The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects all of us against “unreasonable search and seizure” by law enforcement. This means that searches generally cannot be conducted without first obtaining a warrant. If evidence is obtained without a warrant, defendants may file a motion to have that evidence suppressed.
Even when a warrant is obtained, it does not give police unfettered power to search wherever and whenever they want. Warrants must be limited in scope. Warrants that are too broad can also be challenged before trial. In some cases, the subjects of search warrants simply refuse to abide by them because they are written too broadly (this is not always a successful strategy, but it does happen).
Such an incident seems to have occurred recently when e-commerce giant Amazon refused to turn over data that could contain evidence in a murder investigation. According to news reports, law enforcement agencies ordered Amazon to turn over “electronic data in the form of audio recordings, transcribed records, text records and other data contained on an Amazon Echo device” owned by the defendant in the case. Because the Amazon Echo operates through voice interaction, police are apparently hoping that it picked up audio snippets or other information that could prove helpful to the investigation.
But Amazon has said that it will not comply with the warrant, issuing a statement that said “Amazon objects to overbroad or otherwise inappropriate demands as a matter of course.” The company agreed with the defendant’s attorney that the warrant was “vague and full of supposition.”
Even if Amazon fully complied with the warrant, it seems unlikely that the data would hold any useful evidence. But that’s ultimately less important than the precedent set by refusing to comply with an overly broad search warrant. As technology becomes an ever-larger part of our daily lives, tech companies are pushing back against increasing demands from law enforcement to violate the privacy of average citizens.