## Facts

- The United States filed four ex parte applications seeking authorization to use pen register and trap-and-trace processes on specified internet service accounts.
- The requested orders would have compelled internet service providers to disclose, in real time, incoming and outgoing IP-address information associated with the target accounts.
- The government sought IP addresses “used to determine web-sites visited,” characterizing the collection as non-content “dialing, routing, addressing, and signaling information” under 18 U.S.C. §§ 3121–3127.
- The pen/trap statute requires only a certification of relevance to an ongoing criminal investigation and directs that a court “shall” issue an order if statutory requirements are met.
- The magistrate judge concluded that the requests, as framed, raised statutory line-drawing problems in the internet context because the collected data could effectively disclose a user’s web destinations.

## Issues

1. Whether the pen register and trap-and-trace statute authorizes compelled disclosure of IP-address data used to determine websites visited based only on the statute’s relevance standard.
2. Whether the requested IP-address-level information is non-content “dialing, routing, addressing, and signaling information” or, in practical effect, “contents” excluded from pen/trap authority.
3. Whether the court may require narrowing conditions and technical safeguards to prevent content acquisition when authorizing internet pen/trap collection.

## Decision

- The court declined to issue the requested orders as submitted because they were overly broad and did not ensure collection was limited to non-content information.
- The court held that pen/trap authority cannot be used, on a mere relevance showing, to obtain internet data to the extent it would reveal the substance of a user’s online activity (including identifying websites visited).
- The court indicated that any permissible internet pen/trap order must be narrowly tailored and include limitations designed to prevent collection of content or content-equivalent information.
- The disposition effectively left the government to submit narrower applications specifying non-content collection and safeguards against content capture.

## Legal Principles

- Pen register and trap-and-trace orders may authorize collection only of “dialing, routing, addressing, or signaling information,” and may not authorize acquisition of “contents” of communications. 18 U.S.C. § 3127(3)–(4).
- The statutory relevance standard for pen/trap orders is justified only if the surveillance remains confined to non-content information; content interception requires more protective legal process.
- In the internet context, the content/non-content boundary must be assessed functionally, considering what the requested data would reveal in practice, not solely how it is labeled.
- Courts may require ex ante constraints—such as excluding URL-level information and limiting or segregating captured data—to prevent pen/trap collection from becoming a de facto content interception.

## Conclusion

The court refused to approve broad internet pen/trap requests seeking IP-address information used to determine websites visited, reasoning that such collection can cross the statute’s prohibition on acquiring contents. It held that any internet pen/trap authorization must be narrowly limited to genuine non-content routing data and accompanied by safeguards to prevent content or content-equivalent disclosure.


In re Application of the United States for an Ord. Authorizing the Use of a Pen Reg. & Trap & Trace on [xxx] Internet Serv. Acct./User Name [xxxxxxxx@xxx.com], 396 F. Supp. 2d 45 (D. Mass. 2005)