9th Circuit Panel: No Right to Privacy in Sex Tourism Case

A man convicted of child exploitation had no right to privacy when the government seized his Facebook and Yahoo messaging data in the case, a 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled Wednesday in 20-50052. The panel rejected an argument from defendant Carsten Igor Rosenow that the Stored Communications Act and the Protect Our Children Act transformed the platform searches into government action. It also rejected his argument that government involvement in the platforms’ searches triggered a Fourth Amendment violation. Rosenow consented to the platforms “honoring preservation requests from law enforcement under” their terms of use, the court said. Judge Danielle Forrest filed the opinion with Judge Consuelo Callahan. Judge Susan Graber dissented, questioning whether Yahoo acted as a government instrument or agent. Yahoo’s motivation to conduct the searches was “intertwined with, and dependent on, the government’s enforcement of criminal laws,” she wrote. Rosenow was arrested after returning from a sex tourism trip involving minors in the Philippines.