Hi Carol, we have received a CD ROM disc with some of the returns from the search warrant that was issued on 12/16 regarding the defendant’s Yahoo email account, which covered the time period from the creation of the account to the present. These returns include all email from 2005 to 2009. Yahoo is still working on returns from 2009 to the present. According to Yahoo, the large amount of data in the defendant’s email account has made it difficult for Yahoo to produce all of the emails in one mailing.
The Judge had indicated that it was her desire to have her staff do an initial review of the returns for attorney client material. Yahoo has informed us that there is a very large amount of data on the disc that was sent to us. Also, Yahoo says that the material on the disc is in plain text format. To see the material in a format that looks like regular email, you will need a particular software program installed on your computer, which we can help you get.
Given the large amount of data on the disc and the trial starting tomorrow, we would ask the Court to reconsider allowing the US Attorney’s Office to conduct an initial review of the disc using a “taint team” of attorneys who are not assigned to this case. We feel that attorney client material can be easily identified by email addresses, and not by reviewing the content of the email.
Please let us know how the Court wants to proceed. Thanks.
Michael C. Martin
Assistant United States Attorney
Eastern District of Michigan
211 West Fort Street, Room 2268
Detroit, MI 48226
(313) 226-9670