As part of an “investigation of possible conspiracy to commit money laundering” a Judge stated that he perceives “no constitutionally significant difference between the searches of hard drives… and searches of email accounts.”  On July 18, 2014 Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein (US District Court, Southern District of New York) issued a Memorandum Opinion In the Matter of a Warrant for all Content and Other Information Associated with the email account xxxxxx@gmail.com Maintained at Premises Controlled by Google, Inc.

The criminal search warrants were issued under Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and the 1986 Stored Communications Act which ruling is in conflict with other Court rulings in Kansas and the District of Columbia as reported by Computerworld.

This ruling is likely to lead to appellate review so that there will be uniform laws regarding search warrants for content stored at ISPs.

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