Armed with the account identifiers, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) sought search warrants requiring Facebook to disclose various records and voluntarily disclosed information.

Armed with the account identifiers, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) sought search warrants requiring Facebook to disclose various records and voluntarily disclosed information.

Saginaw, a city in Michigan, chalked car tires to enforce parking regulations. Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit considered whether suspicionless tire chalking is a valid administrative search.

From 2013 to 2016, several law enforcement agencies investigated a methamphetamine distribution conspiracy in Illinois. The government installed three cameras on nearby utility poles to monitor the home of defendant Travis Tuggle. Two cameras viewed the front of Tuggle’s home and a nearby parking area. The third camera viewed a shed owned by codefendant, Joshua Vaultonburg.

In 2018, Alexander Bebris sent messages to a woman via Facebook Messenger, a private messaging system on Facebook. Facebook Messenger utilizes PhotoDNA, a Microsoft image-recognition program that provides the capability to scan images uploaded onto the company’s platform and compares the “hash,” or essence of a photo, with a database of known images of child pornography. After a “hit,” Facebook reviews the flagged images and sends them to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (“NCMEC”) through the CyberTipline.

Using three pole cameras mounted on public property to continuously monitor the exterior of a defendant’s home for 18 months without a warrant is not an unreasonable search in violation of the Fourth Amendment, according to the Seventh Circuit.

On April 16, 2019, Des Moines police officers responded to various calls of gunshots fired at an apartment complex. The callers reported 3 potential suspects and 2 cars associated with those suspects. One caller described a suspect as a black male with dreadlocks in a white shirt and dark blue pants, a description fitting Shaun Short that evening. Callers also reported that one of the cars involved was a black Dodge Charger, the same make and model car owned by Short.

Yesterday, in an opinion authored by Justice Kagan, the Supreme Court issued an order on United States v. Lange, and held that the flight of a suspected misdemeanant does not always justify the warrantless entry of a police officer into a home. FEDagent previously reported on this case when the Court granted certiorari.

On August 1, 2013, FBI Special Agent Bryan Acee was undercover and observed Matthew Maley engage in a drug deal out of his travel trailer in an RV park in Las Cruces, NM. Acee also observed a green Range Rover and a black Dodge pickup truck nearby. Officers performed a background check on Maley and found that he was a convicted felon on probation.

“Community caretaking” does not create a standalone doctrine that justifies warrantless searches and seizures in the home, a unanimous Supreme Court recently held.

In 2007, the Louisville office of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) conducted an investigation which led to the seizure of drugs and money and the convictions of Byron Mayes and brothers Julio and Alfredo Rivas-Lopez. Flash forward to 2016, and all three drug dealers were out of prison.

On June 25, 2018, Illinois State Trooper Clayton Chapman was on highway patrol duties and received a message from Deputy Sheriff Derek Suttles about a hatchback with a California license plate on Interstate 72. Deputy Suttles reported to Trooper Chapman that the vehicle was going approximately 20 mph under the speed limit, and found it suspicious.

An officer who held his gun to a suspect’s head, while using the suspect as a “human shield,” was entitled to qualified immunity because the officer’s conduct did not violate clearly established law, the Seventh Circuit recently held.

The Supreme Court last week heard oral argument on whether the “community caretaking” exception allows law enforcement to enter a home for the purposes of the occupant’s health and safety.

Plaintiffs, ten U.S. citizens and one lawful permanent resident, brought suit against the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Kirstjen Nielsen, Acting Commissioner of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Kevin McAleenan, and Acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Thomas Homan, alleging that certain CBP and ICE policies and practices violated their Fourth Amendment rights.

While conducting a narcotics investigation, the Monroe Police Department learned from drug dealers and cooperating witnesses that Matthew Beaudion and his girlfriend, Jessica Davis, were distributing drugs. Officers obtained Davis’s phone number from one witness. The witness also told the officers that Beaudion and Davis planned to drive from Houston to Monroe with four pounds of meth.

Temporarily removing a package from mail processing to examine its exterior does not constitute a Fourth Amendment seizure, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently held.

The Department of Justice announced its findings relating to an investigation into the Narcotics Bureau of the Springfield, Massachusetts Police Department (SPD) this week. The DOJ found reasonable cause to believe the bureau engaged in a “pattern or practice of using excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”