In a significant victory for digital privacy rights, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit overturned a lower court decision that had dismissed a lawsuit challenging sweeping warrants targeting protesters' devices and data. The case, Armendariz v. City of Colorado Springs, involved warrants that allowed police to search through photos, videos, emails, text messages, and location data from protester Jacqueline Armendariz Unzueta's devices.

Police obtained three warrants after a 2021 housing protest, including one to search Armendariz's devices for evidence related to an alleged bike-throwing incident. The warrants permitted searches of her digital data over two months and included time-unlimited keyword searches for terms like "bike," "assault," and "celebration" that could access years of private information. Police also obtained a warrant to search the Facebook page of the Chinook Center, the protest's organizing nonprofit, despite no criminal accusations against the organization.

The Tenth Circuit found the warrants overbroad and lacking particularity, ruling that officers violated "clearly established" law by furnishing such facially deficient warrants. This rare appellate decision denying qualified immunity marks a major win for protesters' rights and sets precedent limiting police ability to conduct broad digital searches without specific justification.