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The Judges Who Balk At Turning Over Electronic Evidence

The Washington Post reported last week on how some federal magistrate judges are "balking at sweeping requests by law enforcement officials for cellphone and other sensitive personal data, declaring the demands overly broad and at odds with basic constitutional rights." For example, D.C. Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola, "deemed a law enforcement request for the entire contents of an e-mail account 'repugnant' to the U.S. Constitution," the Post also reports. He is an outlier but "part of a small but growing faction, including judges in Texas, Kansas, New York and Pennsylvanai, who have penned decisions seeking to check the reach of federal law enforcement power in the digital world."