united-states investigation warrant
Are online accounts and phone numbers frozen when &quot;electronic devices&quot; are seized by law enforcement?
<p>The recent <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/rudy-giuliani-search-warrant/2021/04/28/e5ba6ed2-a83d-11eb-bca5-048b2759a489_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_5" rel="nofollow noreferrer">seizure of the cellphones and computers of Rudy Giuliani</a> by the FBI led me to wonder about the immediate, extra-legal consequences for such an individual.</p>
<p>Would this individual be restricted from transferring their phone number to another phone in order to continue using it, or to access their &quot;contacts&quot; list. Same for &quot;social media&quot; and other accounts (e.g. a password manager) – would the individual be locked out of those as well?</p>
<p>As a &quot;non-legal&quot; person, at first glance it seems to me that it would follow that the accounts would be frozen in order to preserve any evidence being sought. However, thinking about it further, if the warrants were only for &quot;electronic devices&quot; exclusive of electronic accounts and services (e.g. cell phone and social media accounts), then the individual should legally still be able to access them.</p>
<p>Stated a simpler way: what is the scope of a warrant for &quot;electronic devices&quot;?</p>

<p>Assuming that the police have a warrant to seize your cell phone, the scope of what can be seized is specified in the warrant. It is not automatic that seizing a phone entails seizure of some or all online accounts (e.g. automatic backups, collections of passwords in a Google account) and it does not automatically &quot;freeze&quot; or block a person's access to their accounts including phone accounts. It's not that it is impossible to seize an account, it's that it is not automatic: it has to be in the scope of the warrant. <a href="http://www.sao8.org/warrant.html#Phone%20Order" rel="noreferrer">Here</a> is a collection of petition templates, asking the court to allow the seizure of various things for various reasons (mostly electronic), including access to bank accounts. If the police suspect that information might be available online after it has been deleted from a phone, they would need to include online accounts in the scope of the petition(s). There is even a template for &quot;give me everything&quot;, called &quot;Frankenstein&quot;.</p>
