Opinion ID: 6335456
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Was the subpoena an unconstitutional search?

Text: In addition to the preservation requests, the government issued subpoenas to Facebook for Rosenow’s basic subscriber and IP information under 18 U.S.C. § 2703(c)(2). Relying on Carpenter, Rosenow contends that, because these subpoenas were issued without a warrant supported by probable cause, they were unconstitutional searches. In addition to cabining “physical[] intru[sions] on a constitutionally protected area,” the Fourth Amendment protects “certain expectations of privacy.” Carpenter, 138 S. Ct. at 2213 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). “When an individual seeks to preserve something as private, and his expectation of privacy is one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable, we have held that official intrusion into that private sphere generally qualifies as a search and requires a warrant supported by probable cause.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). However, in what is commonly referred to as the third-party doctrine, 30 UNITED STATES V. ROSENOW 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 (1979) (holding that the defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the phone numbers he dialed from his home phone because he necessarily shared those numbers with the phone company to make a call); see United States v. Miller, 425 U.S. 435, 440–442 (1976) (holding that the defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his banking business records because he voluntarily shared that information with the bank). In Carpenter, the Court declined to extend Smith and Miller to a warrantless subpoena of cell phone site records, which revealed the defendant’s location over the course of 127 days whenever he used his cell phone. 138 S. Ct. at 2212–14, 2217. Instead, the Court held that the subpoena seeking this information required a warrant, explaining that “an individual maintains a legitimate expectation of privacy in the record of his physical movements as captured through [cell phone surveillance technology]” even if that information is shared with third parties. Id. at 2217. Recognizing the intersection between the third-party doctrine and a separate line of cases addressing a person’s expectation of privacy in physical location and movements, the Court established that, “in the rare case where the suspect has a legitimate privacy interest in records held by a third party,” the government must obtain a warrant before issuing a subpoena absent exigent circumstances. Id. at 2215–16, 2222–23. Rosenow argues that, under Carpenter, the government’s subpoenas directing Facebook to disclose his basic subscriber and log-in information violated the Fourth UNITED STATES V. ROSENOW 31 Amendment because he has a legitimate expectation of privacy in this digital data. 7 But Carpenter is distinguishable. 8 Unlike cell-site location, which implicates a long line of precedent recognizing a defendant’s reasonable “expectation of privacy in his physical location and movements,” id. at 2215, a defendant “ha[s] no expectation of privacy in . . . IP addresses” or basic subscriber information because internet users “should know that this information is provided to and used by Internet service providers for the specific purpose of directing the routing of information,” United States. v. Forrester, 512 F.3d 500, 510 (9th Cir. 2008); see also United States v. Ulbricht, 858 F.3d 71, 97 (2d Cir. 2017), abrogation on other grounds recognized by United States v. Zodhiates, 901 F.3d 137, 143–44 (2d Cir. 2018); 9 United 7 Rosenow also argues that he has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his private online messages. Because we conclude that Yahoo’s and Facebook’s searches of his messages were not governmental action, we need not reach this issue. See Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 113. 8 The Court in Carpenter emphasized that its holding was narrow, limited to the specific question presented in that case. 138 S. Ct. at 2220. We decline to broaden the application of Carpenter to the novel circumstances presented here. 9 In Ulbricht, the Second Circuit held first that it was bound by the broad rule that a party has no privacy interest in any information disclosed to third parties. 858 F.3d at 96–97. That court later recognized that the Supreme Court has abrogated that rule, in part, in Carpenter. See Zodhiates, 901 F.3d at 143–44; United States v. Chambers, 751 F. App’x 44, 46 (2d Cir. 2018). But Ulbricht also held, in the alternative, that even if the broad rule were abrogated in the future, the disclosure of IP addresses does not raise privacy concerns because “no reasonable person could maintain a privacy interest in that sort of information.” 858 F.3d at 97. We cite Ulbricht for that holding, which still stands. 32 UNITED STATES V. ROSENOW States v. Caira, 833 F.3d 803, 806 (7th Cir. 2016). Specifically, in Forrester we analogized IP addresses and email to/from lines to the “information people put on the outside of mail,” which the Supreme Court has long held can be searched without a warrant because it “is voluntarily transmitted to third parties”; therefore, there is no legitimate expectation of privacy in such information. 512 F.3d at 511. This basic information differs from the content of email messages and other private communications, which are analogous to the sealed contents of mail, which the government does need a warrant to search. Id. Here, the subpoenas did not request any communication content from Rosenow’s accounts, and the government did not receive any such content in response to its subpoenas. Everyone involved knew that additional legal process was required before the government could obtain that information. Thus, as in Forrester, Rosenow did not have a legitimate expectation of privacy in the limited digital data sought in the government’s subpoenas. 3. Did the search warrant lack probable cause? Finally, Rosenow argues that the government’s search warrant affidavit failed to establish probable cause because it did not include any images of child pornography or any reasonable factual descriptions of such images. Probable cause exists if, “based on the totality of the circumstances, there is a ‘fair probability’ that evidence of a crime may be found.” United States v. Perkins, 850 F.3d 1109, 1119 (9th Cir. 2017) (citation omitted). Inclusion of illicit images is not required to establish probable cause. “[A] judge may properly issue a warrant based on factual descriptions of an image.” United States v. Battershell, 457 F.3d 1048, 1052 (9th Cir. 2006). UNITED STATES V. ROSENOW 33 Here, the government’s affidavit included excerpts from Rosenow’s messages with adolescent girls in the Philippines, demonstrating that he took and kept illicit pictures and videos of his sex tourism. For example, in one of Rosenow’s Facebook chats, he sends a girl nude photos he had previously taken of her and states, “I am always looking at your pictures on my phone . . . and I want more.” In another chat, he negotiates sex acts with a girl and states, “baby, I want to take a video too.” The affidavit also described Yahoo’s internal investigation and the resulting findings that Rosenow was negotiating, purchasing, and producing images and videos of child sexual exploitation, as well as the information that Facebook reported to NCMEC after searching Rosenow’s accounts. These descriptions include an account of Rosenow’s communications with girls in the Philippines, wherein Rosenow describes in graphic detail the sexual activities that he wanted to do with them and confirms that he wanted to record those activities. In these circumstances, the omission of pornographic images was not an intentional misrepresentation or material omission. See Perkins, 850 F.3d at 1118–19 (finding agent acted improperly by withholding images in his possession and misrepresenting their content where there was a question whether the images were pornographic). Nor were the FBI agent’s multiple, detailed statements analyzing Rosenow’s messages and travel patterns merely “boilerplate description[s]” or “generalized statement[s]” of “a child pornography collector.” Id. at 1120. Thus, we conclude, as did the district court, that the affidavit supporting the search warrant established a “fair probability” that child pornography would be found on Rosenow’s electronic devices. See Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 238 (1983). 34 UNITED STATES V. ROSENOW