The Cat-Tribe
16-11-2008, 19:33
"I probably should have explained myself better" was not intended to be an insult to you or your intelligence, it was an acknowledgement of the inadequacy of what I had previously said. I did not mean to be condescending in any way, and I was merely trying to admit that I had not framed my argument well. Apologies for any misunderstanding.
You still don't seem to be acknowledging that your topic has NOTHING to do with habeas corpus. That said, I accept your apology.
Within the links I provided was a link to the DOJ Manual: Searching and Seizing Computers and Obtaining Electronic Evidence in Criminal Investigations (http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/s&smanual2002.htm#_IB_). Here is part of what it has to say on your topic:
I. SEARCHING AND SEIZING COMPUTERS WITHOUT A WARRANT
A. Introduction
The Fourth Amendment limits the ability of government agents to search for evidence without a warrant. This chapter explains the constitutional limits of warrantless searches in cases involving computers.
The Fourth Amendment states:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
According to the Supreme Court, a warrantless search does not violate the Fourth Amendment if one of two conditions is satisfied. First, if the government's conduct does not violate a person's "reasonable expectation of privacy," then formally it does not constitute a Fourth Amendment "search" and no warrant is required. See Illinois v. Andreas, 463 U.S. 765, 771 (1983). Second, a warrantless search that violates a person's reasonable expectation of privacy will nonetheless be "reasonable" (and therefore constitutional) if it falls within an established exception to the warrant requirement. See Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. 177, 185 (1990). Accordingly, investigators must consider two issues when asking whether a government search of a computer requires a warrant. First, does the search violate a reasonable expectation of privacy? And if so, is the search nonetheless reasonable because it falls within an exception to the warrant requirement?
B. The Fourth Amendment's "Reasonable Expectation of Privacy" in Cases Involving Computers
1. General Principles
A search is constitutional if it does not violate a person's "reasonable" or "legitimate" expectation of privacy. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 362 (1967) (Harlan, J., concurring). This inquiry embraces two discrete questions: first, whether the individual's conduct reflects "an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy," and second, whether the individual's subjective expectation of privacy is "one that society is prepared to recognize as 'reasonable.'" Id. at 361. In most cases, the difficulty of contesting a defendant's subjective expectation of privacy focuses the analysis on the objective aspect of the Katz test, i.e., whether the individual's expectation of privacy was reasonable.
No bright line rule indicates whether an expectation of privacy is constitutionally reasonable. See O'Connor v. Ortega, 480 U.S. 709, 715 (1987). For example, the Supreme Court has held that a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy in property located inside a person's home, see Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 589-90 (1980); in "the relative heat of various rooms in the home" revealed through the use of a thermal imager, see Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27 (2001); in conversations taking place in an enclosed phone booth, see Katz, 389 U.S. at 358; and in the contents of opaque containers, see United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 822-23 (1982). In contrast, a person does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in activities conducted in open fields, see Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170, 177 (1984); in garbage deposited at the outskirts of real property, see California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35, 40-41 (1988); or in a stranger's house that the person has entered without the owner's consent in order to commit a theft, see Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 143 n.12 (1978).
2. Reasonable Expectation of Privacy in Computers as Storage Devices
To determine whether an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in information stored in a computer, it helps to treat the computer like a closed container such as a briefcase or file cabinet. The Fourth Amendment generally prohibits law enforcement from accessing and viewing information stored in a computer without a warrant if it would be prohibited from opening a closed container and examining its contents in the same situation.
The most basic Fourth Amendment question in computer cases asks whether an individual enjoys a reasonable expectation of privacy in electronic information stored within computers (or other electronic storage devices) under the individual's control. For example, do individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of their laptop computers, floppy disks or pagers? If the answer is "yes," then the government ordinarily must obtain a warrant before it accesses the information stored inside.
When confronted with this issue, courts have analogized electronic storage devices to closed containers, and have reasoned that accessing the information stored within an electronic storage device is akin to opening a closed container. Because individuals generally retain a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of closed containers, see United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 822-23 (1982), they also generally retain a reasonable expectation of privacy in data held within electronic storage devices. Accordingly, accessing information stored in a computer ordinarily will implicate the owner's reasonable expectation of privacy in the information. See United States v. Barth, 26 F. Supp. 2d 929, 936-37 (W.D. Tex. 1998) (finding reasonable expectation of privacy in files stored on hard drive of personal computer); United States v. Reyes, 922 F. Supp. 818, 832-33 (S.D.N.Y. 1996) (finding reasonable expectation of privacy in data stored in a pager); United States v. Lynch, 908 F. Supp. 284, 287 (D.V.I. 1995) (same); United States v. Chan, 830 F. Supp. 531, 535 (N.D. Cal. 1993) (same); United States v. Blas, 1990 WL 265179, at *21 (E.D. Wis. Dec. 4, 1990) ("[A]n individual has the same expectation of privacy in a pager, computer, or other electronic data storage and retrieval device as in a closed container.").
Although courts have generally agreed that electronic storage devices can be analogized to closed containers, they have reached differing conclusions over whether each individual file stored on a computer or disk should be treated as a separate closed container. In two cases, the Fifth Circuit has determined that a computer disk containing multiple files is a single container for Fourth Amendment purposes. First, in United States v. Runyan, 275 F.3d 449, 464-65 (5th Cir. 2001), in which private parties had searched certain files and found child pornography, the Fifth Circuit held that the police did not exceed the scope of the private search when they examined additional files on any disk that had been, in part, privately searched. Analogizing a disk to a closed container, the court explained that "police do not exceed the private search when they examine more items within a closed container than did the private searchers." Id. at 464. Second, in United States v. Slanina, 283 F.3d 670, 680 (5th Cir. 2002), the court held that when a warrantless search of a portion of a computer and zip disk had been justified, the defendant no longer retained any reasonable expectation of privacy in the remaining contents of the computer and disk, and thus a comprehensive search by law enforcement personnel did not violate the Fourth Amendment.
In contrast to the Fifth Circuit's approach, the Tenth Circuit has refused to allow such exhaustive searches of a computer's hard in the absence of a warrant or some exception to the warrant requirement. See United States v. Carey, 172 F.3d 1268, 1273-75 (10th Cir. 1999) (ruling that agent exceeded the scope of a warrant to search for evidence of drug sales when he "abandoned that search" and instead searched for evidence of child pornography for five hours). In particular, the Tenth Circuit cautioned in a later case that "[b]ecause computers can hold so much information touching on many different areas of a person's life, there is greater potential for the 'intermingling' of documents and a consequent invasion of privacy when police execute a search for evidence on a computer." United States v. Walser, 275 F.3d 981, 986 (10th Cir. 2001).
Although individuals generally retain a reasonable expectation of privacy in computers under their control, special circumstances may eliminate that expectation. For example, an individual will not retain a reasonable expectation of privacy in information from a computer that the person has made openly available. In United States v. David, 756 F. Supp. 1385 (D. Nev. 1991), agents looking over the defendant's shoulder read the defendant's password from the screen as the defendant typed his password into a handheld computer. The court found no Fourth Amendment violation in obtaining the password, because the defendant did not enjoy a reasonable expectation of privacy "in the display that appeared on the screen." Id. at 1389. See also Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967) ("What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection."); United States v. Gorshkov, 2001 WL 1024026, at *2 (W.D. Wash. May 23, 2001) (holding that defendant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in use of a private computer network when undercover federal agents looked over his shoulder, when he did not own the computer he used, and when he knew that the system administrator could monitor his activities). Nor will individuals generally enjoy a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of computers they have stolen. See United States v. Lyons, 992 F.2d 1029, 1031-32 (10th Cir. 1993).
3. Reasonable Expectation of Privacy and Third-Party Possession
Individuals who retain a reasonable expectation of privacy in stored electronic information under their control may lose Fourth Amendment protections when they relinquish that control to third parties. For example, an individual may offer a container of electronic information to a third party by bringing a malfunctioning computer to a repair shop, or by shipping a floppy diskette in the mail to a friend. Alternatively, a user may transmit information to third parties electronically, such as by sending data across the Internet. When law enforcement agents learn of information possessed by third parties that may provide evidence of a crime, they may wish to inspect it. Whether the Fourth Amendment requires them to obtain a warrant before examining the information depends first upon whether the third-party possession has eliminated the individual's reasonable expectation of privacy.
To analyze third-party possession issues, it helps first to distinguish between possession by a carrier in the course of transmission to an intended recipient, and subsequent possession by the intended recipient. For example, if A hires B to carry a package to C, A's reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of the package during the time that B carries the package on its way to C may be different than A's reasonable expectation of privacy after C has received the package. During transmission, contents generally retain Fourth Amendment protection. The government ordinarily may not examine the contents of a package in the course of transmission without a warrant. Government intrusion and examination of the contents ordinarily violates the reasonable expectation of privacy of both the sender and receiver. See United States v. Villarreal, 963 F.2d 770, 774 (5th Cir. 1992); but see United States v. Walker, 20 F. Supp. 2d 971, 973-74 (S.D.W. Va. 1998) (concluding that packages sent to an alias in furtherance of a criminal scheme do not support a reasonable expectation of privacy). This rule applies regardless of whether the carrier is owned by the government or a private company. Compare Ex Parte Jackson, 96 U.S. (6 Otto) 727, 733 (1877) (public carrier) with Walter v. United States, 447 U.S. 649, 651 (1980) (private carrier).
A government "search" of an intangible electronic signal in the course of transmission may also implicate the Fourth Amendment. See Berger v. New York, 388 U.S. 41, 58-60 (1967) (applying the Fourth Amendment to a wire communication in the context of a wiretap). The boundaries of the Fourth Amendment in such cases remain hazy, however, because Congress addressed the Fourth Amendment concerns identified in Berger by passing Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 ("Title III"), 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510-2522. Title III, which is discussed fully in Chapter 4, provides a comprehensive statutory framework that regulates real-time monitoring of wire and electronic communications. Its scope encompasses, and in many significant ways exceeds, the protection offered by the Fourth Amendment. See United States v. Torres, 751 F.2d 875, 884 (7th Cir. 1985); Chandler v. United States Army, 125 F.3d 1296, 1298 (9th Cir. 1997). As a practical matter, then, the monitoring of wire and electronic communications in the course of transmission generally raises many statutory questions, but few constitutional ones. See generally Chapter 4.
Individuals may lose Fourth Amendment protection in their computer files if they lose control of the files.
Once an item has been received by the intended recipient, the sender's reasonable expectation of privacy generally depends upon whether the sender can reasonably expect to retain control over the item and its contents. When a person leaves a package with a third party for temporary safekeeping, for example, he usually retains control of the package, and thus retains a reasonable expectation of privacy in its contents. See, e.g., United States v. Most, 876 F.2d 191, 197-98 (D.C. Cir. 1989) (finding reasonable expectation of privacy in contents of plastic bag left with grocery store clerk); United States v. Barry, 853 F.2d 1479, 1481-83 (8th Cir. 1988) (finding reasonable expectation of privacy in locked suitcase stored at airport baggage counter); United States v. Presler, 610 F.2d 1206, 1213-14 (4th Cir. 1979) (finding reasonable expectation of privacy in locked briefcases stored with defendant's friend for safekeeping). See also United States v. Barth, 26 F. Supp. 2d 929, 936-37 (W.D. Tex. 1998) (holding that defendant retains a reasonable expectation of privacy in computer files contained in hard drive left with computer technician for limited purpose of repairing computer).
If the sender cannot reasonably expect to retain control over the item in the third party's possession, however, the sender no longer retains a reasonable expectation of privacy in its contents. For example, in United States v. Horowitz, 806 F.2d 1222 (4th Cir. 1986), the defendant e-mailed confidential pricing information relating to his employer to his employer's competitor. After the FBI searched the competitor's computers and found the pricing information, the defendant claimed that the search violated his Fourth Amendment rights. The Fourth Circuit disagreed, holding that the defendant relinquished his interest in and control over the information by sending it to the competitor for the competitor's future use. See id. at 1225-26. See also United States v. Charbonneau, 979 F. Supp. 1177, 1184 (S.D. Ohio 1997) (holding that defendant does not retain reasonable expectation of privacy in contents of e-mail message sent to America Online chat room after the message has been received by chat room participants) (citing Hoffa v. United States, 385 U.S. 293, 302 (1966)). In some cases, the sender may initially retain a right to control the third party's possession, but may lose that right over time. The general rule is that the sender's Fourth Amendment rights dissipate as the sender's right to control the third party's possession diminishes. For example, in United States v. Poulsen, 41 F.3d 1330 (9th Cir. 1994), computer hacker Kevin Poulsen left computer tapes in a locker at a commercial storage facility but neglected to pay rent for the locker. Following a warrantless search of the facility, the government sought to use the tapes against Poulsen. The Ninth Circuit held that the search did not violate Poulsen's reasonable expectation of privacy because under state law Poulsen's failure to pay rent extinguished his right to access the tapes. See id. at 1337.
An important line of Supreme Court cases states that individuals generally cannot reasonably expect to retain control over mere information revealed to third parties, even if the senders have a subjective expectation that the third parties will keep the information confidential. For example, in United States v. Miller, 425 U.S. 435, 443 (1976), the Court held that the Fourth Amendment does not protect bank account information that account holders divulge to their banks. By placing information under the control of a third party, the Court stated, an account holder assumes the risk that the information will be conveyed to the government. Id. According to the Court, "the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the obtaining of information revealed to a third party and conveyed by him to Government authorities, even if the information is revealed on the assumption that it will be used only for a limited purpose and the confidence placed in the third party will not be betrayed." Id. (citing Hoffa v. United States, 385 U.S. 293, 302 (1966)). See also Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 743-44 (1979) (finding no reasonable expectation of privacy in phone numbers dialed by owner of a telephone because act of dialing the number effectively tells the number to the phone company); Couch v. United States, 409 U.S. 322, 335 (1973) (holding that government may subpoena accountant for client information given to accountant by client, because client retains no reasonable expectation of privacy in information given to accountant).
Because computer data is "information," this line of cases suggests that individuals who send data over communications networks may lose Fourth Amendment protection in the data once it reaches the intended recipient. See United States v. Meriwether, 917 F.2d 955, 959 (6th Cir. 1990) (suggesting that an electronic message sent via a pager is "information" under the Smith/Miller line of cases); Charbonneau, 979 F. Supp. at 1184 ("[A]n e-mail message . . . cannot be afforded a reasonable expectation of privacy once that message is received."). But see C. Ryan Reetz, Note, Warrant Requirement for Searches of Computerized Information, 67 B.U. L. Rev. 179, 200-06 (1987) (arguing that certain kinds of remotely stored computer files should retain Fourth Amendment protection, and attempting to distinguish United States v. Miller and Smith v. Maryland). Of course, the absence of constitutional protections does not necessarily mean that the government can access the data without a warrant or court order. Statutory protections exist that generally protect the privacy of electronic communications stored remotely with service providers, and can protect the privacy of Internet users when the Fourth Amendment may not. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 2701-2712 (discussed in Chapter 3, infra).
Defendants will occasionally raise a Fourth Amendment challenge to the acquisition of account records and subscriber information held by Internet service providers using less process than a full search warrant. As discussed in a later chapter, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act permits the government to obtain transactional records with an "articulable facts" court order, and basic subscriber information with a subpoena. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 2701-2712 (discussed in Chapter 3, infra). These statutory procedures comply with the Fourth Amendment because customers of Internet service providers do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in customer account records maintained by and for the provider's business. See United States v. Hambrick, 55 F. Supp. 2d 504, 508 (W.D. Va. 1999), aff'd, 225 F.3d 656 (4th Cir. 2000) (unpublished opinion) (finding no Fourth Amendment protection for network account holder's basic subscriber information obtained from Internet service provider); United States v. Kennedy, 81 F. Supp. 2d 1103, 1110) (D. Kan. 2000) (same). This rule accords with prior cases considering the scope of Fourth Amendment protection in customer account records. See, e.g., United States v. Fregoso, 60 F.3d 1314, 1321 (8th Cir. 1995) (holding that a telephone company customer has no reasonable expectation of privacy in account information disclosed to the telephone company); In re Grand Jury Proceedings, 827 F.2d 301, 302-03 (8th Cir. 1987) (holding that customer account records maintained and held by Western Union are not entitled to Fourth Amendment protection).
4. Private Searches
The Fourth Amendment does not apply to searches conducted by private parties who are not acting as agents of the government.
The Fourth Amendment "is wholly inapplicable to a search or seizure, even an unreasonable one, effected by a private individual not acting as an agent of the Government or with the participation or knowledge of any governmental official." United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109, 113 (1984) (internal quotation omitted). As a result, no violation of the Fourth Amendment occurs when a private individual acting on his own accord conducts a search and makes the results available to law enforcement. See id. For example, in United States v. Hall, 142 F.3d 988 (7th Cir. 1998), the defendant took his computer to a private computer specialist for repairs. In the course of evaluating the defendant's computer, the repairman observed that many files stored on the computer had filenames characteristic of child pornography. The repairman accessed the files, saw that they did in fact contain child pornography, and then contacted the state police. The tip led to a warrant, the defendant's arrest, and his conviction for child pornography offenses. On appeal, the Seventh Circuit rejected the defendant's claim that the repairman's warrantless search through the computer violated the Fourth Amendment. Because the repairman's search was conducted on his own, the court held, the Fourth Amendment did not apply to the search or his later description of the evidence to the state police. See id. at 993. See also United States v. Kennedy, 81 F. Supp. 2d 1103, 1112 (D. Kan. 2000) (concluding that searches of defendant's computer over the Internet by an anonymous caller and employees of a private ISP did not violate Fourth Amendment because there was no evidence that the government was involved in the search).
In United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109 (1984), the Supreme Court presented the framework that should guide agents seeking to uncover evidence as a result of a private search. According to Jacobsen, agents who learn of evidence via a private search can reenact the original private search without violating any reasonable expectation of privacy. What the agents cannot do without a warrant is "exceed[] the scope of the private search." Id. at 115. See also United States v. Miller, 152 F.3d 813, 815-16 (8th Cir. 1998); United States v. Donnes, 947 F.2d 1430, 1434 (10th Cir. 1991). But see United States v. Allen, 106 F.3d 695, 699 (6th Cir. 1999) (dicta) (stating in dicta that Jacobsen does not permit law enforcement to reenact a private search of a private home or residence). This standard requires agents to limit their investigation to the scope of the private search when searching without a warrant after a private search has occurred. So long as the agents limit themselves to the scope of the private search, the agents' search will not violate the Fourth Amendment. However, as soon as agents exceed the scope of the private warrantless search, any evidence uncovered may be vulnerable to a motion to suppress.
In computer cases, law enforcement use of the private search doctrine will depend in part on whether law enforcement examination of files not examined during the private search is seen as exceeding the scope of the private warrantless search. See United States v. Runyan, 275 F.3d 449, 464-65 (5th Cir. 2001) (holding that police did not exceed the scope of a private search when they examined more files on privately searched disks than had the private searchers). Under the approach adopted by the Fifth Circuit in Runyan, a third-party search of a single file on a computer allows a warrantless search by law enforcement of the computer's entire contents. Other courts, however, may reject the Fifth Circuit's approach and rule that government searchers can view only those files whose contents were revealed in the private search. See United States v. Barth, 26 F. Supp. 2d 929, 937 (W.D. Tex. 1998) (holding, in a pre-Runyan case, that agents who viewed more files than private searcher exceeded the scope of the private search). Even if courts follow the more restrictive approach, the information gleaned from the private search will often be useful in providing the probable cause needed to obtain a warrant for a further search. (2)
Although most private search issues arise when private third parties intentionally examine property and offer evidence of a crime to law enforcement, the same framework applies when third parties inadvertently expose evidence of a crime to plain view. For example, in United States v. Procopio, 88 F.3d 21 (1st Cir. 1996), a defendant stored incriminating files in his brother's safe. Later, thieves stole the safe, opened it, and abandoned it in a public park. Police investigating the theft of the safe found the files scattered on the ground nearby, gathered them, and then used them against the defendant in an unrelated case. The First Circuit held that the use of the files did not violate the Fourth Amendment, because the files were made openly available by the thieves' private search. See id. at 26-27 (citing Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 113).
Importantly, the fact that the person conducting a search is not a government employee does not always mean that the search is "private" for Fourth Amendment purposes. A search by a private party will be considered a Fourth Amendment government search "if the private party act[s] as an instrument or agent of the Government." Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives' Ass'n, 489 U.S. 602, 614 (1989). The Supreme Court has offered little guidance on when private conduct can be attributed to the government; the Court has merely stated that this question "necessarily turns on the degree of the Government's participation in the private party's activities, . . . a question that can only be resolved 'in light of all the circumstances.'" Id. at 614-15 (quoting Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 487 (1971)). In the absence of a more definitive standard, the various federal Courts of Appeals have adopted a range of approaches for distinguishing between private and government searches. About half of the circuits apply a "totality of the circumstances" approach that examines three factors: whether the government knows of or acquiesces in the intrusive conduct; whether the party performing the search intends to assist law enforcement efforts at the time of the search; and whether the government affirmatively encourages, initiates or instigates the private action. See, e.g., United States v. Pervaz, 118 F.3d 1, 6 (1st Cir. 1997); United States v. Smythe, 84 F.3d 1240, 1242-43 (10th Cir. 1996); United States v. McAllister, 18 F.3d 1412, 1417-18 (7th Cir. 1994); United States v. Malbrough, 922 F.2d 458, 462 (8th Cir. 1990). Other circuits have adopted more rule-like formulations that focus on only two of these factors. See, e.g., United States v. Miller, 688 F.2d 652, 657 (9th Cir. 1982) (holding that private action counts as government conduct if, at the time of the search, the government knew of or acquiesced in the intrusive conduct, and the party performing the search intended to assist law enforcement efforts); United States v. Paige, 136 F.3d 1012, 1017 (5th Cir. 1998) (same); United States v. Lambert, 771 F.2d 83, 89 (6th Cir. 1985) (holding that a private individual is a state actor for Fourth Amendment purposes if the police instigated, encouraged or participated in the search, and the individual engaged in the search with the intent of assisting the police in their investigative efforts).
5. Use of Technology to Obtain Information
The government's use of innovative technology to obtain information about a target can implicate the Fourth Amendment. See Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27 (2001). In Kyllo, the Supreme Court held that the warrantless use of a thermal imager to reveal the relative amount of heat released from the various rooms of a suspect's home was a search that violated the Fourth Amendment. In particular, the Court held that where law enforcement "uses a device that is not in general public use, to explore details of the home that would previously have been unknowable without a physical intrusion, the surveillance is a 'search' and is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant." Id. at 40. Use by the government of innovative technology not in general public use to obtain information stored on or transmitted through computers or networks may implicate this rule from Kyllo and thus may require a warrant. Whether a technology falls within the scope of the Kyllo rule depends on at least two factors. First, the use of technology should not implicate Kyllo if the technology is in "general public use," see id. at 34 & 39 n.6, although courts have not yet defined the standard for determining whether a given technology meets this requirement. Second, the Supreme Court restricted its holding in Kyllo to the use of technology to reveal information about "the interior of the home." See id. at 40 ("We have said that the Fourth Amendment draws a firm line at the entrance to the house." (internal citation omitted)).
NOTE: The Manual continues with detailed discussions of exceptions to the warrant requirement, searchs with a warrant, how to obtain a warrant, relevant federal statutes, electronic surviellence of a network, relevant rules of evidence, etc.