When the FBI asked a federal magistrate judge for a warrant to seize the property of US Private Vaults, it concealed critical details about its plan for the hundreds of individually rented security deposit boxes at the Beverly Hills business.

“The government has a duty to be honest with the court when it applies for a warrant under the Fourth Amendment,” said IJ Senior Attorney Robert Frommer. “But the FBI lied about its intentions in claiming to only be interested in the property of the business, and not the box holders. Ultimately, the lure of civil forfeiture turned these federal cops into robbers.”

Under the warrant’s terms, agents should have stopped when they encountered letters taped to the top of closed boxes that identified the box’s renter and beneficiaries. Yet invariably agents pored through each box, capturing photographic and video records of renters’ password lists, wills, personal notes and other sensitive documents. Now, the FBI and other agencies have copies of these records in their evidentiary databases, where renters’ private, personal information will remain for agents to access and analyze.