I always thought that you needed a warrant to search or seize a person's computer and that if you didn't obtain one then the evidence, if there was any, would be inadmissible in court.
Apparently that isn't the case in Maine; "Based on a recording of a conversation between Smith and police, the law court concluded Smith had consented to the seizure of his flash drive, but that police did not have his consent to take the computer, thus violating his rights. The court ruled, however, that police eventually would have obtained the computer lawfully and, on that basis, denied the appeal."
The issue at hand has nothing to do with the individual involved here, but to the rights of the general public to be protected from illegal searches and seizures. Oh well, I guess I am guilty of watching too many "Law and Order" episodes.
Hey, if your innocent you have nothing to worry about.
By the way, Pleaze show us your paperz!
:-O
Not enough info. Search warrants are routinely obtained due to 'probable cause', some even after the fact.
If there was reliable evidence to provide some confidence that sizing more backup thought to be on the computer, then in my mind they were justified. If a fishing trip no. Our justice system is not generally geared to preventing crime, it is geared to providing job security to those within the system. Those who feed on society today have more rights and protection than the victims and we are fools to allow that to continue, but most have been intentually programed to resist that change. They cry out about rights but vote more of them away at every election based on more care from the government, but if you have never lived in a more free part of our past, where the individual and families took care of themselves, you would not see the loss of those freedoms some of us have enjoyed in the past. In the name of protection from everything, many vote for less freedom and then falsely proclaim to defend and protect it. Freedom ain't cheap and it constantly needs defending, and the control of and the approval of the majority, along with the sacrifice required to defend it well. Division Destroys, we have much engineered division that most refuse to see and recognize that it is created by some one or thing intentionally, so it will prosper to its intended goal and we all will loose the freedom we have left. Few will know that we have been had and could have changed the results.
jud
Having set up password protection would make the information on flash drive or computer more difficult to access and would have required that a warrant be issued to obtain the password.
Personally, from what I have seen and witnessed, I would not trust what may be on any computer after someone other than me used it or had control over it, repair shop visit included..
In the eye of the law, if it belong to you, you are responsible for its content.
More facts are needed to correctly interpret what is going on here.
The fact that someone had "consented to the seizure of his flash drive" could lead to a legal finding regarding the connection between the flash drive and the hard drive, for example.
Paging Kent Mcmillimeter, cleanup in category 5
