The issues of how much computer data federal agents can seize under a warrant, how long they can hold onto it and what they can do with it will be taken up by the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Wednesday.

In a rare en banc sitting, the full circuit will hear a case involving investigators who seized hard drives that held information beyond the scope of a search warrant and then used that information later to obtain a second warrant on an unrelated criminal case.

The full court will hear United States v. Ganias, 12-240-cv, in which a divided three-judge panel in 2014 found Stavros Ganias' Fourth Amendment rights were violated after investigators in an Army theft and overbilling case held onto his computer files for more than 2 1/2 years, and then used files not covered by the initial warrant to obtain a second warrant to search for files in order to launch a federal tax evasion prosecution against Ganias' Connecticut accountant.