United States v. Warshak
E333099
United States v. Warshak is a landmark Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decision holding that the government generally must obtain a warrant to access the contents of emails stored by a service provider, significantly shaping Fourth Amendment protections for electronic communications.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| United States of America v. Steven Warshak | 1 |
| United States v. Warshak canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T3173809 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: United States v. Warshak Context triple: [Stored Communications Act, subjectOf, United States v. Warshak]
-
A.
United States v. Eichman
United States v. Eichman is a 1990 U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down a federal law banning flag desecration as unconstitutional under the First Amendment’s protection of free speech.
-
B.
Maryland v. Wirtz
Maryland v. Wirtz was a 1968 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld the extension of federal minimum wage and overtime provisions to employees of state-operated schools and hospitals under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
-
C.
Crawford v. Washington
Crawford v. Washington is a landmark 2004 U.S. Supreme Court decision that reshaped Confrontation Clause jurisprudence by holding that testimonial hearsay is inadmissible against a criminal defendant unless the witness is unavailable and there was a prior opportunity for cross-examination.
-
D.
United States v. Gratiot
United States v. Gratiot is an 1840 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld broad federal authority over public lands under the Constitution’s Property Clause.
-
E.
United States v. Giordano
United States v. Giordano is a U.S. Supreme Court case that clarified the strict procedural requirements for federal wiretap authorizations and limited who may approve such surveillance orders.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: United States v. Warshak Target entity description: United States v. Warshak is a landmark Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decision holding that the government generally must obtain a warrant to access the contents of emails stored by a service provider, significantly shaping Fourth Amendment protections for electronic communications.
-
A.
United States v. Eichman
United States v. Eichman is a 1990 U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down a federal law banning flag desecration as unconstitutional under the First Amendment’s protection of free speech.
-
B.
Maryland v. Wirtz
Maryland v. Wirtz was a 1968 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld the extension of federal minimum wage and overtime provisions to employees of state-operated schools and hospitals under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
-
C.
Crawford v. Washington
Crawford v. Washington is a landmark 2004 U.S. Supreme Court decision that reshaped Confrontation Clause jurisprudence by holding that testimonial hearsay is inadmissible against a criminal defendant unless the witness is unavailable and there was a prior opportunity for cross-examination.
-
D.
United States v. Gratiot
United States v. Gratiot is an 1840 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld broad federal authority over public lands under the Constitution’s Property Clause.
-
E.
United States v. Giordano
United States v. Giordano is a U.S. Supreme Court case that clarified the strict procedural requirements for federal wiretap authorizations and limited who may approve such surveillance orders.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Fourth Amendment case
ⓘ
United States federal appellate case ⓘ court case ⓘ |
| affects |
law enforcement access to stored electronic communications
ⓘ
privacy expectations of email users ⓘ |
| category |
United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit cases
ⓘ
United States Fourth Amendment case law ⓘ United States electronic privacy case law ⓘ |
| circuit |
United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
ⓘ
surface form:
Sixth Circuit
|
| citation | 631 F.3d 266 (6th Cir. 2010) ⓘ |
| constitutionalProvisionInterpreted | Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution ⓘ |
| country |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| court | United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ⓘ |
| decisionDate | 2010-12-14 ⓘ |
| defendant | Steven Warshak ⓘ |
| enBanc | no ⓘ |
| fullName |
United States v. Warshak
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
United States of America v. Steven Warshak
|
| geographicCoverage |
Kentucky
ⓘ
Michigan ⓘ Ohio ⓘ Tennessee ⓘ |
| goodFaithExceptionApplied | yes ⓘ |
| holding |
Email users have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of their emails stored with a service provider.
ⓘ
Stored Communications Act ⓘ
surface form:
The Stored Communications Act is unconstitutional to the extent it allows the government to obtain email contents from a provider without a warrant.
The government must generally obtain a search warrant based on probable cause before compelling a commercial internet service provider to turn over the contents of a subscriber’s emails. ⓘ |
| importance |
influential in shaping Fourth Amendment doctrine for digital communications
ⓘ
landmark decision on electronic communications privacy ⓘ |
| jurisdiction |
United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
ⓘ
surface form:
Sixth Circuit
|
| legalArea |
constitutional law
ⓘ
criminal procedure ⓘ electronic privacy law ⓘ |
| legalIssue |
Fourth Amendment protection for email
ⓘ
reasonable expectation of privacy in email ⓘ warrant requirement for access to stored emails ⓘ |
| page | 266 ⓘ |
| panelDecision | yes ⓘ |
| plaintiff | United States of America ⓘ |
| precedentialStatus | binding precedent within the Sixth Circuit ⓘ |
| privacyPrinciple | content of email is analogous to the content of letters and phone calls for Fourth Amendment purposes ⓘ |
| remedy | suppression of emails not granted due to good-faith reliance on the Stored Communications Act ⓘ |
| reporter |
Federal Reporter
ⓘ
surface form:
Federal Reporter, Third Series
|
| requires | probable cause for government access to email contents within the Sixth Circuit ⓘ |
| resultForDefendant | conviction largely affirmed ⓘ |
| statuteCitation | 18 U.S.C. §§ 2701–2712 ⓘ |
| statuteInterpreted | Stored Communications Act ⓘ |
| technologyContext |
email
ⓘ
internet service providers ⓘ |
| volume | 631 ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: United States v. Warshak Description of subject: United States v. Warshak is a landmark Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decision holding that the government generally must obtain a warrant to access the contents of emails stored by a service provider, significantly shaping Fourth Amendment protections for electronic communications.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
United States of America v. Steven Warshak