M.D.Pa.: Employee had no standing of search of work computers and server

Defendant was charged as a result of a search warrant executed on computers and a server where he worked. It is clear he had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the computer files to have standing to challenge whether the search was overbroad or became a general warrant. United States v. Nagle, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 90817 (M.D. Pa. September 1, 2010):

1. Computers

The evidence presented at the suppression hearing makes it clear that during its search of the SPI and CDS premises, the Government imaged computers belonging to SPI/CDS from multiple locations throughout the 28-acre campus. (See Suppression Hr’g Tr. 80, 183.) Specifically, the computers imaged were located in the private work space of employees other than Defendant, and Defendant testified that he never used any other employee’s computer. (Id. at 183.) Certainly, Defendant’s reasonable expectation of privacy cannot be said to include these areas. See, e.g., United States v. Triumph Capital Group, Inc., 211 F.R.D. 31, 54 (D. Conn. 2002) (CEO of company lacked standing to challenge search of company laptop computer used exclusively by another employee). Moreover, Defendant testified that his laptop was not at the office on the day of the search and was not imaged. (Suppression Hr’g Tr. 190.) Finally, Defendant testified that the company did not monitor what its employees did on their computers, it did not have a computer use policy, and he was unaware of what was on any of these machines. (Id. at 183, 185.) These facts unequivocally demonstrate that Defendant knew nothing—except in the most general sense that the computers were used for work—about what was stored on the computers seized or how they were used; thus, he had no personal expectation of privacy in any of the information that was imaged by the Government. See, e.g., Triumph Capital Group, Inc., 211 F.R.D. at 54 (CEO of company lacked standing to challenge search of company laptop computer used exclusively by another employee).

2. Server

The same is true for the SPI and CDS server. The evidence at the suppression hearing demonstrated that the server stored various types of electronic files and could be accessed by all of the employees with accounts on the companies’ joint computer system. (Suppression Hr’g Tr. 162, 195, 206.) The server was partitioned into different drives, at least one of which was a public drive that was available to anyone who had access to the server. (Id. at 181, 206.) The other drives could only be accessed by certain employees in the various departments within SPI and CDS; however, there was scant evidence about who had access to which drives. The only specific testimony was by Fink, who testified that five employees, including himself and Defendant, had access to all of the drives on the server. (Id. at 192.) However, Defendant himself testified that he did not know how the server worked or what was stored on it, except in the most general sense. (Id. at 181.) While Defendant also testified that the server was private, and that the companies took security measures to make sure that no one from the outside would have access, (id. at 187-88), there was no testimony that Defendant took steps to ensure that his information or user folder remained inaccessible to others.