Opinion ID: 222323
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Password Protection

Text: Alternatively, the court insists that because Stanley's files were not password protected when Stockbridge took the computer, Stanley had no reasonable expectation of privacy. But this myopic focus on whether Stanley's files were password protected ignores key facts. First, Stanley's username was password protected while he was living with Stockbridge. Only when Stanley stopped living with Stockbridge, and began using his computer by himself, did he remove the password. In other words, Stanley took precautions to protect his files when he knew that others would have easy access to them. Second, the computer did not have a password when Stockbridge took control of it because Stanley was behind bars. Stanley did not have the opportunity to reinstall a password because he did not anticipate the arrest. Prisoners are not allowed furloughs for the sole purpose of reinstalling a password on their computers before turning it over to a custodian. Therefore, Stanley's failure to install the password does not speak to whether he had an expectation of privacy. And third, the court's reasoning would necessarily mean that no prisoner would have any reasonable expectation of privacy in his personal effects the second he enters the jail-house  unless that property happens to be stored in a locked container. Under this interpretation of the Fourth Amendment, a police dragnet could extend to whatever property a prisoner did not place under lock and key before he entered his jail cell. Of course, because most prisoners rarely place their property into storage in anticipation of arrest, this dragnet would functionally include everything a defendant might own. As a matter of policy, this argument is troubling; as a matter of law, it is without support. The court certainly cites no law or case (from any court) to support this sweeping circumvention of the Fourth Amendment. The court does cite the Fourth Circuit's decision in Trulock v. Freeh, 275 F.3d 391 (4th Cir.2001), and indeed that case is instructive. In Trulock the Fourth Circuit considered whether one joint-user of a computer can consent to a warrantless search of another's password-protected files. Id. at 403. The Trulock court concluded that the joint-user's authority did not extend to the password protected files because by installing a password the defendant had affirmatively intended to exclude [the joint-user] and others from his personal files. Id. That reasoning is crucial because here Stanley demonstrated his intention to exclude Stockbridge from his files when he password protected them while living with her. He had no reason to keep that password after he moved out because at that point he was the only user. But that previous intention to exclude others, such as Stockbridge, never went away. Stanley's files were always segregated under his login name. Password or not, Stanley considered those files his, and that section of the computer closed off. The mechanical focus on whether the computer had a password at the very moment when Stockbridge took the computer strips Trulock of its logical moorings. To the extent that password-protected files are more constitutionally private than non-password-protected files, the key fact is that Stanley did secure his directories while he was living with Stockbridge. The court's formalism misses the forest for the trees. Additionally, the Supreme Court does not make distinctions between locked and unlocked containers when it comes to expectations of privacy. In Robbins v. California, the Supreme Court considered whether police officers who are conducting a lawful, but warrantless, search of a vehicle during a traffic stop, may also search an unlocked container found within that car. 453 U.S. 420, 425, 101 S.Ct. 2841, 69 L.Ed.2d 744 (1981). In his plurality opinion, Justice Stewart flatly rejected the argument that there is a constitutional distinction between containers that are more secured than others. First, it has no basis in the language or meaning of the Fourth Amendment.... The contents of Chadwick's footlocker and Sanders' suitcase were immune from a warrantless search because they had been placed within a closed, opaque container and because Chadwick and Sanders had thereby reasonably manifested an expectation that the contents would remain free from public examination. Once placed within such a container, a diary and a dishpan are equally protected by the Fourth Amendment. Second, even if one wished to import such a distinction into the Fourth Amendment, it is difficult if not impossible to perceive any objective criteria by which that task might be accomplished. What one person may put into a suitcase, another may put into a paper bag. And as the disparate results in the decided cases indicate, no court, no constable, no citizen, can sensibly be asked to distinguish the relative privacy interests in a closed suitcase, briefcase, portfolio, duffel bag, or box. Id. at 426-27, 101 S.Ct. 2841 (internal citations omitted). The Supreme Court reiterated this conclusion in United States v. Ross, and clarified that the scope of the Robbins rule is broad: This rule applies equally to all containers. One point on which the Court was in virtually unanimous agreement in Robbins was that a constitutional distinction between worthy and unworthy containers would be improper. Even though such a distinction perhaps could evolve in a series of cases in which paper bags, locked trunks, lunch buckets, and orange crates were placed on one side of the line or the other, the central purpose of the Fourth Amendment forecloses such a distinction. For just as the most frail cottage in the kingdom is absolutely entitled to the same guarantees of privacy as the most majestic mansion, so also may a traveler who carries a toothbrush and a few articles of clothing in a paper bag or knotted scarf claim an equal right to conceal his possessions from official inspection as the sophisticated executive with the locked attaché case. 456 U.S. 798, 822, 102 S.Ct. 2157, 72 L.Ed.2d 572 (1982) (emphasis added). A frail cottage might not have the padlock that a majestic mansion has, but under the Fourth Amendment, that does not matter. Justice Stewart's logic, which applies as equally to locked suitcases as it does to paper bags (which cannot be locked in any meaningful way), should be applied to our modern-day containers, such as computer directories. If an individual can maintain a reasonable expectation of privacy in an unlocked paper bag that's stuffed with a toothbrush, then likewise he can maintain a reasonable expectation of privacy in his unlocked computer. Constitutional protections do not turn on the frailty of a container's securities because the Fourth Amendment does not concern itself with passwords or locks. See Miller v. United States, 357 U.S. 301, 307 n. 7, 78 S.Ct. 1190, 2 L.Ed.2d 1332 (1958) (quoting William Pitt's speech to Parliament in 1763, `The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail; its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storm may enter; the rain may enter; but the King of England cannot enter-all his force dares not cross the thresh-old of the ruined tenement.') (citing THE OXFORD DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS 379 (2d ed.1953)). Ultimately, the court's laser-like focus on whether the computer was password protected is much ado about nothing.