Recommended Citation
David Ziff, Fourth Amendment Limitations on the Execution of Computer Searches Conducted Pursuant to a Warrant, 105 Colum. L. Rev. 841 (2005), https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/faculty-articles/1160
Publication Title
Columbia Law Review
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Police officers and other government agents commonly seize and search computers during criminal investigations. When reviewing the search of a properly seized computer for compliance with the Fourth Amendment, courts face the complicated task of applying constitutional protections from the eighteenth century to today's computerized world. Many courts and commentators have attempted to draw analogies to old rules or invented new rules to evaluate these computer searches. This Note examines one "special approach" that some courts have adopted to limit the scope of computer searches, and concludes that this special approach is unwarranted. Rather, this Note argues that courts should address the novel problem of computer searches by not treating it as a novel problem at all, but by simply applying established case law that controls the search of personal documents. The application of existing doctrine to computers properly maintains the balance between privacy interests and the government's ability to investigate crimes.