Search warrants

The new judge presiding over the James Holmes trial unsealed the highly coveted search and arrest warrants in the case on Thursday, providing the media with new details about the high-profile Colorado movie theater shooting.

The Senate Judiciary Committee Friday unanimously approved a “very overdue” bill that would require law enforcement officials to get a warrant before accessing e-mail messages, updating a dated privacy law.

The proposed amendments are historic and will create a consistent method for handling government access to online communications, said Sophia Cope, director of government affairs at the Newspaper Association of America. But the measure likely won’t go to the Senate this year, forcing the process to start over again next year, she said.

Paula Broadwell isn’t the only person whose Gmail messages were read by government officials – Google received almost 8,000 e-mail access requests from U.S. state and federal governments in the past six months, according to the latest Google Transparency Report.

Google fully or partially granted 90 percent of the requests made by federal, state and local U.S. governments, according to the report. The requests by stateside governments account for more than a third of requests worldwide.

A federal appellate court held last week that there is no First Amendment right for the media to access police and court documents filed in connection with search warrant proceedings.

Affidavits for search warrants for the home, office, locker and safe deposit boxes of an ex-college basketball coach accused of sexual abuse will remain shielded from public view, at least for now, after a federal judge denied four New York-based media organizations’ requests to unseal the documents.

The public has a right to view materials filed in support of search warrant applications once an investigation is over, a federal appeals court recently held, adding that the right of access is infringed when the material is sealed because of general concerns that it may be posted online.

Police officers in Washington state are seeking to unmask and prosecute the anonymous creator of a series of videos critical of the department in what officials describe as a cyberstalking investigation.

Federal judges who decide whether or not to seal a court case can turn to a Federal Judicial Center pocket guide, which includes a brief history of case law on secret courts and a checklist of First and Sixth Amendment considerations.

An Illinois appellate court held on Dec. 8 that there is no right of access for the public to obtain search warrants that have been filed with the courts, even after the warrants have been executed. The decision came down Dec. 8 and seemingly contradicts what is commonly practiced in the state.