Grabbed this from my Sans digest today. I read about it a day or two ago and thought I would pass it along if others have not seen it.
- Brian --Appeals Court Says Plain View Doctrine Does Not Apply to Electronic Searches (August 27, 2009) A federal appeals court has ruled that the so-called "plain view doctrine," under which evidence may be seized if it is within plain view during a legitimate search, does not apply to electronic searches. At issue are records pertaining to a government investigation of a company suspecting of providing illegal steroids to professional baseball players. Investigators had obtained a warrant to search computers at Comprehensive Drug Testing, Inc. for records of 10 specific players. Instead, the investigators seized and examined records of hundreds of other players and other individuals. In the opinion, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski observed that the government ignored caveats in the warrant and should not be permitted to "benefit from its own wrongdoing." Judge Kozinski also said that if the government's argument prevailed, its prosecutors would be impelled to seize more information than they need. "The process of segregating electronic data that is seizable from that which is not must not become a vehicle for the government to gain access to data which it has no probable cause to collect." http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9137209/Court_ruling_limits_electronic_searches?source=rss_security http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2009/08/26/05-10067eb.pdf [Editor's Note (Schultz): This is an extremely significant ruling, one that is likely to set a precedent in electronic data searches for years to come.] _______________________________________________ LinuxUsers mailing list [email protected] http://socallinux.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/linuxusers
