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The Justice Department is set to argue Wednesday before a federal appeals court that it may prosecute people for crimes based on evidence obtained from their computers—evidence that was outside the scope of an original probable-cause search warrant.
That's a big deal in today's digital age. Society has evolved to the point that many people keep all of their papers and effects co-mingled on their computer hard drives.
The highly nuanced legal dispute initially seems innocent enough. It concerns an accountant's tax evasion conviction and two-year prison sentence in 2012 that was based on a court-authorized search and imaging of his computer files. Stavros Ganias' files were copied as part of an Army overbilling investigation into one of his clients. Holding on to the imaged files for nearly three years, Connecticut authorities discovered fresh evidence unrelated to the initial search of the files and got new search warrants to investigate more of the accountant's mirrored files that were already in the government's possession. All the while, Ganias had subsequently deleted those files from his hard drives after the government had imaged them, according to court records.
The case asks how long the government can retain somebody's computer files—files that are unrelated to a court warrant. The accountant's lawyers said that once the government got what it needed regarding the accountant's client, the remainder of Ganias' files should have been purged. Federal prosecutors disagreed and said they retained the imaged files for numerous reasons, including for authentication purposes and to allow "the government to comply with its discovery obligations imposed by the Constitution."
What if it were a 3-D capture of all things in view while executing a search warrant — like a "cop-cam" on steroids?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday September 30 2015, @05:05PM
Actually no,
Connecticut authorities discovered fresh evidence unrelated to the initial search of the files
The best analogy I can come up with is something like they took crime scene photos of the search and wanted to look at the pixs later, and they were nice enough to get a new warrant to do it.
They might be faking the whole thing and did parallel construction and all that. Or in the future they might go fishing. But as reported today officially, they aren't fishing.
Something interesting to think about is local cops won't enforce immigration law, period. Also I've never heard of some dude getting arrested for having an illegal mp3 on his phone, or warez on his laptop, although I'm sure its happened somewhere once, it doesn't seem like an enforcement priority. And the reason to bring that up is if they won't arrest with the results in their hand, I don't think they're going to go back for a warrant to get them.
Also you have to be realistic. If a cop wants to F with someone, they claim to smell something, then kick the dog to make it "signal", then drop a bag of weed when you're not looking. They're not going to check and see if your "windows genuine advantage" is real or not.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Wednesday September 30 2015, @05:11PM
Or they might have pawed through the rest of the mirror of his HD and "discovered fresh evidence unrelated to the initial search of the files" so they got a warrant.
Given the history of abuse, that easily becomes charge you with jaywalking, paw through your HD (obtained to look for potential confessions to jaywalking) and stumble over something they actually care to prosecute.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 01 2015, @02:36AM
If they really don't like you an "overzealous" cop might tamper with the evidence. Copy some child porn over and its the end for you.
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Wednesday September 30 2015, @05:31PM
The best analogy I can come up with is that they keep rape kits for decades. They have been retesting them with modern DNA toolkits and exonerating people wrongly imprisoned, and going after people that were found to match.
The difference is that the rape kits are clear evidence of a crime.
Data on a hard drive that is sitting there is evidence of computer use, but it is not clear evidence of committing a crime. It's not like they are using some new forensic technique not available 5 or 10 years ago to determine new means of tax avoidance that clearly leads to the person's guilt, and using that on the same data reviewed previously.
In this example in the fine article, they heard about or learned of new crimes and searched for new details on the same drives -- and found compelling incriminating evidence.
This would be like going back to the rape kit and testing the substances involved for drug use, or pathogens (perhaps the person can also be accused of spreading deadly STDs or commiting the crime while high). These may not have been examined previously, and may not be DNA evidence in this case -- instead, it's the same source material, being examined for different things, with different crimes associated with the search and findings of any data of interest.
The moral of the story is don't put all your ill-gotten eggs in one basket, especially if one is in the habit of illicitly planning egg gaining operations that would be wrong, and then saving them in another folder called Evil Tax Evasion Activities That Are Totally Not Related to My Egg Thefts and crying foul about it.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 30 2015, @07:31PM
A rape kit is different, in that it is obtained from the victim, and doesn't involve a search warrant - any evidence it ever yields is fair game. This case involves evidence seized under an unrelated search warrant.
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Wednesday September 30 2015, @07:58PM
perhaps the soiled clothing of the defendant obtained in pursuit of rape charges would be more apt.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 01 2015, @01:21AM
Not to mention rape is a violent crime, one that everyone agrees should be a crime, making it analogous to this current case in exactly zero ways.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday October 01 2015, @10:24AM
The moral of the story is that the government violates the constitution on a routine basis, like they're doing here. And some people will bend over backwards to defend this.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Wednesday September 30 2015, @05:38PM
Also you have to be realistic. If a cop wants to F with someone, they claim to smell something, then kick the dog to make it "signal", then drop a bag of weed when you're not looking. They're not going to check and see if your "windows genuine advantage" is real or not.
Or, since all cops will be wearing body cams, after the door kick, they walk around and inventory everything in your house, apologize, leave, refusing to pay for the door, then charge you a month later over something they had of video for which there never was a warrant of any kind.
In many locations, cops accompany paramedics as a matter of policy when you call an ambulance, or the fire department. Free search. Your little box of Zig Zag roll-your-own papers that show up on the body cam are suddenly enough for a warrant to follow you around for a week.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.