The New Jersey Appellate Division confronted an issue of first impression: Whether communication data warrants (CDWs) or, conversely, wiretap orders had to be served on Facebook for law enforcement officers to secure prospective electronically stored information from two of Facebook’s users’ accounts as part of separate ongoing criminal investigations. The Court answered that the CDWs, but not wiretap orders, were required, where, as here, the data sought was information that Facebook would store as compared to simultaneous transmission of data through interception. But the Court also held that the CDWs relied upon in the two matters at issue were too long under the state’s warrant procedures and therefore required modification.
