Right-o! You guessed it at the first try. Read on.
-Declan
At 08:47 3/6/2000 -0800, David Honig wrote:
>When everyone is a publisher, publishers lose rights?
http://www.politechbot.com/docs/unlawfulconduct.html
3. Privacy Protection Act
The Privacy Protection Act of 1980 ("PPA"), 42 U.S.C. � 2000aa, et seq.,
makes it unlawful for local,
state, or federal law enforcement authorities to "search for or seize any
work product materials" or
any "documentary materials . . . possessed by a person in connection with a
purpose to disseminate
to the public a newspaper, book, broadcast, or other similar form of public
communication," 42
U.S.C. � 2000aa(a), (b) (emphasis added). The statute defines "work product
materials" as
materials prepared or possessed in anticipation of communicating such
materials to the public,
except if the materials constitute contraband or the fruits or
instrumentalities of crime. Id. �
2000aa-7(b). "Documentary materials," on the other hand, consist of
materials upon which
information is recorded, once again with the exception of contraband and
the fruits or
instrumentalities of crime. Id. � 2000aa-7(a).
In enacting the PPA, Congress restricted searches for evidence of crime
held by innocent
third-parties who were engaged in First Amendment-protected activities. The
PPA thus protects the
confidentiality of non-evidentiary files held by this special group of
innocent third-parties � such as
drafts of articles not yet published and the research and other supporting
information (e.g., notes and
interviews) that are never intended to be published. To preserve the
confidentiality of these
designated materials, the PPA instructs investigators not to search for the
evidence at all, but to
compel the innocent third-parties to find and produce it themselves. Thus,
subject to certain
exceptions, the PPA generally limits searches for work product and
documentary materials held by
third-parties who plan to use them to communicate to the public.
New issues arise with the PPA due to the exponential growth in computer use
over the last decade.
With the advent of the Internet and widespread computer use, almost any
computer can be used to
"publish" material. As a result, the PPA may now apply to almost any search
of any computer.
Because computers now commonly contain enormous data storage devices,
wrongdoers can use
them to store material for publication � material that the PPA protects �
while simultaneously storing
(in a commingled fashion) child pornography, stolen classified documents,
or other contraband or
evidence of crime.
