What is most surprising is how easy the police and authorities were able to break the law and flip the bird to the U.S. Constitution. A lot of people worry about government groups like the NSA having illegal access to data, but I don’t mind that.. I don’t care about the Chinese Government doing similar activity that much either.. The thing that I DO care about is this could happen to anyone.. It’s happened to me before but never to this extent with the courts.. This is NOT cool.
The police used inapplicable criminal laws as a basis for a fishing expedition to determine the author of an anonymous email,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman. “Now, this student has been suspended from his job, and he is without a laptop and other devices he needs to do his schoolwork. His private communications and papers are in the hands of police who are searching for evidence without just cause. Even his cell phone and iPod were taken, clearly an overreach if the goal is tracking the source of an email.
This search warrant is invalid, as there is no probable cause that a crime was committed at all… Every day this student’s private information is in the hands of the police department, he suffers harm to his property interests and his constitutional rights.
The dorm room search stemmed from an investigation into who sent an email to a Boston College mailing list alleging that another student was gay. Police say they know who sent the email and that the sender committed the crimes of “obtaining computer services by fraud or misrepresentation” and obtaining “unauthorized access to a computer system.” However, nothing presented by the investigating officer to obtain the warrant, including the allegation that the student sent …
