The question of how the Fourth Amendment applies to searches of computers has become a hot topic in the federal investigation of steroid use in baseball, with experts saying the outcome of the case could have broad implications for other cases involving computer records.

The Wall Street Journal reported Jan. 16 that civil-liberties advocates are concerned about a recent ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld the government's power to seize laboratory computer files as part of the investigation into steroid use by Major League Baseball players. The files had been seized by federal investigators from the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (BALCO) in 2003; BALCO has been accused of helping players dodge drug tests.

"The Supreme Court has never applied the Fourth Amendment to computers," said George Washington University associate law professor Orin Kerr. "The federal courts of appeals are beginning to decide a bunch of cases: in 2006, there were 20 or 30 in the broad area of how the Fourth Amendment applies to computers.  But each case is very fact-specific and narrow, so the law remains pretty murky."

Federal agents not only took BALCO records on the 10 baseball players being investigated, but also computer files on other sports stars and individuals who used the labs. "We were authorized specifically by the warrant to search every single file in all of their computers," said assistant U.S. Attorney Erika Frick. "We took only one directory. We were authorized to search every one of those files."

But opponents said that it would violate the Fourth Amendment if the feds used the data gathered to investigate players not named in the original search warrant. The amendment requires law enforcement to demonstrate probable cause to a judge in order to obtain a search warrant.

"The reason for the warrant requirement is to make clear, before the police seize records, the purpose of the search and the scope of the search," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. "It should not be viewed as unbounded authority to gather all data that is available."