Computers and related digital devices like smartphones store increasingly massive amounts of business and personal data. As a result, when law enforcement obtains a digital device during an investigation of suspected financial crime, child pornography, or other offense, a massive cache of unrelated data is inevitably caught in the net.
Although the Fourth Amendment demands that search warrants be particular as to the material sought and seized, prosecutors invariably argue — and courts often agree — that the requested search and its execution necessarily must be extremely broad. Many courts acknowledge Fourth Amendment concerns but nonetheless proceed to embrace, implicitly or explicitly, the following notion: Because investigators do not know in advance where any contraband is located, practical considerations allow them to examine every electronic folder and document seized, however briefly, to rule out the possibility that it contains evidence sought by the warrant.
