strunkenwhite
Well-known member
FBI Overstepped Authority in Warrantless Search of Hundreds of Safe Deposit Boxes, Court Rules
The 9th Circuit compared the FBI searches to the “abuses of power” that “led to adoption of the Fourth Amendment in the first place.”
theintercept.com
Loading…
cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov
A few years ago there was a company advertising safe deposit boxes with extremely tight security and an equally extreme no-questions-asked policy. It will shock you to learn that it became very popular with criminals. In fact it became so popular that the company, not being completely blind despite its efforts, became complicit in criminal activity (or actually involved? whatever). The FBI and local law enforcement came down, armed with a search warrant that allowed them to nab all the safe deposit boxes and inventory their contents for the purpose of returning the same to their rightful owners. The warrant explicitly denied authorization to perform criminal search or seizure of the assets.
Morgan Freeman has informed me that they searched and seized the assets.
When some of the boxes' (non-criminal) renters sued over this, a district court inexplicably turned a blind eye to pretty blatant malfeasance and ruled against them. When it became clear that the owners were willing and able to appeal the government mysteriously decided to cave in and give their stuff back but by this time an organization called the Institute for Justice was taking on the burden of the appeal so the case continued (they also wanted the government to destroy or turn over records of the inventory seized (pictures of legal documents, etc.)).
The 9th circuit recently handed down a unanimous decision in favor of the plaintiffs that not only the government but also the district court did them dirty.
Juicy quotes:
"At oral argument, for example, the government failed to explain why applying the inventory exception to this case would not open the door to the kinds of "writs of assistance" the British authorities used prior to the Founding to conduct limitless searches of an individual's personal belongings. It was those very abuses of power, after all, that led to adoption of the Fourth Amendment in the first place."
"Because the district court's own findings show that the FBI conducted a "criminal search and seizure of box contents," it abused its discretion in holding that the government did not exceed the scope of the warrant's terms. See Saucillo v. Peck, 25 F.4th 1118, 1129 (9th Cir. 2022). In addition, the district court abused its discretion in holding that the government did not exceed the bounds of the warrant in this case because it clearly erred in finding that the government was incapable of following its own standardized instructions."
"Because the district court's conclusion that the government was excused from following its standardized policy rested on its clearly erroneous finding that the government simply could not apply for warrants as to individual box holders, it abused its discretion in concluding that the government did not exceed the scope of the warrant for this reason as well."