Case 1:20-mc-00036-JEB-ZMF Document 31 Filed 12/03/21 Page 9 of 14 “preserv[ed] data, including content, on the accounts and Pages [it] . . . removed.” Removal Post. “Facebook stored a duplicate of these communications, among other reasons, in case it was lawfully called upon to produce them by an international body like the United Nations after their removal.” Resp. Objections at 20 (citing ECF No. 19 (Hearing Transcript) at 80:17–81:25). Such storage was not unusual, as Facebook routinely stores removed communications ��in case a user petitions Facebook successfully to restore their account to the platform.” Id. at 20–21 (citing Hearing Transcript at 151:3–15). These duplicates “exist[] on the same servers, in the same place, in the same format, . . . in exactly the same manner” as they did before the accounts and pages were removed. See Hearing Transcript at 76:4–11. That constitutes a “copy” or “reserve” of communications stored to prevent their loss or destruction. As a result, Facebook’s storage of these communications “literally falls within the statutory definition” of “for purposes of backup protection.” Theofel v. Farey-Jones, 359 F.3d 1066, 1075 (9th Cir. 2004). The Gambia protests that the common understanding of “backup” requires the existence of an original; in other words, if the original is deleted, the backup then becomes the primary. See Pet. Resp. at 18–23; see also Jennings v. Jennings, 736 S.E. 2d 242, 245 (S.C. 2012) (“Congress’s use of ‘backup’ necessarily presupposes the existence of another copy to which this e-mail would serve as a substitute or support.”). But dictionary definitions of “backup” require no such thing; indeed, the idea that a backup is a copy or reserve seems to contemplate the potential loss of any “original.” The statute also imposes no requirement that there be an original copy of the communication in order for other material to qualify as backup. See 18 U.S.C. § 2510(17)(B). Indeed, as the Fourth Circuit has noted, “[R]elying on definitions of ‘backup’ that define the term relative to an ‘original’ makes little sense in the context of messages stored by electronic communication services.” Hately, 917 F.3d at 796. In this context, “the ‘original’ 9