More than two decades beyond 1984 the Thought Police have a huge presence and demand unlimited access inside our heads. Nonsense you say? Just ask Michael T Arnold. He returned from the Philippines to the LAX Airport with his laptop computer and U.S. Customs during a routine search read his mind or in this case his computer hard drive. Unfortunately Arnold’s thoughts about children engaged in sexual activity. Child pornography was located on the computer’s hard drive and now Arnold faces years in prison. Los Angeles Federal Judge, Dean D. Pregerson granted a defense motion to suppress the hard drive evidence from court proceedings. The government lawyers appealed and we now will wait for the courts to speak about this issue.
The prognosis for Mr. Arnold and the privacy of the rest of the nation is not good. The Fifth Circuit Court Of Appeals seems to think a hard drive that contains financial, reminder memos, lawyer client, doctor patient, and trade secret information deserves no special protection in an unrelated child porn case. I suspect there will be a privacy showdown in the Supreme Court in the next few years.
Today cops include computers and their storage devices are in every request for a search warrant and judges sign the warrants without a second thought even when there seems to be no connection to a crime or the subject of the investigation does not own or even know how to use a computer.
Police evidence lockers are filled with thousands of seized computers that languish for years waiting for forensic examination and possible court trials. By the time computers are returned to innocent owners their computers and their operating systems are outdated.
The sexual exploitation of children is really ugly. Police probing into our thoughts and hard drives is far worse. Old established investigative methods of locating, rounding up, trying, and punishing pedophiles still work rather well. Even without the Thought Police we have always netted enough of these sick bastards to overflow our prisons. We don’t need the Thought Police in America!
6 comments:
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Man I'm concerned for you Paul. This pedophile didn't just 'think' about it. He was in possession of felonious child Porn. Warren Wiersbe said, “Sow a thought, reap an action. Sow an action, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny!”
Okay, why should the government have the right to snoop inside MY hard drive just because some whackjob has kiddieporn on his? That’s the whole point.
Taking away our freedom and liberty just because criminals exist is un-American. Criminals drive so perhaps they should outlaw cars like they do guns?
Since we are all potential criminals perhaps we should all be locked up to prevent crime? Where does this garbage end?
All intrusions and violations are permissible if they are done in the name of Protecting the Children™. If you protest, well, what are you, some kind of kiddie rapist!?
This country is doomed.
This is a difficult situation. While I am glad that they caught this pedophile, and probably prevented some innocent child from being victimized in the future, I don't understand why US Customs would search a travelers computer hard drive without probable cause. They are supposed to detect and stop illegal contraband from entering this country. Unless they had some reason to suspect that this pervert had child porn in his computer, then his computer should not have been searched. But I still hope that he gets jail time.
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