When a law enforcement officer is entitled to search a computer for evidence, she typically is entitled to look at every file on the computer, at least briefly. That's because files that contain evidence of a crime may not be named drugtransactions.doc, but instead may be labeled airconditioningrepairbill.pdf, or something equally misleading and innocuous. Because computers can contain so much information, such a search can be very extensive. Courts are struggling to decide whether that makes computer searches so different from traditional physical searches that new rules are needed. One area of disagreement is whether evidence that an officer stumbles across during such a search -- for example, child pornography that the officer finds while searching for evidence of tax evasion -- should be admissible under the "plain view" exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement. In traditional physical searches, the answer is yes, but some courts have limited the applicability of the plain view doctrine in computer search cases as a way of preventing computer searches from becoming de facto general searches for evidence of any crime. I discussed this general issue, and one court's resolution of it, in this prior post. Because the expected announcement of the Apple tablet makes today a big day -- or at least, an enormously hyped day -- in the computer world, I thought it timely to do a short follow-up post in this area. Oh, and also, the Fourth Circuit recently decided a major case on point. The case is United States v. [...]
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