Reference no: EM133683775

United States v. Steven C. Perrine

The Perrine case illustrates how law enforcement must utilize the statutory framework to trace the source of criminal activity and then operate within the Fourth Amendment framework to seize evidence on the digital device that was the source of the activity. Some aspects of an investigation do not implicate any regulatory regime and law enforcement may, just like any private citizen, utilize the numerous ways that the Internet now offers to learn something to facilitate the investigation. Hence, an investigator passes in and out of three frameworks to obtain digital evidence: 1) statutes; 2) the Fourth Amendment; and, 3) non-regulated cyber-space. The point here is not to gain an understanding of the doctrines but to understand the complexity of such investigations, including passing in and out of various legal regimes during the course of the investigation. Picture yourself as the investigator in this case.

Question 1: What evidence of crime is there? (recount the facts of the case).

Question 2: Who is the criminal; how do the police find him?

Question 3: What do you do next? (Discuss the various legal regimes that the police must confront and how they must comply with those regimes. For example, search engines such as Google, public websites, and chat rooms offer a host of information to anyone who chooses to use them. Perhaps you could use a free IP locater service and enter the IP address in Perrine to show how easy it is to find who is assigned the IP address. Discuss all the steps you would take until you have seized Vanlandingham's computer and why each step is important.