U.S. Judge Rules Out FBI Search Warrant in Child Pornography Case; Jurisdiction Issues Pointed as Factor

Evidence against a Massachusetts man that secretly ran one of the biggest child pornography websites on the Internet was shockingly disregarded recently. Though originally set for apprehension of the said suspect, the issues arose due to jurisdiction matters that made the case more complex as the supposed.

According to My Informs, U.S. District Judge William Young in Boston triggered a possible major problem to a probe that caused at least 137 people being charged in the United States and signaled overseas investigations. For the particular matter, Young ruled out that a Virginia-based federal magistrate judge does not have the jurisdiction to push through with a search warrant to be used for evidence acquisition and its justification thereof.

Locker Dome delivered that Alex Levin of Norwood, Massachusetts was the alleged suspect of such search. Procedure suggests a thorough investigation to trace the parties involved, but jurisdiction issues spewed a more difficult situation for the legal aspects.

Young was quoted, "It follows that the resulting search was conducted as though there were no warrant at all. Since warrantless searches are presumptively unreasonable, and the good-faith exception is inapplicable, the evidence must be excluded." The lawyers of Levin did not respond to comment requests, and a certain Justice Department spokesman declined as well.

As per Reuters, it was back in February 2015 that the Federal Bureau of Investigation apprehended the server hosting Playpen, which is a child pornography website that operated on the Tor network. It was said to cater anonymous online communication and protect user privacy. To trace the 214,898 reported members, the aforementioned search warrant was then requested from the Virginia judge allowed them to deploy a network investigative technique.

Such methods were questioned by the critics, and Young went on to somewhat dispute the decision made by the Virginia judge behind the warrant. It officially let the FBI transmit computer codes to the website's users, including those that searched the out-of-state computer of Levin.

The argument kept the prosecutors conflicted on the supposed proper authorization of the search, since the computer was in Virginia. Young, however, attested since the information gathered did not come from the server itself.

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U.S. Judge Rules Out Search Warrant, Child Pornography Charges, U.S. Judges, Boston Massachusetts

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