[Infowarrior] - Boston dorm computer raid ruled illegal

[Richard Forno]

Boston dorm computer raid ruled illegal

By Dan Goodin in San Francisco • Get more from this author

Posted in Law, 22nd May 2009 23:50 GMT

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/22/computer_seizure_ruled_illegal/

A justice from Massachusetts's highest court has ordered police to  
return a laptop and other gear seized from a Boston student's dorm  
room after rejecting prosecutors' arguments that hoax emails he was  
suspected of sending might be illegal under a computer crime statute.

The decision, issued Thursday by Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court  
Margot Botsford, also ordered police to immediately cease any ongoing  
search of the seized property. Police confiscated 23 items, including  
three laptops, two iPods, two cellular phones, a digital camera, and a  
variety of data-storage devices, during a March 30 raid on the dorm  
room of Boston College (BC) student Riccardo Calixte.

"No one should be subjected to a search like this based on such flimsy  
theories and evidence," said Matt Zimmerman, a senior staff attorney  
for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which helped represent the  
computer science student. As a result of the seizure, Calixte was  
forced to complete much of the final month of the semester without a  
computer, phone or network access, the EFF said.

Calixte came under suspicion following a "domestic dispute" when a  
roommate told a police detective he had observed Calixte commit two  
computer crimes. When police requested a warrant to search the dorm  
room, much of the factual basis provided that a crime had been  
committed were two emails sent in early March that falsely claimed the  
roommate was participating on a gay dating website. At least one them  
was suspected to have been sent by Calixte.

In arguing the search warrant was properly issued, prosecutors argued  
the hoax emails might violate a Massachusetts statute barring the  
"unauthorized access" to a computer. Justice Botsford rejected that  
theory.

"The commonwealth's claim that such an email might be unlawful because  
it violates a hypothetical internet use policy maintained by BC both  
goes well beyond the reasonable inferences that may be drawn from the  
affidavit, and would dramatically expand the appropriate scope of" the  
statute, she wrote.

She went on to find there was no probable cause to support that  
Calixte illegally downloaded more than 200 movies and music files and  
accessed the BC grading system used by professors to change grades.