Reuters: En banc 2nd Circuit to clarify when computer seizures are unconstitutional

Reuters: En banc 2nd Circuit to clarify when computer seizures are unconstitutional by Alison Frankel:

(Reuters) – The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals seems to be eager to decide when, if ever, the federal government has the right to retain and search computer records seized in one investigation but later found to be relevant in another.

On Monday, the court granted the Justice Department’s petition to reconsider a three-judge panel’s 2014 decision in U.S. v. Ganias to suppress evidence from a computer search the panel deemed to be a violation of Ganias’ Fourth Amendment rights. It’s news whenever the 2nd Circuit agrees to hear a case en banc because that is such an infrequent occurrence; on Tuesday, 2nd Circuit clerk Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe told my Reuters colleague Joseph Ax that the court hasn’t heard an en banc appeal since September 2013.

But even by 2nd Circuit standards, the en banc grant in the Ganias case was unusual. For one thing, the Justice Department asked only for reconsideration by the original three-judge panel that heard the case – not for review by the entire en banc court. And for another, the 2nd Circuit decided to hear a much broader appeal than the government asked it to take. The Justice Department’s petition for rehearing did not challenge the original panel’s determination that the search of Ganias’ records was unconstitutional but requested rehearing just of the panel’s holding that government agents acted in bad faith so the evidence must be suppressed.

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