleo was intercepted at the US-Canadian border in Buffalo, NY.  Customs agents conducted a digital inspection of his laptop and discovered images of child pornography; some of them made and distributed by Aleo.

The former Davisburg resident and Walled Lake schools employee was sentenced last January by federal judge Bernard Friedman to 60-years in federal prison. 

While no one wants their digital life disturbed when traveling through borders, particularly lawyers with briefcases of confidential goldmines, neither does anyone feel sorry for child pornographers or terrorists.

In another recent case, this one involving a suspected "terrorist", the former Muslim chaplain at Guantanamo Bay was routinely subjected to digital inspections whenever he re-entered the US.  Once, upon being searched and released, the Muslim chaplin discovered that the Customs agent left a forensic scan disc in his computer.  Although the chaplain was not a terrorist, he fit the profile, so the digital inspections were conducted.

A thorough digital scan of a lap top computer can take more than 3-hours, and that's without securing a warrant.  Forensic hard-drive copies take even longer to produce.

Digitized information does not always carry signs of illegality like child porn images.  Evidence of terrorism, for example, is often well-hidden and encrypted in the machine's hard-drive. 

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers has taken the position that laptop computer searches conducted at international borders are "non-routine" and thus should require some modicum of articulable suspicion. 

Such articulable suspicion is required by highly invasive search modes such as the search of a person's ailmentary canal.  A laptop search is probably even more intrusive as it encompasses your entire being, both personal and professional.

http://www.clarkstonlegal.com/

info@clarkstonlegal.com

At the Law Blogger, we often see the use of GPS tracking devices in the divorce context.  What happens when the police use such devices to gather evidence of crime?  Are your movements constitutionally protected?

Two cases percolating their way to the SCOTUS (a petition for certiorari already filed in one) involve police use of high-technology tracking devices.  The High Court will be asked to decide: a) whether the prolonged monitoring of a suspect via GPS technology is a "search" under the meaning of the Fourth Amendment; and b) whether police entry onto private property to plant the device invalidates such a search.

If the petitions are granted, these questions could be briefed, argued and decided in the 2011 term of the Court; the "day-after-tomorrow" on our common law clock.

Brief legal background:  More than 25-years ago, SCOTUS ruled in U.S. vs Knotts that the police could use an electronic "beeper" to track a suspect's movements to and within a drug lab without triggering the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment.  Federal courts throughout the various circuits across the country, and the patchwork of state courts, have developed a wide array of conflicting laws governing the extent and duration such monitoring can take before the surveillance becomes a search requiring a warrant based on probable cause.

Now its time for the SCOTUS to clarify things.

In Pineda-Moreno vs United States, petitioner, an Oregonian, maintained a huge pot farm hidden deep within the forests of Southern Oregon and Northern California.  Using a variety of high-tech GPS devices, some as small as a stick of gum, federal agents were able to build a manufacture/distribution case against Juan Pineda-Moreno.

The federal agents came onto the curtailage (privately-owned surrounding area) of Mr. Pineda-Moreno's manufactured home to place a variety of devices onto his Jeep from June through September back in 2007.  They were even able to replace the batteries on some of the tracking devices.  Juan was oblivious to their efforts.

In his guilty plea (he is currently finishing up a 4-year prison sentence), Pineda-Moreno preserved his right to challenge the fed's "search" of his person; his movements.  The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the agents' tracking was not a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.

The other case is coming to SCOTUS via a likely government petition for cert in Maynard vs U.S. where the D.C. Circuit has ruled far differently than the Ninth Circuit on a variety of related issues.

SCOTUS has long held that police may closely scrutinize a vehicle; particularly a moving vehicle.  What this technology, and now, these cases, focus the Court on is whether extensive tracking transforms our vehicles from objects of public viewing (without any reasonable expectation of privacy) into purveyors of private information which can only be tapped via a probable cause warrant.

Stay tuned as SCOTUS catches up to, and rules on, the latest law enforcement surveillance techniques.

Sidebar Note to all you certified marijuana users out there, palliative or recreational; federal charges are a real risk, with harsher sentencing consequences.

info@clarkstonlegal.com

www.clarkstonlegal.com