A judge in a United States District Court ruled that federal law enforcement agencies are allowed to search the entire contents of a Gmail user’s account to find evidence laundering case. The ruling in the case potentially opens up the door for more cloud-related searches and investigations.

Gabriel Gorenstein, United States Magistrate Judge for the U.S. District Court Southern District of New York, concluded that email accounts, like hard drives were allowed to be seized and searched in their entirety by police and federal agents. The ruling is directly at odds with other major rulings, including those in the Districts of Kansas and Columbia. In Kansas, the scope of the search was limited to the actual crimes under investigation. In the District of Columbia, law enforcement was not granted the entire contents of an email account because the judge did not believe they had probable cause.

Another ruling earlier this year went in favor of email searching when a judge ruled that Microsoft must hand over emails store overseas at one of its data centers in Ireland. Microsoft argued against and appealed the decision.

In the New York case, the warrant issued allowed federal agents access to all information in the Gmail account, including the address book and draft messages. The judge argued that, like hard drives, email accounts could not be easily searched on site, and it was more practical for the feds to access contents in its entirety over an undefined period. Moreover, he explained that Google employees might not be able to find the necessary emails relevant to the investigation since they are not trained in investigative strategies.

“Courts have long recognized the practical need for law enforcement to exercise dominion over documents not within the scope of the warrant in order to determine whether they fall within the warrant,” he said.

The ruling did not place restrictions on the time frame or any other limits on the searching of the email accounts, which may spook some cloud-based businesses that promise privacy and security to their customers and expect law enforcement to not be allowed full access to all of their records without restrictions.

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