Reference no: EM131455342

Question: As fire marshall for a town in Texas, Joe had his own office in which he had a computer but no Internet. In Joe's absence, Smith, the city's network administrator, entered Joe's office to install the city network on his computer. Smith discovered that Joe had installed a password, without which Smith could not access the computer's hard drive to complete his task. Smith notified Joe's supervisor, who called Joe at home to get his password. After resuming work on the computer, Smith noticed the presence of newsgroups. Smith knew that no one was permitted to have newsgroups on his or her computer, but the policy had not been communicated to the fire station employees, including Joe.

Looking at the newsgroups, Smith noticed three titles suggesting the presence of pornography. He clicked on one newsgroup title, alt.erotica.xxx.preteen, and saw that about 25 of the approximately 60 files had been read. The city's public safety director, Keller, instructed Smith and Fire Chief Ure to get what was needed from Joe's office to view the contents of his computer, as well as any zip disks or drives. The material taken from Joe's office revealed explicit child pornography. Joe was convicted for possession of child pornography. Did the collection of evidence from Joe's office violate his Fourth Amendment rights? Explain. [ United States v. Slanina, 283 F.3d 670 (5th Cir. 2002).]