Federal court documents have revealed the breadth of technical information that federal investigators have been allowed to gather from former defense attorney Donald Trump Michael Cohen.
The FBI took advantage of Cohen's fingerprints and face recognition on his Apple devices, giving law enforcement agencies an additional way to access these devices.
An FBI agent asked for permission "to press Cohen's fingers (including thumb) for the touch sensors of the devices involved, or put the devices in front of Cohen's face to unlock his devices via the touch or face ID.
Although the case has never been brought before the Supreme Court, civil liberties experts in the technology warn that it could be too much to force the suspect to use his face or fingerprint to access a closed device.
"I hear all the time how the police are looking at people's data in a wide and sweeping way," said John Permayer, senior adviser to the Department of Public Knowledge, a non-profit organization focused on technology and legal issues.
"I think the digital history that people leave online on these services is likely to be used against you."
One order was issued not only for accessing three of Cohen's Gmail accounts, but also for other email accounts, as well as for a wide range of information that Google maintains for its users by default, including the search history and cookies associated with the account Device information and a wide range of other metadata categories.
One of the written testimonies describes how the FBI arrived at the temporary Cohen site at the Louis Regency Hotel in New York through its location on the smartphone.
Then use the "operator" proxies - referring to the IMSI catcher, a travel-sized device that simulates the communication tower to persuade the smartphone to communicate and detect its location.
Investigators in the southern region of New York also forced Google to hand over some documents to Cohn.
Initially, the technology giant refused to hand over any data it had stored on its servers outside the United States, but weeks later Trump signed the CLOUD Act, giving the application of US law more legal freedom to track data abroad.
With the new law, federal prosecutors returned to court and asked for another order to get the materials Google refused to deliver. The FBI agent argued that "the service providers are required to disclose data even if they are stored abroad" under the new law.
The judge approved the new search order later, allowing investigators access to additional information from Google, including e-mail messages, attachments, address book, and files stored on Google Drive.