Case 2:16-mj-01061-TJR Document 13 Filed 02/03/17 Page 17 of 29
takes place." 829 F.3d at 220. 11 The Second Circuit found that the SCA warrant had
extraterritorial application because "the content to be seized is stored in Dublin [Ireland]." Id.
The court explained:
Although the Act's focus on the customer's privacy might suggest that the
customer's actual location or citizenship would be important to the
extraterritoriality analysis, it is our view that the invasion of the customer's
privacy takes place under the SCA where the customer's protected content is
accessed- here, where it is seized by Microsoft, acting as an agent of the
government. Because the content subject to the Warrant is located in, and would
be seized from, the Dublin datacenter, the conduct that falls within the focus of
the SCA would occur outside the United States, regardless of the customer's
location and regardless of Microsoft's home in the United States.
Id. at 220-21. The court ultimately concluded that enforcement of the warrant, insofar as it
directs Microsoft to seize the contents of its customer's communications stored in Ireland,
11
The Second Circuit used familiar Fourth Amendment terms such as "seizure" and
"invasion of privacy" to determine whether the search warrant was applied extraterritorially. See
Microsoft, 829 F.3d at 220. The court described the SCA's privacy protections as "analogous" to
those guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 206 (The SCA's legislative history shows
Congress' intent "to extend to electronic records privacy protections analogous to those provided
by the Fourth Amendment."). Moreover, the court rejected the district court's conclusion that the
search warrant was a hybrid between a subpoena and a search warrant, but found it to be a
traditional search warrant, which carried with it the territorial restrictions of Fed. R. Crim. P.
41(b)(5). See id. at 214-15 ("We see no reason to believe that Congress intended to jettison the
centuries of law requiring the issuance and performance of warrants in specified, domestic
locations, or to replace the traditional warrant with a novel instrument of international
application."). The court thus found that because a warrant procured under section 2703 of the
SCA is a traditional warrant, it is appropriate to analyze the application of the search and seizure
warrant under the Fourth Amendment's "seizure" and "invasion of privacy" principles. See id. at
212 ("[A] warrant is traditionally moored to privacy concepts .... "). This court notes that the
Fourth Amendment provides even greater privacy protection than the SCA See United States v.
Warshak, 631 F.3d 266, 288 (6th Cir. 2011) (Fourth Amendment rights of a person were violated
by compelling internet service provider to turn over emails without first obtaining a warrant
based on probable cause even though sections 2703(b) and 2703(d) of the SCA permitted the
disclosure).
17
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