The following is from Slashdot:
"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."
Many years ago...I can not remember just when it was ...but sometime
before 2000...I reported on something like that here in the blog...I
have made mention a time or two after that time...
There was this
guy that called into my BBS and he lived in the same town that I lived
in...when one day he needed an old DOS program for his computer and I
had it. So he came over to my house and I gave it to him and he said I
guess you read about me in the local paper and I said no.
He
said he took his laptop computer over to get the on and off switched
fixed. We were in Missouri and he took it to Kansas which was just a
few miles. Well he said that the computer repair guy planted child
porn on his hard drive. (That is hard to believe and I told him
that..but he said it was true.) He said the repair guy told his
supervisor at the computer repair shop and his manager said do not do
anything. He said the repair guy called the local police and reported
that he found child porn. The repair company fired the repair guy.
But the police arrested this guy and charged him with having child porn
on his computer. The case was going to court. I never heard what
happened to the guy.
He swore up and down that he did not do child
porn. I told him that it just did not make sense that some repair guy
that did not know him would put porn on his computer. I said someone
else must have had access to your computer. He said no one had access
to his computer. Of course all this time that I was talking to him I
was thinking I want this guy out of my house. I don't want the police
to see his truck parked in front of my house.
The guy did not seem like the sort of guy that would do child porn or any sort of porn. But his story did not make sense.
Now there is this other story of a guy getting arrested. I am sure
there have been a lot of people getting arrested for something like
this...
I see the court case like this...they had no right to
search the guys computer for porn..but if they did and reported it
...it could be used in court. Now if the local police came to the
computer store and said we are here to check all computers that you
have in here for porn that would not be legal. If they found something
it could not be used in court.
I do think that someday they are
going to find a lot of the people being arrested for child porn were
not guilty. They need to go after and arrest people that create child
porn. Then next they need to go after those people that upload or
share child porn. Then they need to go after sites that host child
porn. I do not think they should arrest people that happen to end up
with some child porn on their computer. We all know that sometimes you
end up with files or images or your computer and they just got
installed.
So a warning to all...be very careful if you service work done on your computer.
I wonder about hack versions of commercial software. What about if you
have a not legal version of music or a movie on your computer? Now of
course the police, if called, are not going to care very much about
those "crimes" but still it could be a problem.
I do not think you
can pass laws saying that a computer repair person can not report a
suspected case of child porn because we have laws now that teachers,
doctors, nurses and others have to report suspected cases of child
abuse. It would not make sense that you turn around and say a computer
repairman can not report it.
