When law enforcement officials execute warrants for electronic
data, they usually create a mirror image of hard drives and other
electronic storage media. In recent years, it has become more
common for law enforcement to keep every bit and byte they obtain
from doing so. But the Second Circuit's June 17 opinion in
United States v. Ganias should put a stop to this
practice, thanks to the successful advocacy of Day Pitney's
Stanley A. Twardy Jr.,
Daniel E. Wenner and
John W. Cerreta.
In Ganias, federal agents obtained a search warrant to
search the computers of Stavros Ganias, a CPA, for evidence
regarding purported wrongdoing by an accounting client. Instead of
taking Ganias's computers, the agents mirror-imaged three hard
drives, which included large quantities of data outside the
warrant's scope. Twenty-three months later, when the agents
decided to pursue an investigation of Ganias himself, they obtained
a new search warrant and used it to search those mirror
