The 4th amendment includes this part:
"particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized"
Describing what you want as " all e-mails " is exactly the type of description this part of the amendment is meant to prevent. It's way too broad.
It feels like some people won't be satisfied unless Google says "well, our existence has many benefits, but it also makes it slightly easier for the government to spy on people, so we're closing up shop".
Google has a business model whose entire premise is to push the envelope on privacy and to collect as much as possible and hold it forever--to make a few extra pennies per user. Get off your high horse. Google (and FB) is /are a menace to us all, even if only because they gather so much private data about us.
That's reasonable. A blanket warrant impacting all emails since the beginning of time is not reasonable.
If the cant name a crime and give a date or dates then they shouldn't be asking for a warrant.
No way would that be considered an over-broad warrant. If, e.g., you suspected someone of financial fraud, it would be totally okay to get a warrant for the contents of all the filing cabinets in his office.
Imperfect warrants are a problem for the state at trial. Outside of trial, any old warrant will do.
In this case, the problem is not investigators overreaching the law. The problem is the amount of information consolidation modern technology enables and encourages.
Except that people do not typically do that, and it is reasonable to expect that a filing cabinet will contain only important or current documents. With GMail, you typically see personal messages that date back years, probably long before whatever crime the person is suspected of.
"The problem is the amount of information consolidation modern technology enables and encourages."
I think for once, we might agree. The relevant laws were written with a very different model of communication in mind.
If H&R Block had Whitey Bulger's tax returns, would the warrant be required to describe those documents, or, would all of the small, baggable disk drives at their data center be subject to seizure?