| The fourth amendment

|

The fourth amendment
Like many other areas of American law the fourth amendment finds its history rooted in English law. Which basically states a man's home is his castle. The fourth amendment is part of the Bill of Rights with guards against unreasonable search and seizures it also requires that a Warrant be judicially issued as well as there has to be probable cause. It was adopted during the American Revolution. Search and seizures including arrest should be limited to the scope of the Warrant with specific areas are items to be searched or a specific person arrested. The fourth amendment protects the home, papers and effects against unreasonable search and seizures. There are a few exceptions to this law one if the person gives consent to search no warrant is required. Another exception is if an officer sees something in plain view. Open fields such as pastors open water would be searched without warrant because they're open there is no expectation of privacy.
Computers and privacy
Over the last decade, courts decided whether the government can access evidence of illegal activity stored on digital technology without violating the Fourth Amendment.
Many cases discuss whether incriminating evidence stored by an employee in workplace computers is protected under the reasonable expectation of privacy. In a majority of cases, employees do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy for electronic communications at work.

the Fourth Amendment and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) determine the lawfulness of a search. The Fourth Amendment only applies to government searches (such as those conducted by law enforcement officials). The ECPA applies to everyone (whether government or private) and prohibits the unlawful interception or access to electronic Communications.
In the physical world there is a real limit on the length of time during which a search can be conducted. This rule does not impose much of a limit on electronic searches. As the investigator is able to make a copy of the digital evidence (such as a hard drive), they are able to continue to search these files both for "strings" which are beyond the scope of the original warrant and also at their leisure.
Neither the fourth Amendment nor Federal rules of criminal procedure required the investigator to promptly search the evidence. In fact, US federal law provides little over the return of property seized pursuant to warrant. The suspect must file motion in court in which they either prove that this seizure was illegal or that the investigator no longer has any need to retain the evidence to either have the digital evidence returned or destroyed.
As a result, law enforcement officials can keep a copy of any digital evidence they had seized under a warrant and continue to search it without any effective time limit. Fourth Amendment rules do not provide useful guidelines for investigators conduct even in Digital forensic labs. There are no limitations of the regions of a hard drive that a forensic computer analyst may examine for evidence and the analyst may continue to look for evidence of other crimes.
The Fourth Amendment rule is that an investigator executing a warrant is able to look in any place listed on the warrant where evidence might conceivably be concealed. Traditionally, an investigator was precluded from looking into any location beyond the evidence they wish to seize. Electronic evidence however may be stored anywhere. The result is that an investigator can electronically look anywhere in search of digital evidence.

References

http://computer-forensics.sans.org/blog/2008/12/22/searches-and-the-us-4th-amendment