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Law, Dissonance And Remote Computer Searches, Susan W. Brenner

Susan Brenner

This article examines the rule dissonance that can arise when law enforcement officers from one jurisdiction, e.g., the United States, remotely search a computer in another jurisdiction, e.g., Russia. It explains that such a search occurred in 2000, when Federal Bureau of Investigation agents tricked two Russian cybercriminals to Seattle and tricked them into using laptops loaded with spyware to access their computer in Russia. The FBI agents then used the usernames and passwords the spyware recorded to access the Russian computer and download data, which was used to prosecute the Russians for violating U.S. cybercrime law. One moved to …