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http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/2010/09/13/2010-09-13_appeals_panel_feds_illegally_seized_drug_data.html
BY MICHAEL O'KEEFFE AND NATHANIEL VINTON
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITERS
Monday, September 13th 2010, 10:20 PM
Already world-famous among sports fans for forcing a revision of the record books, the U.S. government's top steroid cop, Jeff Novitzky, is now becoming a household name to experts in constitutional law as well.
A federal appeals court Monday reaffirmed its previous ruling that Novitzky violated Fourth Amendment restrictions on unreasonable searches during a 2004 seizure of records related to Major League Baseball's then-nascent anti-doping program - a search that turned up a spreadsheet with more than 100 players who had tested positive in confidential urine tests.
The full Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, used the episode as a teaching moment for law enforcement officials, appending to its ruling a series of guidelines for future seizures of computerized evidence, where realities of the digital age often force agents to seize private information not explicity covered by a search warrant.
Since virtually every business and institution, including medical facilities, banks and schools, now keeps records on computers, the ruling affects almost every American.
"Government intrusions into large private databases thus have the potential to expose exceedingly sensitive information about countless individuals not implicated in any criminal activity, who might not even know that the information about them has been seized and thus can do nothing to protect their privacy," the 58-page ruling stated.
The Major League Baseball Players Association applauded the ruling, which will be the judiciary's final statement on the matter unless prosecutors appeal to the Supreme Court.
"We've been steadfast in our belief that the seizures were unconstitutional, and today's announcement, reaffirming the Circuit's previous ruling, is welcome news," said Michael Weiner, executive director of the MLBPA.
Representatives of the U.S. Attorney's office in the Northern District of California did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The case evolved out of that office when Novitzky, then a special agent for the Internal Revenue Service, raided two drug-testing facilities, Quest Diagnostics and Comprehensive Drug Testing, seeking evidence related to 10 players linked to the BALCO doping ring Novitzky had uncovered.
When Novitzky came away with a spreadsheet connecting 104 players to banned drugs, the players' union sued, basing its appeal on privacy rights enshrined by the Fourth Amendment. Various courts have batted the issue back-and-forth for years, most recently when Monday's 11-judge panel ordered the government to return to the laboratories the evidence, even though some of the identities of the players implicated have been leaked to the media.
Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, writing the appeal, wrote that the digital era presented new challenges for judges, agents and prosecutors in determining when evidence was lying in "plain sight" of investigators and therefore entitled them to seize it even when the search warrant didn't explicitly list that evidence.
"This calls for greater vigilance on the part of judicial officers in striking the right balance between the government's interest in law enforcement and the right of individuals to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures," Kozinski wrote.
Novitzky's search warrant authorized him to collect records of 10 athletes linked to BALCO. On a hard drive that has become known in court papers as "The Tracey Directory," Novitzky found a spreadsheet of containing some of the sport's darkest secrets.
"The spreadsheet did not, however, initially display on the agent's computer screen the results of steroid testing as to the other ballplayers," Kozinski wrote in the ruling. "To see the spreadsheet column containing the results of the tests of the other ballplayers, the agent had to scroll to his right on the spreadsheet, onto another screen. However, once he scrolled to the right, the agent could see not only the testing results for the targeted ten, but also the results for all of the other ballplayers whose results were listed on the spreadsheet."
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/2010/09/13/2010-09-13_appeals_panel_feds_illegally_seized_drug_data.html
BY MICHAEL O'KEEFFE AND NATHANIEL VINTON
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITERS
Monday, September 13th 2010, 10:20 PM
Already world-famous among sports fans for forcing a revision of the record books, the U.S. government's top steroid cop, Jeff Novitzky, is now becoming a household name to experts in constitutional law as well.
A federal appeals court Monday reaffirmed its previous ruling that Novitzky violated Fourth Amendment restrictions on unreasonable searches during a 2004 seizure of records related to Major League Baseball's then-nascent anti-doping program - a search that turned up a spreadsheet with more than 100 players who had tested positive in confidential urine tests.
The full Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, used the episode as a teaching moment for law enforcement officials, appending to its ruling a series of guidelines for future seizures of computerized evidence, where realities of the digital age often force agents to seize private information not explicity covered by a search warrant.
Since virtually every business and institution, including medical facilities, banks and schools, now keeps records on computers, the ruling affects almost every American.
"Government intrusions into large private databases thus have the potential to expose exceedingly sensitive information about countless individuals not implicated in any criminal activity, who might not even know that the information about them has been seized and thus can do nothing to protect their privacy," the 58-page ruling stated.
The Major League Baseball Players Association applauded the ruling, which will be the judiciary's final statement on the matter unless prosecutors appeal to the Supreme Court.
"We've been steadfast in our belief that the seizures were unconstitutional, and today's announcement, reaffirming the Circuit's previous ruling, is welcome news," said Michael Weiner, executive director of the MLBPA.
Representatives of the U.S. Attorney's office in the Northern District of California did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The case evolved out of that office when Novitzky, then a special agent for the Internal Revenue Service, raided two drug-testing facilities, Quest Diagnostics and Comprehensive Drug Testing, seeking evidence related to 10 players linked to the BALCO doping ring Novitzky had uncovered.
When Novitzky came away with a spreadsheet connecting 104 players to banned drugs, the players' union sued, basing its appeal on privacy rights enshrined by the Fourth Amendment. Various courts have batted the issue back-and-forth for years, most recently when Monday's 11-judge panel ordered the government to return to the laboratories the evidence, even though some of the identities of the players implicated have been leaked to the media.
Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, writing the appeal, wrote that the digital era presented new challenges for judges, agents and prosecutors in determining when evidence was lying in "plain sight" of investigators and therefore entitled them to seize it even when the search warrant didn't explicitly list that evidence.
"This calls for greater vigilance on the part of judicial officers in striking the right balance between the government's interest in law enforcement and the right of individuals to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures," Kozinski wrote.
Novitzky's search warrant authorized him to collect records of 10 athletes linked to BALCO. On a hard drive that has become known in court papers as "The Tracey Directory," Novitzky found a spreadsheet of containing some of the sport's darkest secrets.
"The spreadsheet did not, however, initially display on the agent's computer screen the results of steroid testing as to the other ballplayers," Kozinski wrote in the ruling. "To see the spreadsheet column containing the results of the tests of the other ballplayers, the agent had to scroll to his right on the spreadsheet, onto another screen. However, once he scrolled to the right, the agent could see not only the testing results for the targeted ten, but also the results for all of the other ballplayers whose results were listed on the spreadsheet."
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/2010/09/13/2010-09-13_appeals_panel_feds_illegally_seized_drug_data.html
