By not having such broad categories of things to be seized. It is not "specific" to seize "every email message he sent to anyone ever."

"betterunix's g-mail account" is plenty specific as a "place to be searched" and "e-mails" is plenty specific as "things to be seized." If you printed out every letter you've ever sent to someone and put it in a filing cabinet, it would be totally fair game for a warrant to get the contents of the filing cabinet. Or if you kept them on a hard drive, it would be totally fair game to get a warrant to get the hard drive.

In this case, the problem is not investigators overreaching the law. The problem is the amount of information consolidation modern technology enables and encourages.

"If you printed out every letter you've ever sent to someone and put it in a filing cabinet, it would be totally fair game for a warrant to get the contents of the filing cabinet"

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.

How is "everything in the computer" different from "everything in the house?" Or are we now writing search warrants for "everything in the house?"

Because a computer is a small self-contained thing that you can often fit in a bag? That's my point about information consolidation: the law is rooted in the physical (and necessarily so). You can wax philosophical about "virtual spaces" but at the end of the day a hard drive is a small physical object that is treated the same as any other small physical object.

You are evading the question: "Everything in the house" is obviously not specific enough. And here is where the evasion comes in: The problem is not the size of the container. Does a search warrant even ask you to describe the container? No. It asks you to describe the thing to be seized.

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?

Exactly. "All emails" negates all bullet points. It's like asking for 9 specific items in a real world warrant, and then point #10 is "and your whole house and everything in it".

No, it's like "all documents in the office" which is fair game for a warrant. You think warrants require you to specifically mention every document?

I'm sure that will be of great interest if this person is ever charged with a crime. Until then, he has neither venue nor standing to challenge the warrant.

Imperfect warrants are a problem for the state at trial. Outside of trial, any old warrant will do.