Court Orders Rehearing in CDT Case

The New York Times reports that yesterday a federal appeals court ordered a rehearing of a 2006 ruling of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of United States v. Comprehensive Drug Testing, Inc. (CDT). In 2004, search warrants were issued authorizing the seizure of drug test records and specimens for ten named Balco-connected players. During the search, the government seized a computer directory containing all of the computer files for CDT's sports drug testing programs. The computer directory contained numerous subdirectories and hundreds of files, and agents removed copies of the files for later review at government offices. The documents seized included a twenty-five-page master list of all MLB players tested during the 2003 season and a thirty-four-page list of positive drug testing results for eight of the ten named Balco players, intermingled with positive results for twenty-six other players. Using information culled from the computer directory, the government then applied for and obtained new search warrants to seize all specimens and records relating to over one hundred non-Balco players who had tested positive for steroids.

The Ninth Circuit ruled in a 115-page opinion that the government had legally obtained the evidence, which I heavily criticized in a post saying "this decision can't be the right result." I'm glad to see that there is going to be a rehearing because this ruling has much broader implications than affecting a few athletes who allegedly tested positive for steroids. This ruling impacts each and every citizen, because virtually all confidential records and information is stored and intermingled in electronic form on computers one way or another (hospital records, employment records, etc.).

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