ISPs seek to void ruling on police searches

SAN FRANCISCO: Web giant Yahoo! Inc. and several Internet trade associations

filed papers Monday seeking to overturn a court ruling which they said could

fill the offices of Internet companies with police officers overseeing the

execution of search warrants.

In an amici curiae brief filed with the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St.

Louis, the Internet group said a Minnesota court ruling requiring police

officers to be physically present for search warrants would threaten client

privacy, slow the searches and disrupt business.

"A large Internet service provider can receive literally thousands of

search warrants and other requests for information during the course of a

year," the brief said.

If the Minnesota ruling is allowed to stand, "it is entirely possible

that at any given time a dozen or more law enforcement officers would be on the

premises of a given service provider," it said.

The Minnesota case involved a search warrant that was issued on Yahoo! in

connection with a child pornography investigation. The warrant was faxed from

Minnesota to Yahoo's headquarters in Santa Clara, California, where employees

pulled up the requested information and sent it back to local prosecutors.

The defendant in the case subsequently sought to have that evidence

suppressed, arguing that his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search

and seizure was violated because it was conducted by civilians.

The judge in the case agreed, saying that that a law enforcement officer

should have been present at Yahoo! while the search was being conducted. His

ruling directed all future such searches to be supervised by law enforcement

personnel.

Unreasonable burden



The US government has already challenged the ruling, saying it puts an
unreasonable burden on law enforcement in an era when Internet companies span

the globe.

The Internet group, which includes the Computer and Communications Industry

Association, NetCoalition and the United States Internet Service Providers

Association, further argued in their brief that the ruling would do nothing to

extend Fourth Amendment protections.

"The police officer waiting in the lobby while the technician works away

on the computer does not in any way safeguard anyone's Fourth Amendment

rights," the brief said.

The group's lawyer, Jonathan Band, said the Minnesota ruling would also

disrupt normal business operations at Yahoo! and other companies while having a

"chilling effect" on their subscribers, who could be concerned that a

constant police presence would impinge on their privacy rights.

"A lot of people in the industry have been concerned about this decision

ever since it came down," Band said Monday. "We're saying that this

ruling is bad public policy. It's wasteful, it is going to be a waste of

government resources, and of law enforcement resources that should be out there

catching real criminals."

He added that the ISPs were concerned that the burden could increase as the

number of search warrants -- already up sharply in the wake of the Sept. 11

attacks -- will grow even faster under the new Council of Europe Cybercrime

Convention, an international treaty which requires the US government to obtain

information from Internet service providers at the request of foreign

governments.

"You could have countries halfway around the globe requiring these

searches, and we would have to comply," Band said. "All the work is

going to be done by the service providers, and their technicians and engineers.

Having police present will add no value."