{"id":55205,"date":"2023-06-23T05:51:31","date_gmt":"2023-06-23T10:51:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=55205"},"modified":"2023-06-23T05:51:31","modified_gmt":"2023-06-23T10:51:31","slug":"ca5-no-preliminary-injunction-for-copying-attorney-cell-phone-at-border","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=55205","title":{"rendered":"CA5: No preliminary injunction for copying attorney cell phone at border"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An immigration attorney who claimed the government copied his cell phone four times after he returned from other countries wasn’t entitled to a preliminary injunction. “Government retention of unlawfully seized property is not sufficient, standing alone, to establish irreparable injury.” Anibowei v. Morgan<\/a>, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 15198 (5th Cir. June 19, 2023):<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Anibowei has not offered sufficient evidence to establish that the government\u2019s alleged retention of his data causes him irreparable injury. Anibowei argues that he is suffering ongoing irreparable harm because \u201cduring its warrantless October 2016 search of his cell phone the [g]overnment copied and retained highly sensitive personal information from Mr. Anibowei\u2019s cell phone, including attorney-client privileged information.\u201d The government admits \u201cthat an advanced search was performed of Anibowei\u2019s cell phone on one occasion, and that information from Anibowei\u2019s cell phone was downloaded and eventually retained as a result of the advanced search.\u201d Still, Anibowei fails to establish that the government\u2019s retention of his information constitutes irreparable harm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Government retention of unlawfully seized property is not sufficient, standing alone, to establish irreparable injury. In a related context, Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(g) provides that \u201c[a] person aggrieved by an unlawful search and seizure of property or by the deprivation of property may move for the property\u2019s return.\u201d In addition to showing that the property was seized unlawfully, this court requires \u201ca substantial showing of irreparable harm\u201d before a court can order the suppression of seized evidence. The irreparable-harm requirement would be rendered meaningless if retention of unlawfully seized property was per se an irreparable injury. To establish irreparable injury, Anibowei cannot solely rely on the fact that the government retained his information. Instead, Anibowei must specifically show how the government\u2019s retention of his seized information causes him harm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To that end, Anibowei argues that the government\u2019s retention of attorney\u2013client privileged information causes \u201cserious harm to him personally and to his clients.\u201d However, even if the retention of attorney\u2013client privileged information constitutes irreparable harm, Anibowei\u2019s scant and circumstantial evidence is insufficient to establish that the government copied and retained attorney\u2013client privileged information from his cell phone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An immigration attorney who claimed the government copied his cell phone four times after he returned from other countries wasn’t entitled to a preliminary injunction. “Government retention of unlawfully seized property is not sufficient, standing alone, to establish irreparable injury.” … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-border-search","category-cell-phones"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55205"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55206,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55205\/revisions\/55206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}