## Facts

- Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri, a Qatari national, entered the United States on September 10, 2001 to attend graduate school in Illinois.
- After the September 11 attacks, the FBI suspected Al-Marri might be connected to terrorism-related activity and approached him at his apartment to question him.
- Agents requested and received Al-Marri’s consent to search the apartment.
- While inside, agents identified Al-Marri’s laptop computer and asked permission to take it to the FBI office to inspect it; Al-Marri agreed and helped pack it for removal.
- Al-Marri voluntarily accompanied agents to the FBI office for questioning and asked when he would get the computer back; agents said he would not get it back that night.
- The FBI later conducted a more detailed examination of the laptop hard drive and found stolen credit-card numbers and related data.
- A grand jury indicted Al-Marri for unauthorized possession of access devices with intent to defraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1029(a)(3).
- Al-Marri moved pretrial to suppress laptop-derived evidence, compel additional discovery, and dismiss the indictment.

## Issues

1. Whether Al-Marri’s consent authorized the FBI to remove and retain the laptop from his home for examination.
2. Whether Al-Marri’s consent objectively extended to a later, off-site forensic examination of the laptop hard drive without a warrant.
3. Whether any Fourth Amendment violation, discovery deficiency, or prosecutorial defect required suppression, compelled discovery, or dismissal of the indictment.

## Decision

- The court denied the motion to suppress.
- The court denied the motion to compel additional discovery.
- The court denied the motion to dismiss the indictment.
- The court held the seizure and subsequent examination of the laptop were within the objective scope of Al-Marri’s voluntary consent and were reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.

## Legal Principles

- The scope of consent to search is measured by an objective standard: what a reasonable person would have understood from the exchange between the individual and law enforcement.
- Voluntary consent to remove a computer for examination can authorize off-site, later analysis of its contents when that analysis is reasonably understood as part of the permitted examination.
- Consent is not invalidated merely because law enforcement does not describe every technical method that may later be used to inspect digital contents, absent coercion or circumstances showing the search exceeded the objective scope of permission.
- Suppression is not warranted when the challenged seizure and search are supported by valid consent; dismissal of an indictment is improper absent a constitutional or procedural defect in the charging instrument or prosecution.

## Conclusion

The court permitted the prosecution to proceed and allowed laptop-derived evidence, concluding that Al-Marri voluntarily consented to the laptop’s removal and that a reasonable understanding of that consent included later off-site forensic examination, with no basis for additional discovery or dismissal of the indictment.


United States v. Al-Marri, 230 F. Supp. 2d 535 (S.D.N.Y. 2002)