Court defines database search rules in MLB decision.

• Position: LEGAL - Major League Baseball

In a decision that could restrict database searches for the government--and boost computer privacy for everyone else--an appeals court has ruled that federal agents overstepped their legal authority in seizing a drug testing company's electronic records that contained confidential drug test results of all Major League Baseball (MLB) players during the 2002 season.

The government's warrant authorized a search of the records of only 10 players for whom the government had established probable cause; however, agents seized the records of 104 players.

In a 9-2 ruling, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld a ruling by Judge Florence-Marie Cooper of the Central District Court of California that required federal agents to return records seized in their investigation, according to The New American.

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The Ninth Circuit Court's ruling stems from lawsuits that resulted from a federal investigation of the Bay Area Laboratories Co., which was thought to have supplied MLB players with steroids. In 2004, a grand jury authorized prosecutors to subpoena drug-testing records and specimens from Comprehensive Drug Testing (CDT), which had tested all MLB players in 2002. The players were promised the results would be kept confidential and they would not be penalized for a positive test result. (MLB and the MLB Players Association had agreed that if 5% or more of the players tested positive, future testing would be required.)

According to The New American, the players' association and CDT appealed the subpoena, which was quashed. However, the government procured a warrant from the Central District of California to seize and search the records of 10 players.

Wired News reported federal agents serving the search warrant on the CDT lab "copied a directory containing a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet with results of every player that was tested in the program." Later, according to Wired, agents perused the spreadsheet and noted 104 players who tested positive for drugs. Some of the names were leaked to the media.

In its defense, the government argued the information about the 104 players was fair game because it was in "plain sight," in the same way the police might find drugs lying out in the open during a court-authorized search of a home, Wired said. (The exclusionary rule bars evidence that is taken...