United States Sixth Circuit

A preliminary injunction, prohibiting the government from seizing "the contents of any personal e-mail account maintained by an Internet Service Provider in the name of any resident of the Southern District of Ohio without providing the relevant account holder or subscriber prior notice and an opportunity to be heard on any complaint, motion, or other pleading seeking issuance of such an order" is affirmed, with slight modification, where the district court correctly determined that e-mail users maintain a reasonable expectation of privacy in the content of their e-mails, and the injunctive relief it crafted was largely appropriate.

Appellate Information

• Decided 06/18/2007
• Published 06/18/2007

Judges

• Before: BOGGS, Chief Judge;  MARTIN, BATCHELDER, DAUGHTREY, MOORE, COLE, CLAY, GILMAN, GIBBONS, ROGERS, SUTTON, COOK, McKEAGUE, and GRIFFIN, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Sixth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• ARGUED:  Steven L. Lane, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for Appellant.  Martin G. Weinberg, Law Offices, Boston, Massachusetts, for Appellee.   ON BRIEF:  Steven L. Lane, Nathan P. Judish, John H. Zacharia, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., Benjamin C. Glassman, Donetta D. Wiethe, Assistant United States Attorneys, Cincinnati, Ohio, for Appellant.  Martin G. Weinberg, Law Offices, Boston, Massachusetts, Martin Stanley Pinales, Sirkin, Pinales & Schwartz, Cincinnati, Ohio, for Appellee.  Kevin S. Bankston, Electronic Frontier Foundation, San Francisco, California, Patricia L. Bellia, Notre Dame Law School, Notre Dame, Indiana, Susan A. Freiwald, University of San Francisco School of Law, San Francisco, California, for Amici Curiae.