Does the 'virtual certainty' that reopening 'an ordinary cardboard box' will expose nothing beyond the private actor's earlier search, Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 119, authorize constitutionally exempt searches of digital devices, like a personal and business laptop?

QUESTIONS PRESENTED In United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109 (1984), this Court held that government agents did not need a warrant to reopen an “ordinary cardboard box” because private actors had previously opened the box. Id. at 111. The Court reasoned that the private actors’ initial search eliminated the owner’s “legitimate expectation of privacy.” Id. at 120. Because government agents could have “virtual certainty” that reopening an ordinary box would reveal “nothing else of significance,” doing so was not “a ‘search’ within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.” Jd. at 115-21. In lower courts, Jacobsen has birthed a general exception to the Fourth Amendment, called the “privatesearch doctrine.” It is now “one of the most convoluted and misunderstood corners to the Fourth Amendment.” Ben A. McJunkin, The Private-Search Doctrine Does Not Exist, 2018 WIS. L. REV. 971, 972 (2018). Today, the government uses Jacobsen “most frequently” not to reopen a box, but for constitutionally exempt searches of digital data. Id. at 984. The questions are: 1. Does the “virtual certainty” that reopening “an ordinary cardboard box” will expose nothing beyond the private actor’s earlier search, Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 119, authorize constitutionally exempt searches of digital devices, like a personal and business laptop? 2. When the government “obtains information by physically intruding” on property, United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400, 406 n.3 (2012), is that trespass overlooked simply because a private actor previously examined the property? In other words, is Jacobsen rendered obsolete in light of the property-based test? @