In United States v. Forrester, meanwhile, a different panel of
the Ninth Circuit noted that warrantless capture of URLs
generally “might be more constitutionally problematic” than
warrantless capture of IP addresses.45 The Forrester court
explained that “[a] URL, unlike an IP address, identifies the
particular document within a website that a person views and
thus reveals much more information about the person’s
[i]nternet activity.”46 Akin to Forrester is the stance taken by
the House Judiciary Committee in its PATRIOT Act report,
which stated that a pen register order “could not be used to
collect information other than ‘dialing, routing, addressing,
and signaling’ information, such as the portion of a URL
(Uniform Resource Locator) specifying Web search terms or
constitute a communication such that divulging a URL
containing that search term to a third party could amount to
disclosure of the contents of a communication. But the
referrer header information at issue here includes only basic
identification and address information, not a search term or
similar communication made by the user, and therefore does
not constitute the contents of a communication.”).
45
512 F.3d 500, 510 n.6 (9th Cir. 2008). An “IP address” is
“[t]he 10-digit identification tag used by computers to locate
specific websites.” Black’s Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014)
(“Internet-protocol address”).
46
512 F.3d at 510 n.6; see also Tokson, The
Content/Envelope Distinction in Internet Law, 50 Wm. &
Mary L. Rev. at 2136 (“[S]tandard URLs . . . reveal every bit
as much content as do URLs containing search terms.”).
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