Opinion ID: 1841590
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Claim of Overbroad Subpoena

Text: ¶ 32. We now turn to the scope of the subpoena to the LTSB. The subpoena, as modified by the order of November 4, 2002, requested all digital computer information or data maintained by the LTSB, including, but not limited to, the contents of all electronic mail boxes (in box, sent items, deleted items), electronic calendars, contents of the recycle bin, contents of temporary Internet files folder, image files (such as .jpg files), and other file documents (such as .wpd and .doc files), stored by or on behalf of certain named elected officials, any person who had ever been employed in their offices, as well as anyone who had ever been employed in the legislative caucuses for both parties or, in the alternative, the backup tapes from December 15, 2001, for the entire legislative branch of government. The subpoena contained no specificity in regard to subject matter or limitation as to the dates or periods of time for which the communications were sought. ¶ 33. The John Doe judge ordered Wahl, as custodian of the records at the LTSB, to produce the communications contained on backup tapes as of December 15, 2001. [11] These backup tapes contain all the data stored on computers in the legislature on December 15, 2001, for all elected officials and other persons who work in the legislature. This data, the LTSB tells us, goes back to at least 1994 and some of it may have originated in the 1970s. It is undisputed that the requested backup tapes are the equivalent of hundreds of millions of printed pages. ¶ 34. When we review a John Doe subpoena, a foundational issue may be constitutional in nature. For example, does the issuance of a subpoena in a John Doe proceeding, the sole purpose of such proceeding being to investigate alleged criminal activity, have the potential to affect Fourth Amendment rights? The issue of whether the subpoena is overbroad and oppressive, and thus unreasonable, was raised by Wahl. This is a Fourth Amendment concern. Hale v. Henkel, 201 U.S. 43, 71 (1906) (noting that a subpoena duces tecum may implicate Fourth Amendment rights).
¶ 35. The Fourth Amendment, made applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, provides: 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. U.S. Constitution, Amend. IV; see Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 655 (1961). Fourth Amendment jurisprudence expanded significantly in the latter part of the twentieth century, as law enforcement undertook the investigation of sophisticated crimes perpetrated by technologically savvy criminals who use electronic communications and advanced technology. See, e.g., Paul Taylor, The Scope of Government Access to Copies of Electronic Communications Stored with Internet Service Providers: A Review of Legal Standards, 6 J. Tech. L. & Pol'y 109 (Fall 2001) [hereinafter A Review of Legal Standards ]; Hon. Robert H. Bohn, Jr. and Lynn S. Muster, The Dawn of the Computer Age: How the Fourth Amendment Applies to Warrant Searches and Seizures of Electronically Stored Information, 8 Suffolk J. Trial & App. Advoc. 63 (2003); Martin Marcus and Christopher Slobogin, ABA Sets Standards for Electronic and Physical Surveillance, 18 Crim. Just. 5 (Fall 2003). To understand where Fourth Amendment jurisprudence stands today relative to the John Doe subpoena, we must necessarily begin at the beginning. ¶ 36. At the time the Fourth Amendment was being drafted, searches were based on warrants as a matter of course. [12] See Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 625-27 (1886). The chief evil the founding fathers sought to eliminate with this amendment was a search based on a general warrant, sometimes known as a writ of assistance. Id. at 625. These early warrants lacked specificity and allowed government officers in the late eighteenth century to enter homes, shops, and other places, and in the event the officers encountered resistance, they could break down doors and forcibly search closed trunks and chests. Id. (calling writs of assistance, the worst instrument of arbitrary power since such writs place the liberty of every man in the hands of every petty officer) (internal quotations omitted). ¶ 37. The Fourth Amendment, then, proscribed unreasonable searches and seizures not as an independent governing standard of search and seizure, but instead with reference to the illegality of general warrants. [13] A Review of Legal Standards, supra, at 125. The compulsory production of a man's private papers [which, the Court noted, was the equivalent of a search and seizure], to be used in evidence against him was an  unreasonable search and seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment . . . Boyd, 116 U.S. at 622 (emphasis in original), as it extorted from him his own private papers in order to connect him with a crime and compel him to be a witness against himself. Id. at 633-34. ¶ 38. While the United States Supreme Court construed the Fourth Amendment as not preventing a court from compelling documentary evidence, either through a warrant or a subpoena duces tecum, a demand for such evidence violates the Fourth Amendment's reasonableness test if it lacks the particularity required in the description of documents. Hale, 201 U.S. at 77. In Hale, a grand jury investigating antitrust violations issued a subpoena duces tecum demanding from Hale virtually every written business document in his possession regarding the company for which he served as secretary and treasurer. [14] The Court, showing a continuing concern for process that holds constitutional problems similar to those inherent in a general warrant, concluded that after [a]pplying the test of reasonableness to the present case, we think the subpoena duces tecum is far too sweeping in its terms to be regarded as reasonable. Id. at 76. Significantly, the Court stated, Doubtless many, if not all, of these documents may ultimately be required, but some necessity should be shown . . . or some evidence of their materiality produced, to justify an order for the production of such a mass of papers. A general subpoena of this description is equally indefensible as a search warrant would be if couched in similar terms. Hale, 201 U.S. at 77. ¶ 39. In 1967, the United States Supreme Court decided Katz v. United States. [15] Justice Harlan, in his concurrence in Katz, was the first to suggest that Fourth Amendment protections arose from a person's reasonable expectation of privacy. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 360-61 (1967) (concluding that the Fourth Amendment has a twofold requirement: first, that a person exhibit a subjective expectation of privacy and second, that the expectation be one that society is prepared to recognize as objectively reasonable). ¶ 40. While private citizens presume they have reasonable expectations of privacy in many areas of their lives, the question that eventually arose was whether citizens who work for the government have similar expectations in their work places so that their Fourth Amendment rights should be protected there as well. In O'Connor v. Ortega, 480 U.S. 709 (1987), the Supreme Court recognized that public employees have reasonable expectations of privacy in their offices at work. The Court stated that the expectation of privacy in one's place of work is based upon societal expectations that have deep roots in the history of the [Fourth] Amendment and that people do not lose Fourth Amendment rights merely because they work for the government instead of a private employer. Id. at 716-17 (citation omitted). ¶ 41. The Supreme Court repeatedly has explained that elected officials do not park their constitutional rights at the door when they assume public office. Bond v. Floyd, 385 U.S. 116 (1966) (concluding that the Georgia legislature could not prevent an elected official from taking his seat in the legislature because his expression of his anti-war sentiments was protected by the First Amendment); see also Chandler v. Miller, 520 U.S. 305, 313 (1997) (concluding that a Georgia statute that required candidates for public office, including incumbents, to submit to a drug test is an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment because it was not based on an individualized suspicion of wrongdoing); and Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, 536 U.S. 765, 788 (2002) (overturning a restriction on the speech of candidates for office, including incumbents, because the law violates the First Amendment). ¶ 42. With these concepts in mind, we turn now to the specifics of this case to determine if the legislators and their employees have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the data on the backup tapes at the LTSB. If there is such a reasonable expectation, we must then determine whether the John Doe subpoena is overly broad, in violation of the Fourth Amendment's requirement of specificity.
¶ 43. Using Justice Harlan's two-step Fourth Amendment analysis, we conclude that there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in the data stored on the backup tapes, and that the August 14, 2002, John Doe judge's subpoena duces tecum, as modified by the subsequent order, is overbroad. Therefore, we also conclude that execution of the subpoena duces tecum, as modified, would constitute an unreasonable search and seizure. ¶ 44. The first part of the two-step reasonableness test is to assess the actual, subjective expectation of privacy. Katz, 389 U.S. at 361. The LTSB is a nonpartisan bureau designed to serve the entire legislature. The statute that created the LTSB requires that it shall at all times observe the confidential nature of the data and information originated, maintained or processed by electronic equipment supported by it. Wis. Stat. § 13.96. The legislature, in creating the LTSB, expressed its belief that it was establishing a confidential warehouse for its data storage. ¶ 45. The State maintains that the records sought are records of public officials affected by Wis. Stat. § 19.32(2), which provides that at least some of the materials sought are public records and, as such, are presumed to be available for inspection. See Linzmeyer, 254 Wis. 2d 306, ¶ 15. However, not everything a public official creates is a public record, see State v. Panknin, 217 Wis. 2d 200, 209-10, 579 N.W.2d 52 (Ct. App. 1998) (concluding that personal notes of a sentencing judge are not public records), and we have not been apprised of the nature of each document stored on the backup tapes. Therefore, the fact that there may be some public records on the backup tapes does not undermine the LTSB's assertion that the public officials to whom the data belong have a subjective expectation of privacy in the data when it is stored by the LTSB. Stated another way, that most, or even all, of the data on the backup tapes may be obtainable through a public records request made directly to legislators, does not remove the reasonable expectation of privacy legislators have when the data is sought directly from the LTSB. ¶ 46. The more difficult question here is whether public employees' and elected officials' expectations of privacy in the electronically stored data they have created or received at work is one society recognizes as reasonable. See Katz, 389 U.S. at 361. Not all expectations of privacy are objectively reasonable. As we have explained above, the United States Supreme Court has recognized a public employee's expectation of privacy in his office space is reasonable. O'Connor, 480 U.S. at 717. That privacy expectation is equally applicable even when the work space is shared by other employees. Mancusi v. DeForte, 392 U.S. 364, 369 (1968) (holding a union employee who shared an office with other union employees had a privacy interest in the office). ¶ 47. Technology clearly has changed the ways in which we work and communicate with others. The federal government recognized that changing technology required changing laws, and to address those changes, it passed the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA). Amended as 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510-2521, 2701-2710, 3121-3126 (2001). The ECPA extended the privacy protections that have been given voice communications to electronic communications such as e-mail. See A Review of Legal Standards, supra, at 117 (indicating that Congress concluded that privacy was in danger of being gradually eroded as technology advanced). [16] This is a strong expression of society's expectation of privacy in electronic communications. ¶ 48. Legislators use electronic technology to compose budgets, to prepare position papers, and to draft legislation; they communicate with each other, with their staff members and with their constituents via e-mail and instant messaging. According to the LTSB, the legislative e-mail system processes more than 60,000 transactions each day. [17] Electronic assists to communication is the way in which the legislature does its work, and all of the data created is stored on the backup tapes at the LTSB. ¶ 49. These circumstancesthe way in which the legislature now does business; that the LTSB was created to serve legislators on both sides of the aisle; and the statutory directive of Wis. Stat. § 13.96 that requires that all data stored by the LTSB shall be kept confidentialsupport an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy by legislators in the data on the backup tapes. Therefore, we conclude that society has recognized a reasonable expectation of privacy in the electronically stored information on the backup tapes. Accordingly, we must determine if the subpoena issued by the John Doe judge is overbroad. ¶ 50. When we examine whether the Fourth Amendment was violated, we determine whether the government intrusion was reasonable. O'Connor, 480 U.S. at 732 (Scalia, J., concurring). Overly broad subpoenas typically are held unreasonable in that their lack of specificity allows the government to go on an indiscriminate fishing expedition, similar to that provided by a general warrant. Marron v. United States, 275 U.S. 192, 196 (1927); Boyd, 116 U.S. at 625-26. As the United States Supreme Court has explained, a subpoena is equally [as] indefensible as a search warrant would be if couched in similar [general] terms. Hale, 201 U.S. at 77. ¶ 51. Here, the subpoena requested all of the data from the computer system of an entire branch of state government in order to investigate whether a crime has been committed. It did not specify the topics or the types of documents in which evidence of a crime might be found. [18] The subpoena also did not specify any time period for which it sought records. Some of the records on the backup tapes go back to the 1970s. An open-ended time span during which the records were produced or received is unacceptable. Accordingly, the overly broad demand of the subpoena duces tecum issued here cannot pass Fourth Amendment muster, see, e.g., Hale, 201 U.S. at 76-77, and therefore, it must be quashed. ¶ 52. However, we do not conclude that all documents the John Doe judge seeks in order to investigate whether a crime has been committed are inaccessible. We do, however, require more than a generalized demand for those documents. Because it is clear that another subpoena likely will issue, and because the record before us contains neither the John Doe petition used to initiate the John Doe proceeding nor the affidavit or other showing the district attorney made to obtain the subpoena, we find it necessary to summarize the requirements of the district attorney before any further subpoena is issued. In so doing, we point out that it is the district attorney's burden to provide support to the John Doe judge for a constitutionally sufficient subpoena, as he is the party who commenced the proceeding and sought the subpoena. See Reimann, 214 Wis. 2d at 624-25.
¶ 53. The subpoena power of a John Doe judge is set forth in Wis. Stat. § 968.26. It provides in relevant part: [T]he judge ... at the request of the district attorney shall, subpoena and examine other witnesses to ascertain whether a crime has been committed and by whom committed. ... A court, on the motion of a district attorney, may compel a person to testify or produce evidence under s. 972.08(1), [19] ... subject to the restrictions under s. 972.085. Section 968.26 generally applies to the acts of a judge who conducts a John Doe proceeding. The provision relative to subpoenaing witnesses by a judge does not mention the production of documents. However, the last sentence of § 968.26, which applies to a court, not to a judge, does address the production of documents to which the immunity afforded under Wis. Stat. § 972.08(1) attaches. The division of responsibility between a judge and a court in these two provisions is consistent with a John Doe judge's inability to grant the immunity, see Jackson, 18 Wis. 2d at 533, that § 972.08(1) requires. However, Wahl has not argued to us that the John Doe judge was without authority to issue a subpoena duces tecum and that such a subpoena must be issued by a court. Therefore, we do not decide whether the subpoena is void because it exceeds the authority of a John Doe judge, if the Hon. Sarah O'Brien issued the subpoena duces tecum in that capacity. Instead, because a John Doe proceeding is a criminal investigative tool, Unnamed Person No. 1, 260 Wis. 2d 653, ¶ 22, we turn to Wis. Stat. § 968.135 which describes the quantum of proof required to issue a subpoena duces tecum in a criminal investigation. ¶ 54. Wisconsin Stat. § 968.135 provides in relevant part: Upon the request of the ... district attorney and upon a showing of probable cause under s. 968.12, a court shall issue a subpoena requiring the production of documents, as specified in s. 968.13(2). Section 968.135 refers to subpoenas duces tecum issued by a court, not by a judge. It requires probable cause to believe that the subpoena duces tecum will produce evidence of a crime. See State v. Swift, 173 Wis. 2d 870, 883, 496 N.W.2d 713 (Ct. App. 1993); see also 9 Wiseman, Chiarkas and Blinka, Wisconsin Practice: Criminal Practice and Procedure § 24.16 (1996) (The probable cause necessary to obtain a subpoena for records is essentially the same as that necessary to obtain a search warrant.). Therefore, we conclude that any subsequent subpoena duces tecum issued in this proceeding, whether it is issued under Wis. Stat. §§ 968.26 or 968.135, must be supported by probable cause to believe that the documents sought will produce evidence of a crime. ¶ 55. Additionally, because the data sought is meant to establish criminal conduct and may be data in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy, there must be a particularized showing in the affidavit of the district attorney requesting a subpoena. Cf. Washington, 83 Wis. 2d at 842-44. In that regard, the affidavit submitted must: (1) limit the requested subpoena to the subject matter described in the John Doe petition, Reimann, 214 Wis. 2d at 622; (2) show that the data requested is relevant to the subject matter of the John Doe proceeding, Washington, 83 Wis. 2d at 843; (3) specify the data requested with reasonable particularity, Hale, 201 U.S. at 77; and (4) cover a reasonable period of time. Washington, 83 Wis. 2d at 844. Additionally, all of the communications to the John Doe judge must be made a part of the record. See id. at 824-25. ¶ 56. We conclude by reminding all who participate in John Doe investigations that the power wielded by the government is considerable. Accordingly, there is a potential for infringing on Fourth Amendment and other constitutional rights. Hale, 201 U.S. at 77. Therefore, an awareness of the individual rights that may be affected is necessary as this investigation proceeds. As we explained in State v. O'Connor : The final responsibility for the proper conduct of such [John Doe] proceedings rests with the presiding judge, whose obligation it is to ensure that the considerable powers at his or her disposal are at all times exercised with due regard for the rights of the witnesses, the public, and those whose activities may be subject to investigation. State v. O'Connor, 77 Wis. 2d 261, 284, 252 N.W.2d 671 (1977). See also Washington, 83 Wis. 2d at 824. Accordingly, we quash the subpoena and remand to the John Doe judge for proceedings consistent with this opinion.