Earlier this year, the Fourth Circuit decided United States v. Zelaya-Veliz, 94 F.4th 321 (4th Cir. 2024). Phil summarized it here when it came out, but we thought it merited its own post because of its extended discussion of how the Fourth Amendment applies to search warrants for social media account information. The court’s discussion of the need for temporal limitations in such warrants is especially noteworthy, as is the court’s analysis of the scope of the information seized pursuant to the warrants approved by the court. We’ll start with a recap of the case, and then end with some thoughts for law enforcement and prosecutors, and for defenders.
electronic evidence
Book on Digital Evidence Now Available
I’m happy to announce that my book on digital evidence is now available. There are five chapters, covering (1) search warrants for digital devices, (2) warrantless searches of digital devices, (3) law enforcement access to electronic communications, (4) tracking devices, and (5) the admissibility of electronic evidence.
Admissibility of Electronic Writings: Emails, Text Messages, and Social Networking Posts
It is conference season again at the School of Government, which means that we are doing a lot of presentations for a lot of different groups in the court system. It also means that to get ready we have to learn about new areas of law or at least areas of law we had not … Read more
Electronic Evidence
Regular readers know that I have a particular interest in the intersection of new technologies and criminal law. But I am not the only person at the School of Government interested in this topic. My colleague Cheryl Howell recently taught a session on electronic evidence — essentially, how the rules of evidence apply to things … Read more
Defense Access to Stored Electronic Communications
As I mentioned last week, I have a new publication entitled Prosecution and Law Enforcement Access to Information about Electronic Communications. It’s meant to be useful on a range of topics, from phone records and wiretapping, but the most detailed discussion concerns email, text messages, and other stored electronic communications. The very, very simplified version … Read more
New Publication on Electronic Search and Seizure
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m especially interested in the law regarding electronic communications and electronic evidence. (For one thing, it allows me to look at web sites like Gizmodo and claim that I’m working.) I’ve previously published a paper on law enforcement use of GPS tracking devices, as well as several blog posts about electronic … Read more