The other shoe drops. Huma Abedin says was NEVER SERVED the warrant

[jberryhill]

62. A couple of obvious questions...

First off, what is it, exactly, that was searched?

Was it the physical devices, presumably already in custody to be searched, or were they digital images of the storage devices on those devices which had been made when they were initially seized in the Weiner investigation.

This news article is really hazy on the procedural details of the actual proceeding in which the letters were submitted.

Here's the thing... Let's say that two people, A and B, share a computer. A is suspected of doing something illegal on that computer. In the ordinary course, a warrant will issue for the computer and the investigators will make a copy of the drive - a complete image of everything stored on it. The physical computer at that point is irrelevant. The image can be searched for everything related to person A.

Then, if there is reason to believe that person B has done something illegal, or that person B's use of that computer is believed to have produced evidence of activity relevant to an investigation, in order to search the image for stuff that person B did, the investigators can get a warrant to search that image for person B's stuff. However, that warrant doesn't need to be served on person B - the investigators already have possession of the digital image pursuant to the warrant that was used to seize the computer in the course of investigating person A.

If you recall, this was the scheme that the NSA was working on at one point to capture vast swaths of digital communications on the internet and store it at a facility in Utah. Then, whenever there was a reason to look for something in particular, they could obtain a warrant and search that stored data for whatever in particular they were looking for. In other words, the stored data itself would only be searched pursuant to a warrant.

What seems to be going on here, and this news article is a trainwreck in terms of relating the actual proceeding in question, is that pursuant to a motion that the article doesn't even describe, the court is considering a request to unseal documents in the Weiner investigation. Hence, the court has sought input from parties that might have interests affected by unsealing those documents as to whether or not they should be unsealed in whole or in part.

But this part here doesn't strike me as all that relevant to anything:

“must give a copy of the warrant and a receipt or the property taken to the person from whom, or from whose premise, the property was taken.”

Presumably that already happened when the computer was seized in the first place. Otherwise, why on earth would anyone have handed it over.

But if the warrant to search Abedin's emails was in relation to a digital copy of the drive of that computer, then that digital copy was not "taken" from Abedin or Abedin's premises.

This article needs a lot more detail fleshed out in order to reach any kind of conclusion about WTF is going on. However, it is instead written in a sensationalistic style without any clue as to the relevant procedural circumstances.