FBI v Apple, Microsoft v Department of Justice, and Post-Riley Cell Phone Searches: Rediscovering the Fourth Amendment
A research resource developed by Professor Clark D. Cunningham, W. Lee Burge Chair in Law & Ethics, Georgia State University College of Law
Back to Burge Chair Home Page: www.ClarkCunningham.org

AALS 2024 Criminal Procedure Section Program:
Are Most Search Warrants for Electronically Stored Information Unconstitutional General Warrants?
Powerpoint Presentation (pdf version)

Resources: Sample search warrants

Media Coverage

Cases:

In the Matter of the Search of an Apple iPhone(C.D. Cal. No. CM-16-10) (iPhone used by San Bernardino shooter)

In re Order Requiring Apple Inc. to Assist in the Execution of a Search Warrant (E.D.N.Y.)

US v Crawford (D. Mass.)

US v Ravelo (D.N.J.)

"The Magistrates Revolt"

Microsoft v US (2d Cir and WD Wash cases)

Gag Orders

Vermont Supreme Court

Search of Anthony Weiner Laptop

Congress

History

Essays, Articles, Reports, and Books

PRELIMINARY BIBLIOGRAPHY

Athul K. Acharya, Semantic Searches, 63 Duke L.J. 393.

Akhil Reed Amar, Fourth Amendment First Principles, 107 Harv. L. Rev. 757 (1994).

Akhil Reed Amar, The Fourth Amendment, Boston, and the Writs of Assistance, 30 Suffolk U. L. Rev. 53 1996-1997.

Fabio Arcila, Jr., A Response to Professor Steinberg’s Fourth Amendment Chutzpah, 10 U. Pa. J. Const. L. 1229 (2007-2008).

Bandes, Susan, “We The People” and Our Enduring Values, 96 Mich. L. Rev. 1376 (1997-1998)

Maureen E. Brady, The Lost "Effects" of the Fourth Amendment: Giving Personal Property Due Protection, 125 Yale L.J. 946 (2016).

Alan Butler, Get a Warrant: The Supreme Court’s New Course for Digital Privacy Rights After Riley v. California, 10 Duke J. Const. L. & Pub. Pol’y 83.

Thomas K. Clancy, The Framers’ Intent: John Adams, His Era, and the Fourth Amendment, 86 Indiana L.J. 979 (2011).

Thomas K. Clancy,  Fourth Amendment Satisfaction – The “Reasonableness” of Digital Searches, 48 Tex. Tech. 37 (2015).

William Clark, Note, Protecting the Privacies of Digital Life: Riley v California, the Fourth Amendment's Particularity Requrement and Search Protocols for Cell Phone Search Warrants, 56 Boston College L. Rev. 1981, 1997-2007 (2015)

James B. Comey, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Going Dark: Are Technology, Privacy, and Public Safety on a Collision Course?, Brookings Institution (Oct. 16, 2014) (remarks as delivered) (video)

Patrick J. Cotter, Magistrates' Revolt: Unexpected Resistance to Federal Government Efforts to Get "General Warrants" for Electronic Information, The National Law Review, May 15, 2014

William J. Cuddihy, The Fourth Amendment: Origins and Original Meaning 489-575 (2009)

Clark D. Cunningham, Protecting Data: What Happened to the Fourth Amendment? (Presentation April 28, 2017)

The Conversation:

Clark D. Cunningham, Restoring transparency and fairness to the FBI investigation of Clinton emails, The Conversation (Oct. 31, 2016)

Clark D. Cunningham, In getting ‘new’ Clinton emails, did the FBI violate the Constitution?, The Conversation (Oct. 29, 2016)

Clark D. Cunningham, Apple and the American Revolution: Remembering Why We Have the Fourth Amendment, 126 Yale Law Journal Forum 218 (Oct. 26, 2016)

Clark D. Cunningham, Feds: We can read all your email, and you’ll never know, The Conversation (Sep. 21, 2016)

Clark D. Cunningham, An Open Letter to President Obama (Sep. 8, 2016)

Clark D. Cunningham, "A Linguistic Analysis of the Meanings of 'Search' in the Fourth Amendment: A Search for Common Sense," 73 Iowa Law Review 541-609 (1988) (won the 1988 Scholarly Paper Award from the Association of American Law Schools).
-- History of 4th Amendment (pp. 550-59)

Reid Day, Comment, Let the Magistrates Revolt: A Review of Search Warrant Applications for Electronic Information Possessed by Online Services, 64 U. Kan. L. Rev. 491 (2015)

Davies, Thomas Y., Recovering the Original Fourth Amendment, 98 Mich. L. Rev. 547 1999-2000.

George M. Dery III and Kevin Meehan, A New Digital Divide? Considering the Implications of Riley v. California’s Warrant Mandate for Cell Phone Searches, 18 U. Pa. JLASC 311.

Oliver M. Dickerson, Writs of Assistance as a Cause of the Revolution, in The Era of the American Revolution 40 (Richard B. Morris ed., 1939).

Donald A. Dripps, “Dearest Property”: Digital Evidence and the History of Private “Papers” as Special Objects of Search and Seizure, 103 J. Crim. Law & Criminology 49 (2013)

Donald A. Dripps, Akhil Amar on Criminal Procedure and Constitutional Law: “Here I Go Down That Wrong Road Again,” 74 N.C. L. Rev. 1559 (1995-1996).

Richard A. Epstein, Entick v. Carrington and Boyd v. United States: Keeping the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of Track, 82 U. of Chicago 27 (2015).

Richard A. Epstein, Privacy and the Third Hand: Lessons from the Common Law of Reasonable Expectations, 24 Berkeley 1199 (2009).

Stephen I. Friedland, Of Clouds and Clocks: Police Location Tracking in the Digital Age, 48 Tex. Tech. 165 (2015).

Adam M. Gershowitz, The Post-Riley Search Warrant: Search Protocols and Particularity in Cell Phone Searches, 69 Vanderbilt L.Rev. 585 (2016).

Adam M. Gershowitz, Seizing: A Cell Phone Incident to Arrest: Data Extraction Devices, Faraday Bags, or Aluminum Foil as a Solution to the Warrantless Cell Phone Search Problem, 22 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 601.

Josh Goldfoot, The Physical Computer and the Fourth Amendment, 16 Berkeley J. Crim. L. 112.

Joseph D. Grano, Rethinking the Fourth Amendment Warrant Requirement, 19 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 603 (1981-1982).

David Gray, A Collective Right to be Secure from Unreasonable Tracking, 48 Tex. Tech. 189 (2015).

Stephen Guzzi,  Digital Searches and the Fourth Amendment: The Interplay Between the Plain View Doctrine and Search-Protocol Warrant Restrictions, 49 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 301.

Andrew D. Huynh, What Comes After “Get A Warrant”: Balancing Particularity and Practicality in Mobile Device Search Warrants Post-Riley, 101 Cornell L. Rev. 187.

Orin S. Kerr, Executing Warrants for Digital Evidence: The Case for Use Restrictions on Nonresponsive Data , 48 Texas Tech Law Review 1 (2015), GWU Law School Public Law Research Paper No. 2015-35, GWU Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2015-35.

Orin S. Kerr, The Fourth Amendment and the Global Internet, 67 Stanford 285 (2015).

Orin S. Kerr, Katz Has Only One Step: The Irrelevance of Subjective Expectations, 82 U. of Chicago 113 (2015)

Orin S. Kerr, The Next Generation Communications Privacy Act, 17 U. Penn. L. Rev. 373 (2014)

Orin S. Kerr, An Equilibrium-Adjustment Theory of the Fourth Amendment, 125 Harvard 476 (2011).

Orin S. Kerr, Fourth Amendment Seizures of Computer Data, 119 Yale L.J. 700 (2010).

Orin S. Kerr, Ex Ante Regulation of Computer Search and Seizure, 96 Va. L. Rev 1241 (2010)

Orin S. Kerr, Defending the Third-Party Doctrine: A Response to Epstein and Murphy,  24 Berkeley 1229 (2009).

Orin S. Kerr, The Case For the Third-Party Doctrine, 107 Mich. 561 (2009).

Orin S. Kerr, Searches and Seizures in a Digital World, 119 HARVARD L. REV. 531 (2005).

Mary Graw Leary, The Supreme Digital Divide, 48 Tex. Tech. 65 (2015).

Arnold H. Loewy, The Fourth Amendment as a Device for Protecting the Innocent, 81 Mich. L. Rev. 1229.

Tracey Maclin, The Complexity of the Fourth Amendment: A Historical Review, 77 B.U. L. Rev. 925 (1997).

Tracey Maclin, When the Cure for the Fourth Amendment is Worse than the Disease, 68 S.Cal.L.Rev. 1, 13-25 (1994).

Tracey Maclin, Cell Phones, Search Incident to Arrest, and the Supreme Court, 94 B.U. L. Rev. Annex 3.

Ann E. Marimow & Craig Timberg, Low-level federal judges balking at law enforcement requests for electronic evidence, Washington Post, Apr. 24, 2014

Richard H. McAdams, Riley’s Less Obvious Tradeoff: Forgoing Scope-Limited Searches, 48 Tex. Tech L. Rev. 97.

Steven R. Morrison, Breaking iPhones under CALEA and the All Writs Act: Why the Government Was (Mostly) Right, Cardozo Law Review (forthcoming).

Erin Murphy, The Case Against the Case for Third-party Doctrine: A Response to Epstein and Kerr, 24 Berkeley 1239 (2009).

Paul Ohm, Massive Hard Drives, General Warrants, and the Power of Magistrate Judges, 97 Virginia. Law Review Online 1 (2011).

Paul Ohm, The Life of Riley (v. California), 48 Tex. Tech L. Rev. 133.

Brian L. Owsley,  Cell Phone Tracking in the Era of Unites States v. Jones and Riley v. California, 48 Tex. Tech. L. Rev. 208 (2015).

Richard A. Posner, Rethinking the Fourth Amendment, 3Sup. Ct. Rev. 49(1981).

Robert R. Rea, The English Press in Politics 1760-1774 (1963)

James Saylor, Computers as Castles: Preventing the Plain View Doctrine From Becoming a Vehicle for Overbroad Digital Searches, 79 Fordham L. Rev. 2809.

Eric Schnapper, Unreasonable Searches and Seizures of Papers, 71 Va. L. Rev. 869, 912-14 (1985)

Matthew Sipe, Storage Wars: Greater Protection for Messages in Memory, 124 Yale Law Journal Forum 29 (2014)

David Alan Sklansky, Two More Ways Not to Think About Privacy and the Fourth Amendment, 82 U. of Chicago 222 (2015).

Christopher Slobogin, A Defense of Privacy as the Central Value Protected by the Fourth Amendment’s Prohibition on Unreasonable Searches, 48 Tex. Tech L. Rev. 143.

Maurice H. Smith, The Writs of Assistance Case (1978)

Stephen Wm. Smith, Gagged, Sealed & Delivered: Reforming ECPA’s Secret Docket, 6 Harv. Law & Policy Rev. 313 (2012).

Steiker, Carol S., Second Thoughts About First Principles, 107 Harvard L. Rev. 820.

Steinberg, David E., An Original Misunderstanding: Akhil Amar and Fourth Amendment History, 42 San Diego L. Rev. 227 (2005).

Steinberg, David E., Probable Cause, Reasonableness, and the Importance of Fourth Amendment History: A Response to Professor Arcila, 10 U. Pa. J. Const. L. 1211 (2007-2008).

Dan Terzian, Forced Decryption as Equilibrium – Why it’s Constitutional and How Riley Matters, 109 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1131.

Peter D.G. Thomas, John Wilkes: A Friend to Liberty (1996).

Patrick Toomey & Brett Max Kaufman, The Notice of Paradox: Secret Surveillance, Criminal Defendants, & The Right to Notice, 54 Santa Clara L. Rev. 843 (2014).

United States Department of Justice, Searching and Seizing Computers and Obtaining Electronic Evidence in Criminal Investigation 3rd edition, Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, U.S. Department of Justice
-- Chapter 2: Searching and Seizing Computers With a Warrant (especially see pp. 79-83)
-- Appendix F: Sample Premises Computer Search Warrant Affidavit (and sample warrant)

Ryan Watzel, Riley’s Implications for Fourth Amendment Protection in the Cloud, 124 Yale Law Journal Forum 73 (2014)

Russell L. Weaver, The Fourth Amendment and Technologically Based Surveillance, 48 Tex. Tech. 231 (2015).

James Boyd White, Forgotten Points in the “Exclusionary Rule” Debate, 81 Mich. L. Rev. 1273.

Witmer-Rich, Jonathan, The Rapid Rise of Delayed Notice Searches, And The Fourth Amendment “Rule Requiring Notice, 41 Pepp. L. Rev. 509 (2014).

Gordon S. Wood, The American Revolution: A History (2003 Modern Library paperback edition)

Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1993 First Vintage Books edition)

Eric Yeager, Looking for Trouble: An Exploration of How to Regulate Digital Searches, 66 Vand. L. Rev. 685 (2013)

Symposia

2015 Criminal Law Symposium: The Fourth Amendment in the 21st Century, 48 Tex. Tech. L. Rev. 1-244 (Fall 2015).