An administrative subpoena served upon a defendant's Internet service provider to obtain his subscriber information did not violate his Fourth Amendment rights, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled, because the defendant had no reasonable expection of privacy in his subscriber information. The court found that there was no evidence that the defendant had a subjective expectation of privacy in his name, e-mail address, telephone number and physical address, which he had voluntarily conveyed to the provider. The court also concluded that the defendant had no objectively reasonable expectation of privacy, noting that "'[e]very federal court to address this issue has held that subscriber information provided to an internet provider is not protected by the Fourth Amendment’s privacy expectation,'" citing United States v. Perrine, 518 F.3d 1196, 1204 (10th Cir. 2008).
United States v. Bynum, 604 F.3d 161 (4th Cir. May 5, 2010), cert. denied (U.S. June 14, 2010) Download PDF
