requirement ensures that the search will be carefully tailored to its justifications, and will not
take on the character of the wide-ranging exploratory searches the Framers intended to prohibit.”
Id. Any search of an electronic source has the potential to unearth tens or hundreds of thousands
of individual documents, pictures, movies, or other constitutionally protected content. It is thus
imperative that the government “describe the items to be seized with as much specificity as the
government’s knowledge and circumstances allow.” United States v. Leary, 846 F.2d 592, 600
(10th Cir. 1988).
Here, the government has adequately described the “items to be seized”—but it has done
so in the wrong part of the warrant and in a manner that will cause an unconstitutional seizure.
By abusing the two-step procedure under Rule 41, the government is asking Apple to disclose
the entirety of three months’ worth of e-mails and other e-mail account information. See
Application at 14-15. Yet, on the very next page, it explains that it will only “seize” specific
items related to its criminal investigation; it goes so far as to name specific individuals and
companies that, if mentioned in an e-mail, would make that e-mail eligible to be seized. Id. at 15.
Thus, the government has shown that it can “describe the items to be seized with [] much
specificity”; it has simply chosen not to by pretending that it is not actually “seizing” the
information when Apple discloses it. See Facebook Opinion [#5] at 9-10 (“By distinguishing
between the two categories, the government is admitting that it does not have probable cause for
all of the data that Facebook would disclose; otherwise, it would be able to ‘seize’ everything
that is given to it.”).
As this Court has previously noted, any material that is turned over to the government is
unquestionably “seized” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. See Brower v. Cnty. of
Inyo, 489 U.S. 593, 596 (1989) (noting that a “seizure” occurs when an object is intentionally
8
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