The facets of Searches and Seizure of Digital Crimes

The facets of Searches and Seizure of Digital Crimes

The Fourth Amendment is critical legislation that protects people and their property. It is crucial to understand that the act was enacted to prevent law enforcement agencies from conducting unreasonable searches and seizures. The Fourth Amendment requires law enforcement officers to obtain a legal and valid search warrant before searching an individual and seizing their property. The Fourth Amendment applies to other cases, especially those crimes that do not involve physical malpractices. Cybercrime is a relevant example that does not include physical malpractices or misconduct; instead, it involves illegal actions or criminal activities through the computer. It involves perpetrators using the internet to commit crimes such as; attacking other people’s computers by hacking and spreading viruses and using the computer to record and store illegal content such as child pornography and indecent behavior, including fraudulent activities (Hemdan & Manjaiah, 2018). Law enforcement agencies find it hard to investigate such crimes because the Fourth Amendment protects people from unwarranted searches and seizures. Williams argues that the FBI is at odds with the reasonable requirement outlined by the Fourth Amendment, an ethical puzzle that they must solve when remotely accessing suspects’ computers (Willliams, 2017). Consequently, the Fourth Amendment applies to digital crime through the privacy policy; it sets a legal boundary that prevents investigators from invading people’s privacy (Lupo, 2017). Investigating officers must ensure that they comply with the prerequisites of the Fourth Amendment to avoid violating people’s privacy; they must obtain legal search warrants before embarking on a thorough process to investigate cybercrimes.

It is paramount to understand that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to all searches and seizures; in other words, an investigator only requires a search warrant to analyze a computer-based on activities perceived as reasonable according to the law (Taylor et al., 2019). For instance, an investigator must obtain a search warrant to retrieve crucial evidence from an individual’s computer and proceed to disclose the personal data on a monitor for analysis. Nevertheless, copying visible information on an individual’s computer that does not require security checks is not intruding into their privacy and hence does not require a search warrant. Subsequently, unplugging the computer and booking it into the category of essential evidence does not require a search warrant. The federal statute regarding searchers and seizures focuses on protecting people’s rights by securing them and their property against searches and seizures that infringe on their privacy rights (Lupo, 2017). Hence, the Fourth Amendment requires law enforcement agencies to obtain search warrants; unreasonable searches and seizures violate the Fourth Amendment.

References

Hemdan, E. E. D., & Manjaiah, D. H. (2018). Cybercrimes investigation and intrusion detection in internet of things based on data science methods. In Cognitive Computing for Big Data Systems Over IoT (pp. 39-62). Springer, Cham.

Lupo, M. A. (2017). Privacy in the Digital Age: Preserving the Fourth Amendment by Resolving the Circuit Split over the Private-Search Doctrine. Alb. Gov’t L. Rev.10, 414.

 

Taylor, R. W., Fritsch, E. J., Liederbach, J., Saylor, M. R., & Tafoya, W. L. (2019). Cyber crime and cyber terrorism. New York, NY: Pearson.

Williams, W. (2017). The Race for Privacy: Technological Evolution Outpacing Judicial Interpretations of the Fourth Amendment: Playpen, the Dark Web, and Governmental Hacking. Fla. St. UL Rev.45, 1211.

Calculate your order
Pages (275 words)
Standard price: $0.00
Open chat
1
towriteessays.com
Hello 👋
Thank you for choosing our assignment help service!
How can I help you?