Too Much Evidence, Not Enough Memory

I find nothing wrong with the ruling of the Scarfo case. The Court was in its right to admit the evidence found on Scarfo’s computer, despite the fact that the KLS programming was used to uncover the password. Clearly, the FBI had a warrant to search Scarfo’s computer and the Judge’s order clearly stated, “’the FBI can capture the necessary password to capture files by recording the key related information as they are entered”. The KLS allowed the FBI to uncover the password to retrieve the files. I suppose that there may have been an “over-collection of data” to retrieve the password, but it is not as though that extra information was included in the case. The only incriminating factor included was the evidence collected from the file.

Admittedly, it is a bit unsettling to think the FBI “may not know the exact nature of the incriminating evidence until they stumble upon it”, thus, they will see more information than is necessary to find the evidence they are searching for.

Nonetheless, with the amount of information that computers contain, it gives one individual perhaps too much insight to another person’s life. It is almost the same as peering into an individual’s mind and learning of their thoughts and personal history through various documents and pictures. Even for someone who may be charged with a criminal offense, perhaps this degree of interference is too much.

However, when analyzing the high number of cases the FBI searches, I believe it is plausible that such personal information from one individual is not particularly memorable to the detective. The traits of the individual under question is one of many that belong to other people charged with criminal offenses. It is as though that one person’s history in the memory of the detective is lost amongst all other cases the detective researches. Perhaps our fears of giving the government access to our personal lives through a computer are too overbearing.