United States v. Stratton

229 F. Supp. 3d 1230, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6372, 2017 WL 169041
CourtDistrict Court, D. Kansas
DecidedJanuary 17, 2017
DocketCase No. 15-40084-01-DDC
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 229 F. Supp. 3d 1230 (United States v. Stratton) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Kansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Stratton, 229 F. Supp. 3d 1230, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6372, 2017 WL 169041 (D. Kan. 2017).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

Daniel D. Crabtree, United States District Judge

This matter comes before the court on defendant Michael L. Stratton’s Motion to Suppress Evidence (Doc. 19). Defendant asserts that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated when Sony searched information stored on his PlayStation3 gaming device and, as a result, that the court must suppress (1) evidence the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (“NCMEC”) obtained from searching his electronic communications; (2) evidence law enforcement officers obtained from searching defendant’s residence; and, (3) statements defendant made to law enforcement during the search. For reasons explained below, the court denies defendant’s Motion.

I. Background

The court finds the following facts from evidence presented at the June 20, 2016 and November 10, 2016 motion hearings and, where undisputed, the parties’ briefs.

Sony Computer Entertainment America, LLC (“Sony”), as a “professional entity,” is governed by 18 U.S.C. § 2258. This provision states: “A person who, while engaged in a professional capacity ... learns of facts that give reason to suspect that a child has suffered an incident of child abuse ... and fails to make a timely report ... shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 1 year or both.” Sony’s network—the PlayStation Network (“PSN”)—is an online gaming network. The Sony PlayStation3 (“PS3”) is Sony’s online gaming device. The PS3 accesses the PSN. Then, the PS3 allows PSN account holders to communicate with other users online. These communications are like email communications. Users can send each other messages and attachments. And if, while monitoring these messages and attachments, Sony learns of facts that give reasons to suspect child abuse, § 2258 requires Sony to report its suspicions to law enforcement.

To access the PSN, a user must have a PSN account. And to sign up for a PSN account, a user must agree to PSN’s terms of service. In December 2008, the PSN terms of service required a person signing up for a PSN account to agree to the following:

You may not take any action, or upload, post, stream, or otherwise transmit any content ... that [Sony], in its sole discretion, finds offensive, hateful, or vulgar. This includes but is not limited to, any content or communication that [Sony] in its sole discretion deems racially, ethnically, religiously, or sexually offensive.... You may not upload, post, stream, access, or otherwise transmit any content that you know or should have known to be infringing, or that violates, any third party rights, any law
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You may not conduct any activities that violate any local, state or federal laws
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there is no requirement or expectation that [Sony] will monitor or record any online activity on PSN, including communications. However [Sony] reserves the right to monitor and record any online activity and communication throughout PSN and you give [Sony] your express consent to monitor and record your activities ... Any data collected in this way, including the content of your communications, the time and location of your activities, your Online ID and IP address and other related [1234]*1234information may be used by us to enforce this Agreement or protect the interests of [Sony], its users, or licensors. Such information may be disclosed to the appropriate authorities or agencies.

Thomas Meininger, an operations supervisor in Sony’s Customer Service Department, testified about the terms of service agreement at the hearing on November 10, 2016. He testified that the PSN is an online gaming community. So, Sony has an interest in making the PSN a safe place for people to play online. According to Mr. Meininger, Sony thus has an interest in monitoring its users’ activity.

Sony monitors misuses of the PSN through PSN user reports. These are called “grief reports.” When the PSN user comes across content they wish to report, the user hits the “Cross-Media Bar” button. This button brings up a “reporting option.” The reporting option asks the user to describe the reason for the grief report. PSN users use these grief reports to report things like offensive messages, offensive attachments to messages, or offensive user IDs. When the PSN user submits the grief report, it goes to Sony’s Moderation Department.

Once the Moderation Department receives a report, a Moderator opens the report and reviews its content. The Moderator then determines whether the content violates Sony’s Terms of Service Agreement. If the Moderator determines that the content contains a minor offense under the agreement (such as verbal abuse or some other minor form of harassment), the Moderator clicks a button to put the report in a queue. Once in this queue, another member of the Moderation Team takes action on the report. According to Mr. Meininger, a minor offense warrants a minor response from the Moderation Team. Typically, this is something like a warning message that the user has violated PSN’s Terms of Service Agreement. More serious offenses warrant suspending the PSN account for several days. And, if the offense seems potentially illegal or life-threatening, the Moderator forwards the report to the Security Team. The Moderator does this by hitting a “Single Point of Contact” (“SPOC”) button. Once the Moderator hits the SPOC button, the report moves to another queue for the Security Team to evaluate. The Moderator can no longer access it.

Once a report is “SPOCed” to the Security Team, a member of that team reviews the report and decides what to do next. Mr. Meininger testified that he was not sure whether any law enforcement officer was involved in Sony’s day-to-day operations. Mr. Meininger testified, however, that law enforcement gets involved if the Security Team determines that Sony should report the customer grief report to authorities.

On June 6, 2012, Sony received a customer grief report about PSN user “Susan_14.” The grief report alerted Sony to a message and an attached image sent from Susan_14’s account. Apparently, this report eventually was “SPOCed” because it was sent to Sony’s Security Team.

On August 8, 2012, Sony’s Security Manager, Mariko Kawaguchi, reported Su-san_14 to NCMEC to comply with § 2258. Ms. Kawaguchi’s NCMEC report included Susan_14’s user profile information—email address, home address, and the date when the user opened the PSN account. The report also included Susan_14’s IP address, a screenshot of the reported message, and a screenshot of the attached image. NCMEC concluded that the image did not contain child pornography and filed a report concluding as much.

On December 19, 2012, Ms. Kawaguchi submitted a second “revived” report to NCMEC. This revived report bore the same case number as the August 8, 2012 [1235]*1235report. This revived report was labeled “case update” and included several additional files that Sony had downloaded from Susan_14’s account. In her affidavit, Ms. Kawaguchi stated that Sony typically revives reports to NCMEC for one of three reasons: (1) a user has filed an additional grief report about the account; (2) the account has violated “community standards”; or, (3) at law enforcement’s request. In this revived report, Sony informed NCMEC that Susan-141

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
229 F. Supp. 3d 1230, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6372, 2017 WL 169041, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-stratton-ksd-2017.