Do Officers Need More than a Warrant to Search a Computer?

The Ninth Circuit recently decided United States v. Payton, a computer search case that quietly adopts some pretty radical ideas. Based on the lack of comments on my previous computer search posts -- here and here --most of you aren't keenly interested in the application of the Fourth Amendment to emerging technologies, but Payton strikes me as important enough that a mere lack of interest isn't going to stop me from writing about it! Payton began as a drug case. Officers received a complaint about possible drug activity at a residence, and they applied for a search warrant. Although the application requested authorization to search any computers at the residence, the warrant as issued did not specifically mention computers. It did, however, authorize the officers to search for and seize, among other things, "[s]ales ledgers showing narcotics transactions" and "[f]inancial records of the person(s) in control of the residence." The officers didn't find any evidence of drug activity during the search, but they did find a computer. They opened some of the files on the computer and found child pornography, which resulted in federal criminal charges against the defendant. The defendant moved to suppress, arguing that the search exceeded the scope of the warrant. The government argued that sales ledgers and financial records could have been stored on the computer, and that the computer was therefore subject to search, like any other container capable of holding the object of a search warrant. The district court denied the motion to suppress and [...]