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No Right to Privacy When Your Computer Is Repaired
Billosaur writes "ZDNet's Police Blotter bring us the interesting story of a Pennsylvania man who brought his computer into Circuit City to have a DVD burner installed on his computer and wound up being arrested for having child pornography on his hard drive. Circuit City employees discovered the child pornography while perusing Kenneth Sodomsky's hard drive for files to test the burner, then proceeded to call the police, who arrested Sodomsky and confiscated the computer. Sodomsky's lawyer argued in court that the Circuit City techs had no right to go rifling through the hard drive, and the trial court agreed, but prosecutors appealed and the appeals court overturned the lower court's decision, based on the fact that Sodomsky had consented to the installation of the DVD drive."
I was running a consulting company in Halifax just under a year ago, and a soldider from the armed forces had contacted me to fix his hard drive. While my tech was working on it, he discovered hundreds of gigabytes of porn, including many shots of young (pre-puberty) girls. The police had to get a search warrant for my office in order to legally seize the computer. The police did ask how we came across the images, because that was the most obvious way the case might have been thrown out. I never heard anything about the case again.
It not like the employees installed a keylogger or monitoring software and discovered it, it was on his machine when they were asked to do work on it.
Its like crying privacy rights if I ask a plumber to come fix my kitchen sink, I take off to run errands, and when I get back I am arrested for having murdered victims in my bedroom. Did the plumber violate my privacy and thus charges be thrown out?
Someone with legal knowledge please clear this up.
AFAIK, when you turn information into your lawyer, it's protected by "client-attorney priviledge". Your attorney can know that you murdered somebody, and is under no obligation to tell anybody. (In fact, he/she could be sanctioned or disbarred if they DID tell anybody)
So, could you offer a bonded "secure" computer repair service through attorneys?
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
So what, they're going to hold your computer hostage or arrest you because you have a 1GB truecrypt file on your computer? No they freaking aren't, not if you aren't already accused of a specific crime. America is getting bad, but it isn't *that* bad yet. "He/it looks suspicious" is not probable cause.
I personally have such a file on my computer and there is nothing illegal on it. I certainly encourage other people to do the same, so that encryption is *not* even the slightest proof you're hiding something.
Does a line appended to your comment give your post meaning in and of itself, or only in relation to those without?
This story becomes interesting because child porn is involved. What if the files were his last 5 years' income tax returns? Do you think the member of the Geek Squad should maybe send them to the IRS if he doesn't think a 47" HDTV should be deductible?
Please. The last thing we need is self-appointed vigilantes turning in their clients, no less. I hope these guys quietly lost their jobs for "accidentally" coming across this pervert's kiddie porn. Because you know this wasn't the first time they went looking for something interesting on a customer's computer. I'd like to see what's on their personal computers.
You are welcome on my lawn.
"There's at least an argument that such a law would be unconstitutional as it would make computer repair technicians into agents of the state. It's one thing if they act voluntarily to report suspicious files (like here), it's another if there's a criminal penalty for failing to do so. I'm curious and will read up on it. Thanks for the tip."
It's been the case for a while that hosting providers must, by law, report child pornography when they find it. Been there, done that, got the ncmec.org login. I don't understand why extending this to repair technicians would bring up any new constitutional issues that don't already exist. Might be one of those legal elephants in the room that nobody -- not even the ACLU -- wants to touch, as it's political suicide... would you want to be the one to go to court to defend hosting providers' rights to protect kiddy porn collectors?
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
How about telling the tech to supply his own data for burning? Even if there is material on the HD that's legal, how can the tech assert he has the right to make a copy of it? E.g. if someone made movie on his PC, had to send it in for repairs and the tech makes a copy of that movie, isn't the tech liable for copyright infringement?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, but I am a police officer and have testified as a witness in many trials. I am also well-versed in most criminal and constitutional case law, and with Florida criminal statutes.
Typically, trial and appeals courts don't examine whether or not you had a *right* to privacy. They usually examine whether "under identical circumstances, would a reasonable person expect privacy?"
In other words, if you're doing something in your un-fenced back yard, you have no "reasonable" expectation of privacy, even though you are on private property. On the other hand, if you are in your home, you do have a reasonable expectation of privacy.