ROGERS, Circuit Judge.
This case addresses whether an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the magnetic strips on credit cards. On May 23, 2013, Morristown Police Corporal Todd Davidson stopped a rental vehicle driven by Mamadou Bah for speeding in a construction zone. During the traffic stop, officers placed Bah under arrest for driving on a suspended license and detained passenger Allan Harvey for "investigatory purposes" after discovering approximately 72 credit, debit, and gift cards in the rental car's glove compartment and trunk. Bah and Harvey filed motions to suppress evidence of the credit, debit, and gift cards and cell phones found in the car in district court, alleging that the officers had violated their Fourth Amendment rights by: (1) unlawfully searching the rental car in which Bah and Harvey were driving, incident to Bah's arrest; (2) scanning the magnetic strips on numerous credit, debit, and gift cards found inside the vehicle, without first obtaining a warrant; (3) performing a warrantless search of a Blackberry cell phone; and (4) unlawfully detaining Harvey following Bah's arrest. The district court denied their motions, and Bah and Harvey appeal. Because Harvey does not have standing to contest the search of Bah's rental vehicle, Harvey was reasonably detained during the traffic stop, the warrantless search of Bah's Blackberry did not taint the subsequent cell phone searches conducted pursuant to a warrant, and scanning the magnetic strips of credit and gift cards was not a search, the district court properly determined that neither Bah nor Harvey's Fourth Amendment rights were violated.
On May 23, 2013, Morristown Police Corporal Todd Davidson stopped a white Nissan Altima for traveling 56 miles per hour in a 35-mile-per-hour construction zone. Davidson approached the vehicle and found Mamadou Bah in the driver's seat and Allan Marcus Harvey reclined in the front passenger seat, "as if he [had been] taking a nap." Bah gave Davidson his license and documentation on the Hertz rental vehicle, and Davidson returned to his cruiser to perform a background check. While running the background check, Davidson observed Harvey "fumbling around the passenger's side
Before back-up arrived, the records check revealed that Bah's license had been suspended. Consequently, Davidson prepared to arrest Bah, pursuant to police regulation General Order 500.49. Additionally, because Bah was the only driver listed on the rental agreement, Davidson decided to tow the vehicle. Once Officer Derrick Johnson responded to the scene, and Davidson briefed him on the situation, Bah was arrested and secured in Davidson's police cruiser. Johnson then ordered Harvey to step out of the vehicle, patted him down, and asked for Harvey's identification.
After Harvey exited the vehicle, Davidson searched it. Bah's initial arrest report referred to the search as one conducted incident to Bah's arrest; during the motion to suppress hearing, however, Davidson testified that he had simply conducted an inventory search as required by department policy. According to Davidson, General Order 200.04-B allows an officer — provided there is lawful justification to impound the vehicle — to "conduct an inventory search of the contents of the vehicle and all containers therein." In addition to searching the glove compartment and trunk, Davidson requested a K-9 sniff because the car was a rental; Davidson did "not want the next renter or lessee of the vehicle to be caught with something that they didn't know was in the vehicle."
During the search, Davidson found a damaged Blackberry cellular phone in the driver's side door pocket, two cellular phones in the center console between the passenger and driver seats, an iPhone in the passenger side door pocket, several cartons of cigarettes in the back seat, four credit, debit, or prepaid gift cards in the passenger glovebox, and a large quantity of additional cards in a plastic bag in the trunk of the vehicle, inside a bag that Harvey said belonged to Bah. Upon discovering approximately 68 credit, debit, and gift cards in the trunk, Davidson "felt that the investigation needed to be furthered[, and] ... needed to involve an investigator with the police department." Davidson then advised Harvey that, although he was "not under arrest," he was being placed in "temporary custody." Bah and Harvey were then both transported to the Morristown Police Department in handcuffs,
At the police department, Detective Tracy Bowman and Corporal Gary Bean examined the items from the rental vehicle and contacted Special Agent Kevin Kimbrough of the Tennessee Highway Patrol, who had experience with identity theft investigations. Bowman and Johnson — while waiting for Kimbrough and without a warrant — looked at a text message and several photographs on the unlocked Blackberry cellular phone. The photographs depicted "a large amount of cash," "what appeared to be marijuana," and a "skimming device," which can be used to re-encode magnetic strips. The locked cellular phones were not examined. When Kimbrough arrived, another officer showed him the photographs from the Blackberry cellular phone.
Kimbrough — also without a warrant
Upon scanning the 18 cards, Kimbrough found that a "majority, if not all" of the magstripes had been re-encoded so that the financial information they contained did not match the information printed on the front and backs of the cards. Bah and Harvey were then taken into custody and transported to the Hamblin County Jail.
In total, officers recovered 86 cards from Bah, Harvey and their vehicle: four
Based on his determination that the magstripes had been re-encoded with compromised or stolen account numbers, Allen obtained a federal search warrant for the cellular telephones seized following the traffic stop. The warrant affidavit did not refer to any of the information officers had already viewed on the Blackberry cellular phone. On May 30, 2013, Bah and Harvey were charged with production, use, or trafficking in counterfeit access devices, and later indicted.
Both Bah and Harvey moved to suppress the evidence obtained from the rental vehicle, arguing that the search could not be justified as a search incident to Bah's arrest under the rule of Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332, 129 S.Ct. 1710, 173 L.Ed.2d 485 (2009). Bah further alleged that the officers, by looking at images on his cell phone and scanning the magstripes on the cards without first obtaining a warrant, had performed unlawful searches.
The United States replied that: (1) the search of the rental vehicle was a valid inventory search, not a search incident to arrest; (2) even assuming arguendo that the search was unlawful under Gant, the motion should nevertheless be denied because the seized items would have been inevitably discovered after the vehicle had been towed, impounded and inventoried; (3) under United States v. Wurie, 728 F.3d 1 (1st Cir.2013), the defendant's cellular phone was properly searched incident to arrest and a warrant was later obtained to search the other cell phones; (4) the scanning of the magstripes did not constitute an unlawful search because there was no reasonable expectation of privacy in the data contained on the magstripes; and (5) because Harvey was properly detained during the pendency of the records check, he was also properly detained — until the officers could confirm or dispel their suspicions of his involvement in criminal activity — after Davidson discovered a large quantity of credit/debit/gift cards in the vehicle.
After a lengthy suppression hearing, the magistrate judge recommended that the district court deny Bah and Harvey's motions to suppress. First, crediting Davidson's and Johnson's testimony, the magistrate judge found that the vehicle search was a valid inventory search. The judge explained:
The judge also, sua sponte, concluded that Harvey lacked standing to contest the search of the rental vehicle because Bah was the only authorized driver.
Second, the magistrate judge rejected Bah's contention that retrieving data from the magstripes constituted a search, because "[a]n owner or possessor of a credit, debit, or gift card has no reasonable expectation of privacy in the data encoded on the magnetic strip." Third, the magistrate judge refused to suppress evidence from the cellular phones because, even assuming that the initial warrantless search of Bah's cell phone had been unlawful, a warrant was ultimately obtained without any reference to the allegedly improperly collected information. And fourth, the magistrate judge found Harvey's detention reasonable. The magistrate judge reasoned:
After conducting de novo review, the district court adopted the magistrate judge's factual findings, overruled Bah and Harvey's objections and denied the suppression motions.
Bah and Harvey entered conditional guilty pleas to "produc[ing], us[ing], and traffic[king] in counterfeit access devices, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1029(a)(1) and (c)(1)(A)(i)." They preserved, however, their rights to appeal the denials of their respective suppression motions. The district court then sentenced them to ten months' imprisonment each, and this appeal followed.
On appeal, both Bah and Harvey allege that (1) the warrantless searches of the magnetic strips on the credit/debit/gift cards violated their Fourth Amendment rights; and (2) the court erred in failing to suppress information obtained from the seized cell phones. Harvey additionally contends that his detention — following Bah's arrest — was unreasonable, and that
As an initial matter, Harvey — a passenger with no possessory interest in the rental vehicle — does not have standing to directly contest the legality of the vehicle search on Fourth Amendment privacy grounds.
Though Harvey does not have standing to contest the legality of the vehicle search, he may nevertheless contest the legality of his detention. Passengers have standing to contest the lawfulness of their seizure, Brendlin v. California, 551 U.S. 249, 251, 127 S.Ct. 2400, 168 L.Ed.2d 132 (2007), and — in doing so — argue that evidence found during an ensuing vehicle search "should be suppressed as fruits of illegal activity," Ellis, 497 F.3d at 612 (internal quotations and citation omitted). Harvey, however, cannot show that the credit cards found in the vehicle should be excluded as the fruits of his unlawful detention for two reasons: (1) the initial traffic stop was lawful; and (2) the credit cards found in the vehicle were not the "fruits" of Harvey's continued detention. In contesting their seizure, passengers often argue that the initial stop was unlawful or that the officers impermissibly expanded the scope and duration of their detention during the traffic stop. See, e.g., Brendlin, 551 U.S. at 251, 127 S.Ct. 2400; Ellis, 497 F.3d at 612. First, Harvey does not contend — nor can he — that the initial stop was unlawful. Officer Davidson stopped the vehicle in which Harvey was a passenger after observing it traveling 56 miles per hour in a 35-mile-per-hour construction zone. Second, even assuming that Harvey's continued detention while Officer Davidson searched the car was unlawful — a premise refuted below — Harvey still cannot show that the evidence discovered in the vehicle was the "fruit" of his unlawful detention; rather, the cards found in the vehicle were the "fruits" of Bah's arrest for driving on a suspended license and the subsequent need to tow and inventory — pursuant to standard police operation procedures — the vehicle. Stated another way, if we were to suppose that at the time of Bah's arrest, the police had indicated that Harvey was free to leave, the cards in the vehicle would still have been discovered because they were located in a car rented and controlled by Bah (who had been arrested), a car over which Harvey had no control. Ultimately, because Harvey's continued detention was not the cause of the search of Bah's rental vehicle and Harvey does not contest either the legality of the initial stop or Bah's arrest, Harvey cannot show that the credit, debit and gift cards found during the vehicle search should be suppressed as the fruits of his unlawful detention.
Harvey does, however, have standing to contest the reasonableness of his prolonged detention and argue that the
Second, Officer Davidson was planning to conduct an inventory search in accordance with City of Morristown General Orders 500.51, ¶ 6, and 200.04B, ¶ I.1.a, before having the vehicle towed, which would necessarily require that Harvey exit the vehicle. Inventory searches of vehicles subject to impoundment are permitted, provided the scope of the inventory search is authorized by standardized police procedures. Colorado v. Bertine, 479 U.S. 367, 371, 374-76, 107 S.Ct. 738, 93 L.Ed.2d 739 (1987). Thus, the officer's request that Harvey exit the vehicle and provide identification — and the subsequent search of the passenger compartment — was not unreasonable under the circumstances.
Once Officer Davidson discovered four credit, debit, and gift cards in the glovebox — the same area where Davidson had previously observed Harvey "fumbling around" — and 68 credit, debit, and gift cards in the trunk during the inventory search, the officers had probable cause to arrest Harvey on suspicion of identity theft. Probable cause is a common-sense concept defined by the "practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, act." Maryland v. Pringle, 540 U.S. 366, 370, 124 S.Ct. 795, 157 L.Ed.2d 769 (2003) (internal quotations and citation omitted).
Even though the officers chose not to arrest Harvey until after the cards had been scanned at the station, the officers nevertheless had probable cause to detain him at the scene of the traffic stop, thus justifying his continued detention and transport to the police station. As a result, the cards found in Harvey's wallet and in the back seat of the police cruiser were properly admitted.
Harvey contends, however, that there was a brief period during the traffic stop when the officers had neither reasonable suspicion nor probable cause to detain him: the time between when Officer Davidson concluded his search of the passenger compartment, having found no weapons, and Officer Davidson's search of the trunk. However, a review of the traffic stop video does not support such a finding. Harvey is asked to exit the vehicle and provide identification approximately ten minutes into the traffic stop. At 10:22, Officer Johnson conducts a weapon check of Harvey and at 11:16, calls in Harvey's license information for a background check. Around 12:25, Officer Davidson begins the inventory search on the driver's side, and between 13:51 and 15:15, searches the passenger compartment. It is not until 16:03 that Officer Davidson mentions that Harvey's license was not valid — thus concluding the identification check — though, on the basis of poor quality audio, the officers may have learned of Harvey's suspended license as early as 13:10. Officer Davidson then starts his search of the trunk at approximately 15:30, after Harvey had already informed the officers that he had a bag in the trunk. Officer Davidson searches Harvey's bag until approximately 19:45. Shortly thereafter, Officer Davidson discovers the debit, credit, and gift cards in the other bag in the trunk.
Under Harvey's logic, officers had neither reasonable suspicion nor probable cause to detain him between 15:15 — the end of Officer Davidson's search of the passenger compartment — and 20:05 (the point at which the cards were found), a time period of at most five minutes. Harvey, however, ignores two key facts. First, Officer Davidson had reasonable suspicion to detain Harvey for investigatory purposes after he found four credit/debit/gift cards in the glove box — the area where Harvey had previously been "fumbling around." In fact, at 18:40, while still conducting a search of Harvey's bag in the trunk, Officer Davidson asked Harvey about the cards found in the glove box, showing particular interest in the fact that one of the cards had not yet been activated. Harvey's furtive movements in the
Second, less than fifteen seconds after Officer Davidson completed his search of the passenger compartment, and before Officer Davidson began a search of the trunk, Harvey informed the officers that one of the bags in the trunk belonged to him. In light of this information, it would have been reasonable for the officers to assume that Harvey did not intend to leave without his belongings. It follows that Harvey's continued detention as Officer Davidson searched Harvey's backpack for weapons was reasonable, particularly given Harvey's furtive movements and Officer Davidson's concerns regarding officer safety. The 68 credit, debit and gift cards were found almost immediately after Officer Davidson completed his lawful search of Harvey's bag. The record does not support finding that Harvey's continued detention for the five contested minutes was unreasonable.
Harvey mistakenly relies on Rodriguez v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 135 S.Ct. 1609, 191 L.Ed.2d 492 (2015), a case in which the Supreme Court recently held that, absent reasonable suspicion, police officers cannot prolong a traffic stop — even for seven to eight minutes — solely to conduct a dog sniff. Harvey cites Rodriguez to argue that his continued detention following Bah's arrest for "the purposes of an `inventory search' of the trunk was unlawful." (Emphasis added.) Yet, in so arguing, Harvey minimizes the facts of his case and fails to acknowledge meaningful, factual distinctions between his detention and that described in Rodriguez. For instance, unlike in Rodriguez where the officers extended the traffic stop — without any individualized suspicion — after all tasks tied to the traffic infraction had been completed, id. at 1614, 1616, the officers here had reasonable suspicion to continue Harvey's detention: during the protective sweep of the passenger compartment — which Harvey in his Rule 28(j) Letter apparently concedes was lawful — they found four credit, debit and gift cards, including one which had not yet been activated, in the glove box where Harvey had been "fumbling around." Thus, Harvey was not detained for "the purposes of an `inventory search,'" a search that would have been conducted even if Harvey had been released, but rather to permit the officers to confirm or dispel their suspicions surrounding the cards. Second, where the police officers in Rodriguez refused to let Rodriguez leave after the citation had been issued, much of Harvey's continued detention resulted from his decision to inform the officers that he had a bag in the trunk.
The warrantless scans of the magnetic strips on the credit, debit, and
First, the scans of the magnetic strips of the credit and gift cards did not involve physical intrusions into constitutionally-protected areas. As the district court in United States v. Alabi, 943 F.Supp.2d 1201 (D.N.M.2013) explained,
Second, even assuming for the sake of argument that Bah and Harvey hold a subjective expectation of privacy in the magnetic strips
Every court to have addressed this question has reached the same conclusion. Some courts have stressed that there can be no reasonable expectation of privacy in an account number — and consequently, magnetic strip — that is routinely shared with cashiers every time the card is used. For instance, in United States v. Medina, No. 09-20717-CR, 2009 WL 3669636 (S.D.Fla. Oct. 24, 2009) (rev'd on other grounds), the court emphasized that "the credit card holder voluntarily turns over his credit card number every time he uses the card," and then found that there is "no expectation of privacy in that number." Id. at *11. The court in United States v. Briere de L'Isle, No. 4:14-CR-3089, 2014 WL 5431349, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 151078 (D.Neb. Oct. 24, 2014), likewise suggested that "[s]ociety is not prepared to accept as legitimate an asserted privacy interest in information that any member of the public may see." Id. at *3, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 151078 at *7.
Other courts have emphasized the fact that the scan of the magnetic strip reveals little — to potentially nothing — that cannot be viewed on the front and back of the physical card; consequently, these courts have reasoned that once law enforcement personnel have lawful, physical possession of the card, the scan does not constitute a separate "search." In Medina, for instance, the court explained:
2009 WL 3669636, at *10. The court in Alabi similarly reasoned:
943 F.Supp.2d at 1279-80.
Finally, other courts focus on the fact that a scan of the magnetic strip will usually only disclose the presence or absence of activity that is not legal. The reasonable-expectation-of-privacy test in concept "presupposes an innocent person," Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, 438, 111 S.Ct. 2382, 115 L.Ed.2d 389 (1991), and "government conduct that only reveals the possession of contraband compromises no legitimate privacy interests." Briere de L'Isle, 2014 WL 5431349, at *3, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 151078, at *9 (citing Caballes, 543 U.S. at 408-09, 125 S.Ct. 834). The Alabi court thus reasoned:
943 F.Supp.2d at 1271, 1273. The question presented here lies at "an intersection ... between the principle that there is no legitimate privacy interest in already-known information, and ... no legitimate privacy interest in contraband." Briere de L'Isle, 2014 WL 5431349, at *3, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 151078, at *9. In light of those principles, when law enforcement has lawful physical possession of the credit, debit and gift cards — as the officers did here — there is no separate privacy interest in the magnetic strip beyond that in the cards themselves.
Two arguments raised by Harvey and Bah deserve a brief response. First, Harvey contends that because he did not "voluntarily relinquish[] the data by offering it for use to obtain a good in return," the reading of the magnetic strip was a search. Bah, somewhat similarly, appears to suggest that, because the average American, "[w]hen arrested for a suspended license... would not anticipate law enforcement going through their wallet and swiping anything with a magstripe through a reader," the scans were unlawful searches. It is true that neither Harvey nor Bah "consented" to the scans or "relinquished" their cards in the course of a financial transaction; however, because law enforcement here came into lawful possession of the cards, as outlined above, Bah and Harvey retained no additional privacy interest in the magnetic strips.
Second, because the magnetic strip on a credit card does not contain the same quality or quantity of personal information that can be found on cell phones, computers, or cassette tapes, the reasoning underlying the Court's recent opinion in Riley v. California, ___ U.S. ___, 134 S.Ct. 2473, 189 L.Ed.2d 430 (2014), does not apply. In holding that cell phones generally cannot be searched without a warrant, the Riley Court focused on the "quantity and quality of personal information that can be obtained from a modern smartphone, and the expectation of privacy that an individual may have in such information." Briere de L'Isle, 2014 WL 5431349, at *4, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 151078, at *10-*11 (discussing Riley). "Modern cell phones," the Court explained, "implicate privacy concerns
No such concerns are present here. The storage capacity of the magnetic strip of a credit, debit or gift card pales in comparison to that of a computer hard drive, cell phone, or even audiocassette. According to Bah, each magstripe contains three data strips which hold only 79 alphanumeric characters, 40 numeric characters, and 107 numeric characters, respectively. Given the magnetic strip's limited storage capacity, a reading of it — even assuming it had been re-encoded — would not allow officers to reconstruct an individual's private life. Further, the evidence stored on the strip — which, unless re-encoded, would more or less match that provided on the front and back of the card — is not the highly personal information an individual would expect to keep private, especially after the physical card is in the lawful possession of law enforcement or a cashier. In fact, as the court in Briere de L'Isle explained:
2014 WL 5431349, at *4, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 151078, at *11; see also Alabi, 943 F.Supp.2d at 1284. It is true, as Bah contends, that warrants are required to listen to the contents of cassette tapes and "magnetic storage media" requests are often included in warrant applications; Bah, however, fails to appreciate that the magnetic strip on a credit, debit, or gift card, given its limited storage capacity and tendency to contain only that information that would already be known to an individual in lawful possession of the physical card, is readily distinguishable from storage media where the contents are often truly unknown. Our holding today is limited in scope — addressing only the ability of police enforcement to conduct warrantless searches of the magnetic strips on credit cards, gift cards and debit cards — and we do not address hypothetical magnetic strips of the future that may have greater storage capacity and tend to store more private information.
Finally, the initial, warrantless search of Bah's damaged Blackberry cell phone incident to Bah's arrest was unconstitutional, a point conceded by the United States in light of the Supreme Court's recent opinion in Riley v. California, ___ U.S. ___, 134 S.Ct. 2473, 189 L.Ed.2d 430 (2014). "[A] warrant is generally required before [a cell phone] search, even when a cell phone is seized incident to arrest." Id. at 2493.
Despite the Fourth Amendment violation, however, the district court properly denied Bah and Harvey's motions to suppress because the officers' initial, unconstitutional search of the Blackberry did not taint the subsequent cell phone searches conducted pursuant to the later-obtained search warrant.
We are, however, troubled by the officer's failure to inform the magistrate judge that, prior to the warrant application, separate officers had conducted a warrantless search of the Blackberry. A review of the particular circumstances of this case, however, supports finding that the omission here was made in good faith — in an attempt not to taint the warrant application, rather than as a means to conceal unlawful police conduct.
The judgments of the district court are affirmed.
(Emphasis added.)
Later in the hearing, however, Secret Service Agent Allen testified that scanning the magstripes on the cards was not a search. He reasoned: "They're not a computer. They're not a phone. They're not a device. In four different judicial districts that I've been in for the last 15 years, that's never been considered a search of any kind."