subpoena request in USA

I doubt that any CF books would deal with this type of issue in detail as this is strictly a legal matter and the rules will vary by jurisdiction.

I would suggest that you take a look at your State's rules for civil procedure as a place to start.

It sounds like you have cross-border or state lines issue where the issuing authority doesn't have jursdiction in the location that the subpoena will be served.
Most statutes have what is called 'backing'. This allows the judicial authority in the target's location to endorse the warrant or subpoena signed in the issuing jurisdiction. If this is a criminal matter I don't know how you would get a subpoena signed unless you are LE (at least that is the case up here). Keep in mind that you can't just get a subpoena or warrant without cause, you have to show reasonable grounds and how that information is relevant to a breach of some law in your application or affidavit to issue the order. In other words you can't go 'fishing'. I am sure that any US LE or ex-US LE here can help you further or clarify any differences in the US.

Ron Bailey MSc (London) CGA
Canada Revenue Agency
Criminal Investigations Program
ron.bailey@cra-arc.gc.ca

Good luck.

I have dealt with Google on a couple of cases and I can tell you 1) they may not have (or may claim not to have) the information that you want and 2) you'll have to jump through hoops to get it if they do.

Have you determined whether they are even able to comply with your request? Remember that they, literally, process millions of transactions a day (or more), and so the likelihood that they would preserve such data is small and they are likely to argue that there is a significant hardship to them to produce it if they could.

This is where a lawyer comes in. You won't get anything from them without the proper legal authority and they have a procedure in place for subpoenas. Your best bet is to contact their legal counsel (unless they are the defendant), and explain what it is that you want. Their legal counsel will either explain to you how to get it or will tell you that what you are looking for doesn't exist.

Then go from there.

Hello and Thank you for the quick replies.

It is a civil case and I do have proper cause for a subpoena and yes, I could just have the lawyer do all the work, but as I said above, I would like to do the work myself. If the subpeona is accurate and specific I doubt that google will give me much of a run around. But I appreciate you guys shareing your experiences in this matter.

Again, my main question was how do I go about filling a subpeona request for google, or yahoo, or msn, etc…
If anyone can answer the two questions in my first post, I would be very greatful.

Thank you!

Ron,

I have looked into State's rules for civil procedure before but have not found a direct answer. I will look again, just in case I missed something.

Thanks!

Again, my main question was how do I go about filling a subpeona request for google, or yahoo, or msn, etc…

Serve your subpoena to

Google, Inc.
Attn Legal Department
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043

Note Kent Walker is Vice President & General Counsel

Yahoo! Inc.
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089

Note Michael J. Callahan is Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary

Microsoft Corp.
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052-6399

Note Brad Smith is General Counsel

Ron,

I have looked into State's rules for civil procedure before but have not found a direct answer. I will look again, just in case I missed something.

Thanks!

No worries!
I suggested this because my experience is that the form of the subpoena is set out (at least here) as a schedule to the legislation eg in the Canadian Criminal Code the various prescribed 'Forms' are actually given to you in the Schedules and that is the format that the justice will want to see. I know that the IRS have a subpoena that isn't quite as formally worded so I expect there is also some standard set out in the civil rules. If you are a poster to the CFID mailing list you may want to bounce your question there. There are quite a few LE types from the US on there.

RB

It is a civil case and I do have proper cause for a subpoena and yes, I could just have the lawyer do all the work, but as I said above, I would like to do the work myself. If the subpeona is accurate and specific I doubt that google will give me much of a run around. But I appreciate you guys shareing your experiences in this matter.

Again, if Google is not a party to the action, the simplest and best thing to do is call their corporate counsel and ask what is the procedure. If what you seek is not something that they can provide, then a subpoena would be frivolous.

Also, unless there is a legal action pending (even if it is a plaintiff v John Doe), you aren't going to get a judge to issue a civil subpoena. Even if their is legal action, pending, unless you are representing a party to the action (an attorney of record for the party), you have no standing with which to obtain the subpoena. In fact, the Court would question why you are requesting the subpoena and not the attorney of record and you be regarded as practicing law without a license (unless you are representing yourself, which you are entitled to do).

Companies like Google are being subpoenaed all the time. It would take an army of attorneys to handle every subpoena that might come across their desks and they'd rather that you spend your money than that they spend theirs so they'll likely ignore it or tell you that the information is not available and, frankly, there is not much that you can do about it unless you are prepared to depose their people about what information they keep.

If you want a stopgap until you can complete the necessary paperwork, you can send them a Preservation Letter outlining the data that you want them to preserve but, again, there needs to be a why (i.e., pending legal action). The Preservation Letter may stimulate them to either tell you to go jump in a lake or they'll send you the procedure for requesting data via a subpoena.

Remember that the Courts always weigh hardship to the responding party in determining whether to issue a subpoena. In some cases, civil subpoenas can legally be ignored, for example, web mail hosting sites are protected, by law, from civil subpoenas of customers' e-mail. If they weren't, then every spouse seeking evidence of infidelity would be getting subpoenas for the other spouse's e-mail.

Google, similarly, has some legal protections against nuisance suits and subpoenas because if they didn't, they could be paralyzed by thousands of requests such as yours.

If you want to write it, go ahead. I frequently write the text of the subpoena because I know, better than the attorney, what I want to see. But I could neve file the request for my clients; that is the responsibility of their attorneys.

And don't be surprised if they come back and say "We don't keep that data" because, in many cases, they don't.

Ok,

thanks for the responses, this was all very good information and feedback.
It sounds like a good point that was brought up about the judge possible questioning why the attorney for the party did not fill the subpoena. Therefore I will write the subpoena for this case on behalf of the Attorney and have him submit it, since I know what is needed from a technical perspective more so then he does. Independently of this particular case I will continue to research this matter.

Thanks again for all of your help!

[…] I could just have the lawyer do all the work, but as I said above, I would like to do the work myself. […]

I would be very leery of stepping out of my core competency on a case.

Such action could risk the case in too many ways, not even speaking about my reputation.

I would approach the attorney(s) in the case and ask them to do it, but watch them like a hawk and take copious notes.

Then, do it at the next case, and next case. By the fifth case, I might feel confident enough to paralegal the stuff for the lawyers. D

Just how I would do it.