In re [REDACTED]@Gmail.com.

ORDER DENYING APPLICATION FOR A SEARCH WARRANT

On most days, the undersigned joins the teeming masses of the Bay Area on Highway 101 or 280. Lengthy queues form at each exit in Mountain View, Sunnyvale and Cupertino. Double decker buses pulse with their Wi-Fi as they move past in the diamond lane. On other days, on the ride to the courthouse on Caltrain, passenger after passenger bears the access badges that similarly mark the proliferation of the technology worker. A similar scene plays out as much at the humble downtown San Jose taquería as the overpriced Palo Alto cafe. The Technorati are, in short, everywhere. And yet too few understand, or even suspect, the essential role played by many of these workers and their employers in facilitating most government access to private citizen’s data.

Search warrant applications like the one presently before thfe court bring this role into view.

The tools of modern crime have evolved beyond a ski mask and a burlap sack. Like the rest of society, the modern criminal uses computers and mobile devices to do his “work.” As such, evidence of crime and evidence of daily life unrelated to crime are often intertwined in software files, folders…