Opinion ID: 150812
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Subpoenas During Investigation

Text: Rehberg's allegations regarding the subpoenas to his telephone and Internet providers all recount pre-indictment investigative conduct by Hodges and Paulk. [11] A prosecutor loses the cloak of absolute immunity by stepping out of his role as an advocate and performing investigative functions more commonly performed by law enforcement officers. Buckley, 509 U.S. at 273, 113 S.Ct. at 2616; Burns, 500 U.S. at 496, 111 S.Ct. at 1944-45; Rowe, 279 F.3d at 1280; Jones, 174 F.3d at 1285. Hodges and Paulk accordingly do not receive absolute immunity for preparing and filing subpoenas during the investigation of Rehberg. Hodges and Paulk may, however, receive qualified immunity if Rehberg's subpoena allegations either do not state a constitutional violation or do not state a constitutional violation that was clearly established. Pearson, 129 S.Ct. at 815-16, 821-22. Rehberg claims the subpoenas violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure. [12] In order for Fourth Amendment protections to apply, the person invoking the protection must have an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in the place searched or item seized. Minnesota v. Carter, 525 U.S. 83, 88, 119 S.Ct. 469, 473, 142 L.Ed.2d 373 (1998); Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 353, 88 S.Ct. 507, 512, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967). To establish a reasonable expectation of privacy, the person must show (1) that he manifested a subjective expectation of privacy in the item searched or seized, and (2) a willingness by society to recognize that expectation as legitimate. United States v. McKennon, 814 F.2d 1539, 1543 (11th Cir.1987). The Supreme Court consistently has held that a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties. Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 743-44, 99 S.Ct. 2577, 2582, 61 L.Ed.2d 220 (1979). [T]he 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. United States v. Miller, 425 U.S. 435, 443, 96 S.Ct. 1619, 1624, 48 L.Ed.2d 71 (1976). More specifically, a person does not have a legitimate expectation of privacy in numerical information he conveys to a telephone company in the ordinary course of business. Smith, 442 U.S. at 743-44, 99 S.Ct. at 2582 ([E]ven if petitioner did harbor some subjective expectation that the phone numbers he dialed would remain private, this expectation is not one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable) (quotation marks omitted); accord United States v. Thompson, 936 F.2d 1249, 1250 (11th Cir.1991) (The Supreme Court has held that the installation of a pen register does not constitute a search under the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution and does not warrant invocation of the exclusionary rule.). Here, Rehberg lacked a legitimate expectation of privacy in the phone and fax numbers he dialed. Once he voluntarily provided that information to BellSouth and Alltel (later Sprint), Rehberg lacked any further valid expectation that those third parties would not turn the information over to law enforcement officers. Absent a valid right of privacy, Rehberg cannot state a constitutional violation regarding the subpoenas for his phone and fax information, and Paulk and Hodges accordingly are entitled to qualified immunity for issuing those subpoenas to BellSouth and Alltel. This case presents a closer question over whether Paulk violated Rehberg's Fourth Amendment rights by issuing a subpoena to Rehberg's Internet Service Provider (ISP) and obtaining Mr. Rehberg's personal e-mails that were sent and received from his personal computer. Compl. ¶ 37. This is a question of first impression in this Circuit. Thus, we examine how other circuits have considered privacy rights in email material, such as email addresses, Internet subscriber information, and the contents of emails stored either on an ISP server or on a private computer/server, or both. Several circuits have concluded that a person lacks legitimate privacy expectations in Internet subscriber information and in to/from addresses in emails sent via ISPs. See, e.g., United States v. Perrine, 518 F.3d 1196, 1204-05 (10th Cir.2008) (Every federal court to address this issue has held that subscriber information provided to an internet provider is not protected by the Fourth Amendment's privacy expectation) (collecting cases from the Fourth, Sixth, and Ninth Circuits and district courts in West Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, New York, and Kansas); United States v. Forrester, 512 F.3d 500, 510 (9th Cir.2008) ([E]-mail and Internet users have no expectation of privacy in the to/from addresses of their messages or the IP addresses of the websites they visit because they should know that this information is provided to and used by Internet service providers for the specific purpose of directing the routing of information.). To date only a few circuit decisions address the issue of Fourth Amendment protection of email content. Some circuit decisions suggest in dicta that a person loses a legitimate expectation of privacy in emails sent to and received by a third-party recipient. In Guest v. Leis, 255 F.3d 325, 333 (6th Cir.2001), the Sixth Circuit noted that Internet bulletin board users lack a valid Fourth Amendment expectation of privacy in materials they voluntarily posted to a public Internet bulletin board. Id. The Sixth Circuit reasoned that a person would lose a legitimate expectation of privacy in a sent email that had already reached its recipient, analogizing an emailer to a letter-writer, whose `expectation of privacy ordinarily terminates upon delivery' of a letter. Id. (quoting United States v. King, 55 F.3d 1193, 1196 (6th Cir.1995)). Ultimately, however, the Sixth Circuit did not resolve this constitutional question because it determined that the plaintiffs had not shown a genuine issue of fact over whether the defendants actually searched their emails, and thus could not show a Fourth Amendment violation even assuming a privacy right had been violated. Id. at 335. [13] In United States v. Lifshitz, 369 F.3d 173, 190 (2d Cir.2004), the Second Circuit cited Guest and noted that the defendant, who challenged the constitutionality of a probation condition allowing monitoring of his computer, may not [] enjoy [] an expectation of privacy in transmissions over the Internet or e-mail that have already arrived at the recipient. Id. However, the Second Circuit ultimately noted that as a probationer, the defendant would be subject to a reduced expectation of privacy. The Second Circuit thus did not issue a constitutional holding on the privacy rights of private citizens in email content. Id. The Supreme Court has not yet addressed the question of privacy rights in email material. Plaintiff Rehberg thus relies on Supreme Court precedent on privacy rights accorded to the contents of telephone communications. In Katz, the Supreme Court first recognized a privacy expectation in the contents of a telephone conversation in a closed public phone booth. Katz, 389 U.S. at 353, 88 S.Ct. at 512. In Smith v. Maryland , the Supreme Court refined that privacy expectation, noting the distinction between the contents of a telephone call (for which a legitimate privacy expectation exists) and the actual phone numbers dialed (no privacy expectation). 442 U.S. at 743-44, 99 S.Ct. at 2582. The Supreme Court's more-recent precedent shows a marked lack of clarity in what privacy expectations as to content of electronic communications are reasonable. In City of Ontario v. Quon, ___ U.S. ___, 130 S.Ct. 2619, ___ L.Ed.2d ___ (2010), the Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit's decision that held a government employee had a reasonable expectation of privacy in text messages sent and received by a third party. The plaintiff police sergeant sued the City for violating his Fourth Amendment rights by obtaining and reviewing transcripts of personal text messages he sent and received from a pager that was owned by the City and issued to him for work use. Id. at ____, 2010 WL 2400087, , . The parties disputed whether the plaintiff, as a public employee, had an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in those text messages. Id. at ____, 2010 WL 2400087, -9. Even after the briefs of 2 parties and 10 amici curiae, the Supreme Court declined to decide whether the plaintiff's asserted privacy expectations were reasonable. Id. at ___, ___ _ ___, 2010 WL 2400087, -11. The Supreme Court acknowledged that the case touches issues of far-reaching significance. Id. at ____, 2010 WL 2400087, . After remarking that it must proceed with care when considering the whole concept of privacy expectations in communications made on electronic equipment owned by a government employer, the Supreme Court cautioned that [t]he judiciary risks error by elaborating too fully on the Fourth Amendment implications of emerging technology before its role in society has become clear. Id. at ____, 2010 WL 2400087, . The Supreme Court explained: In Katz, the Court relied on its own knowledge and experience to conclude that there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in a telephone booth. Id. In contrast, the Supreme Court found [i]t is not so clear that courts at present are on so sure a ground as to electronic devices. Id. Therefore, the Supreme Court admonished that [p]rudence counsels caution before the facts in the instant case are used to establish far-reaching premises that define the existence, and extent, of privacy expectations in communications on electronic devices. Id. The Supreme Court specifically noted that ongoing [r]apid changes in the dynamics of communication and information transmission caused similar rapid change in what society accepts as proper behavior. Id. at ____, 2010 WL 2400087, . To underscore its disinclination to establish broad precedents as to privacy rights vis-a-vis electronic devices and emerging technologies, the Supreme Court explained the difficulty in determining what privacy expectations are reasonable, stating: [T]he Court would have difficulty predicting how employees' privacy expectations will be shaped by those changes or the degree to which society will be prepared to recognize those expectations as reasonable. Cell phone and text message communications are so pervasive that some persons may consider them to be essential means or necessary instruments for self-expression, even self-identification. That might strengthen the case for an expectation of privacy. On the other hand, the ubiquity of those devices has made them generally affordable, so one could counter that employees who need cell phones or similar devices for personal matters can purchase and pay for their own. And employer policies concerning communications will of course shape the reasonable expectations of their employees, especially to the extent that such policies are clearly communicated. Id. at ____, 2010 WL 2400087, . The Supreme Court again eschewed a broad holding, finding it preferable to dispose of this case on narrower grounds and settled principles. Id. at ____, 2010 WL 2400087, , -11. It declined to answer the constitutional question of whether the plaintiff's privacy expectation was reasonable or even to set forth the governing principles to answer that question. Instead, the Supreme Court (1) assumed arguendo that plaintiff Quon had a reasonable expectation of privacy, (2) assumed that the government's review of a transcript of his text messages was a search under the Fourth Amendment, and even (3) assumed principles governing a search of a physical office applied to the electronic sphere. Id. at ____, 2010 WL 2400087, -11. It then concluded that the plaintiff's government employer did not violate the Fourth Amendment because its review of his personal text messages on a government-owned pager was reasonable and motivated by a legitimate work-related purpose. Id. at ____, 2010 WL 2400087, -11, -14 (citing O'Connor v. Ortega, 480 U.S. 709, 725, 107 S.Ct. 1492, 1502, 94 L.Ed.2d 714 (1987)). As these varied cases suggest, the questions of whether Fourth Amendment principles governing a search of Rehberg's home also should apply to subpoenas sent to a third-party ISP for electronic data stored on the third-party's server, and whether Rehberg had a reasonable privacy expectation in the contents of his personal emails sent voluntarily through that third-party ISP, are complex, difficult, and far-reaching legal issues that we should be cautious about resolving too broadly. As the Supreme Court advised us, [t]he judiciary risks error by elaborating too fully on the Fourth Amendment implications of emerging technology before its role in society has become clear. Id. at ____, 2010 WL 2400087, . Given the lack of precedent, we now question whether it would be prudent in this case and on this limited factual record to establish broad precedent as to the reasonable privacy expectation in email content. Moreover, because this is a qualified immunity case, we need not reach the underlying constitutional issue. Instead, we can resolve this case narrowly, cf. id. at ____, 2010 WL 2400087, , because at a minimum Rehberg has not shown his alleged constitutional right was clearly established. [14] In determining whether a constitutional right was clearly established at the time of violation, [t]he relevant, dispositive inquiry ... is whether it would be clear to a reasonable officer that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted. Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 202, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 2156, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001); see also Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 741, 122 S.Ct. 2508, 2516, 153 L.Ed.2d 666 (2002) (the salient question ... is whether the state of the law [at the time of violation] ... gave [the defendants] fair warning that their alleged treatment of [the plaintiff] was unconstitutional). [15] No Supreme Court decision and no precedential decision of this Circuit defines privacy rights in email content voluntarily transmitted over the global Internet and stored at a third-party ISP. See Quon, 130 S.Ct. at ____, 2010 WL 2400087, -9. As a result, Paulk could not have known the scope of the privacy rights, if any, that Rehberg had in email content stored at his third-party ISP. [16] The Supreme Court's decisions in Katz and Smith clearly established an objectively reasonable privacy right in telephone conversation content, but, as the modern Internet did not exist at the time of those decisions, whether the analytical framework, much less the rationale, of those decisions transfers to privacy rights in Internet email is questionable and far from clearly established. Indeed, in Quon, the Supreme Court only assumed, without deciding, that the Fourth Amendment framework for analyzing physical searches applied to searches in the electronic sphere. Id. at ____, 2010 WL 2400087, -11. In contrast, Rehberg has not identified any judicial decision holding a government agent liable for Fourth Amendment violations related to email content received by a third party and stored on a third party's server. Because the federal law was not clearly established, the district court erred in denying qualified immunity to Paulk on Rehberg's email subpoena claim. [17]