IT SEEMS AS IF JUDGES ARE GETTING PICKIER ABOUT ELECTRONIC SEARCHES.

Facciola specifically wants government investigators to specify “whether the target devices would be imaged in full, for how long those images will be kept, and what will happen to data that is seized but is ultimately determined not to be within the scope of the warrant—or, more precisely, Attachment B—can only be addressed by a search protocol; after all, the imaging actually occurs as part of the search process.”

While the government did acknowledge in its warrant application that data outside the scope of the warrant “will be returned or, if copied, destroyed within a reasonably prompt amount of time after the information is identified,” that wasn’t good enough for Judge Facciola.

Indeed, while the warrant application does detail a particular iPhone with a specific IMEI number, it does not detail precisely how the government will go about determining where it will look.

Well, courts have been too easy on this stuff, for the most part, for years.