The Ninth Circuit in Balco en banc (panel opinion: United States v. Comprehensive Drug Testing, Inc., 513 F.3d 1085 (9th Cir. 2008)) determines that seized computer information needs limits under the “venerable” pre-“information age” Tamura case (United States v. Tamura, 694 F.2d 591 (9th Cir. 1982)). This is a remarkable effort at keeping computer searches from becoming general searches or excuses for plain view inside the hard drive. United States v. Comprehensive Drug Testing, Inc., 579 F.3d 989 (9th Cir. 2009) (by Kosinski, J.):
Tamura, decided in 1982, just preceded the dawn of the information age, and all of the records there were on paper. The government was authorized to seize evidence of certain payments received by Tamura from among the records of Marubeni, his employer. To identify the materials pertaining to the payments involved a three step procedure: Examining computer printouts to identify a transaction; locating the voucher that pertained to that payment; and finding the check that corresponded to the voucher. 694 F.2d at 594-95. The government agents soon realized that this process would take a long time unless they got help from the Marubeni employees who were present. The employees, however, steadfastly refused, so the agents seized several boxes and dozens of file drawers to be sorted out in their offices at their leisure. We disapproved the wholesale seizure of the documents and particularly the government’s failure to return the materials that were not the object of the search once they had been segregated. Id. at 596-97. However, we saw no reason to suppress the properly seized materials just because the government had taken more than authorized by the warrant. For the future, though, we suggested that “[i]n the comparatively rare instances where documents are so intermingled that they cannot feasibly be sorted on site, … the Government [should] seal[ ] and hold[ ] the documents pending approval by a magistrate of a further search, in accordance with the procedures set forth in the American Law Institute’s Model Code of Pre-Arraignment Procedure.” Id. at 595-96. “If the need for transporting the documents is known to the officers prior to the search,” we continued, “they may apply for specific authorization for large-scale removal of material, which should be granted by the magistrate issuing the warrant only where onsite sorting is infeasible and no other practical alternative exists.” Id. at 596.
No doubt in response to this suggestion in Tamura, the government here did seek advance authorization for sorting and segregating the seized materials off-site. But, as Judge Cooper found, “[o]nce the items were seized, the requirement of the Warrant that any seized items not covered by the warrant be first screened and segregated by computer personnel was completely ignored.” Brushing aside an offer by on-site CDT personnel to provide all information pertaining to the ten identified baseball players, the government copied from CDT’s computer what the parties have called the “Tracey Directory” which contained, in Judge Cooper’s words, “information and test results involving hundreds of other baseball players and athletes engaged in other professional sports.” Counsel for CDT, contacted by phone, pleaded in vain that “all material not pertaining to the specific items listed in the warrant be reviewed and redacted by a Magistrate or Special Master before it was seen by the Government.” Instead, the case agent “himself reviewed the seized computer data and used what he learned to obtain the subsequent search warrants issued in Northern California, Southern California, and Nevada.” Judge Cooper also found that, in conducting the seizure in the manner it did, “[t]he Government demonstrated a callous disregard for the rights of those persons whose records were seized and searched outside the warrant.”. . .
A. Compliance with Tamura
The government argues that it did comply with the procedures articulated in Tamura, but was not required to return any data it found showing steroid use by other baseball players because that evidence was in plain view once government agents examined the Tracey Directory. Officers may lawfully seize evidence of a crime that is in plain view, the government argues, and thus it had no obligation under Tamura to return that property. The warrant even contemplated this eventuality, says the government, when it excluded from the obligation to return property any that was “otherwise legally seized.”
[6] Putting aside the fact that Judges Cooper and Illston, whose courts issued the warrants and whose orders are now final, rejected this argument, it is at any rate too clever by half. The point of the Tamura procedures is to maintain the privacy of materials that are intermingled with seizable materials, and to avoid turning a limited search for particular information into a general search of office file systems and computer databases. If the government can’t be sure whether data may be concealed, compressed, erased or booby-trapped without carefully examining the contents of every file—and we have no cavil with this general proposition—then everything the government chooses to seize will, under this theory, automatically come into plain view. Since the government agents ultimately decide how much to actually take, this will create a powerful incentive for them to seize more rather than less: Why stop at the list of all baseball players when you can seize the entire Tracey Directory? Why just that directory and not the entire hard drive? Why just this computer and not the one in the next room and the next room after that? Can’t find the computer? Seize the Zip disks under the bed in the room where the computer once might have been. See United States v. Hill, 322 F. Supp. 2d 1081 (C.D. Cal. 2004). Let’s take everything back to the lab, have a good look around and see what we might stumble upon.
[7] This would make a mockery of Tamura and render the carefully crafted safeguards in the Central District warrant a nullity. All three judges below rejected this construction, and with good reason. One phrase in the warrant cannot be read as eviscerating the other parts, which would be the result if the “otherwise legally seized” language were read to permit the government to keep anything one of its agents happened to see while performing a forensic analysis of a hard drive. The phrase is more plausibly construed as referring to any evidence that the government is entitled to retain entirely independent of this seizure.
[8] To avoid this illogical result, the government should, in future warrant applications, forswear reliance on the plain view doctrine or any similar doctrine that would allow it to retain data to which it has gained access only because it was required to segregate seizable from non-seizable data. If the government doesn’t consent to such a waiver, the magistrate judge should order that the seizable and non-seizable data be separated by an independent third party under the supervision of the court, or deny the warrant altogether.. . .
B. Initial Review by Computer Personnel
[12] To guard against such unlawful conduct in the future, the warrant application should normally include, or the issuing judicial officer should insert, a protocol for preventing agents involved in the investigation from examining or retaining any data other than that for which probable cause is shown. The procedure might involve, as in this case, a requirement that the segregation be done by specially trained computer personnel who are not involved in the investigation. It should be made clear that only those personnel may examine and segregate the data. The government must also agree that such computer personnel will not communicate any information they learn during the segregation process absent further approval of the court. At the discretion of the issuing judicial officer, and depending on the nature and sensitivity of the privacy interests involved, the computer personnel in question may be government employees or independent third parties not affiliated with the government. The issuing judicial officer may appoint an independent expert or special master to conduct or supervise the segregation and redaction of the data. In a case such as this one, where the party subject to the warrant is not suspected of any crime, and where the privacy interests of numerous other parties who are not under suspicion of criminal wrongdoing are implicated by the search, the presumption should be that the segregation of the data will be conducted by, or under the close supervision of, an independent third party selected by the court.
[13] Once the data has been segregated (and, if necessary, redacted), the government agents involved in the investigation may examine only the information covered by the terms of the warrant. Absent further judicial authorization, any remaining copies must be destroyed or, at least so long as they may be lawfully possessed by the party from whom they were seized, returned along with the actual physical medium that may have been seized (such as a hard drive or computer). The government may not retain copies of such returned data, unless it obtains specific judicial authorization to do so. Also, within a time specified in the warrant, which should be as soon as practicable, the government must provide the issuing officer with a return disclosing precisely what data it has obtained as a consequence of the search, and what data it has returned to the party from whom it was seized. The return must include a sworn certificate that the government has destroyed or returned all copies of data that it is not entitled to keep. If the probable cause was shown in the original warrant, it may seek a new warrant or justify the warrantless seizure by some means other than plain view.
C. Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(g)
We have long held that Rule 41(g) is an appropriate means of obtaining the return of property improperly seized by the government. Ramsden v. United States, 2 F.3d 322 (9th Cir. 1993). Though styled as a motion under a Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure, when the motion is made by a party against whom no criminal charges have been brought, such a motion is in fact a petition that the district court invoke its civil equitable jurisdiction. Id. at 324. We agree with the panel that the district court in this case did not abuse its discretion in choosing to exercise that jurisdiction. Comprehensive Drug Testing, 513 F.3d at 1104.
