This bit from the opinion is interesting:<p><pre><code> [The hard drive was searched, and...] After incriminating emails were uncovered
through that process, the agent sought and obtained a warrant based upon the
content of the emails to conduct the search of the hard drive that had already
been completed and to seize the emails that had already been reviewed. Those
mails now form a part of the basis of this prosecution, and Kim moves to
suppress that evidence, arguing that his rights under the Fourth Amendment of
the Constitution have been violated.
</code></pre>
Isn't that post-facto application for a warrant precisely an admission that the initial search was illegal?
I really like that some of the over-reaction after 9-11 is starting to be reeled back in defense of personal privacy. The fact that the paternalistic "If you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about!" was (and often is) accepted as "how it is" really was making me worry about our future generations. It is nice to see that cooler heads are finally prevailing in these areas.
I wonder if this will have an affect on the 100 mile border zone (constitution free zone) One can hope:<p><a href="https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights-governments-100-mile-border-zone-map" rel="nofollow">https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights-governments-100-mile-b...</a>
What exactly does seizing a laptop even do anymore with the ubiquity of cloud storage?<p>Simply make an encrypted backup and wipe everything before traveling through airports and borders.
A technical question: If he had been using whole-disk encryption (for example a macbook pro with FileVault) would that have effectively prevented them from doing the forensic searches that they did?<p>Specifically would that have inoculated him in this instance, where they did a bit-for-bit copy of the HD and then returned the laptop to him?