Case 2:16-mj-01061-TJR Document 13 Filed 02/03/17 Page 23 of 29
pursuant to Fourth Amendment precedent, a "search occurs when the government violates a
subjective expectation of privacy that society recognizes as reasonable." Kyllo v. United States,
533 U.S. 27, 33 (2001) (citing Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 361 (1967)). When Google
produces the electronic data in accordance with the search warrants and the Government views it,
the actual invasion of the account holders' privacy- the searches - will occur in the United
States. Even though the retrieval of the electronic data by Google from its multiple data centers
abroad has the potential for an invasion of privacy, the actual infringement of privacy occurs at
the time of disclosure in the United States. See United States v. Karo, 468 U.S. 705, 712 (1984)
("[W]e have never held that potential, as opposed to actual, invasions of privacy constitute
searches for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. A holding to that effect would mean that a
policeman walking down the street carrying a parabolic microphone capable of picking up
conversations in nearby homes would be engaging in a search even if the microphone were not
turned on."). See also Jones, 132 S. Ct. at 958 ("It is clear that the attachment of the GPS device
was not itself a search; if the device had not functioned or if the officers had not used it, no
information would have been obtained.") (Alito, J. concurring). 16
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Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(e)(2)(B) allows law enforcement officers
to copy the electronic data and review it at a later time to determine what electronic stored data
falls within the scope of the warrant. See also Orin S. Kerr, Fourth Amendment Seizures of
Computer Data, 119 Yale L.J. 700, 711 (2010) ("When the government makes an electronic copy
of data, it obtains possession of the data that it can preserve for future use. To be sure,
subsequently viewing the data in the copy and thus exposing its contents ordinarily amounts to a
Fourth Amendment search."); Orin S. Kerr, Searches and Seizures in a Digital World, 119 Harv.
L. Rev. 531, 551 (2005) ("[A] search occurs when information from or about the data is exposed
to possible human observation, such as when it appears on a screen, rather than when it is copied
by the hard drive or processed by the computer.").
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