Using a Comand Prompt OS Grounds for Search Warrant?

Filed under:Bill of Rights,Technology — posted by 3wire on 4/21/2009 @ 5:22 pm

Look out users of OSs other than the “regular” operating systems. You may be asking for trouble.

From: EFF

A BOSTON COLLEGE STUDENT’S COMPUTER, CELL PHONE, AND OTHER PROPERTY WERE SEIZED as part of an investigation into who sent an e-mail to a school mailing list identifying another student as gay. Not only is there no indication that any crime was committed, the support for the search warrant is at times laughable. Some of the supposedly suspicious activities listed include: the student being seen with “unknown laptop computers,” which he “says” he was fixing for other students; the student uses multiple names to log on to his computer; and the student uses two different operating systems, including one that is not the “regular B.C. operating system” but instead has “a black screen with white font which he uses prompt commands on.”

Search Warrant Excerpt

Search Warrant Excerpt

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