Consider Fred Felony’s computer crime at p. 4 of our casebook. What procedural laws apply, and what specific showing under the applicable law would a law enforcement officer need to provide in order legally to:
(a) order any of the internet service providers in the chain of communications to provide disclosure of network logs that had recorded incoming IP addresses and times of every attempt to log on to an account, and associated outgoing messages, during the time that Fred might have been operating? (As might be needed to implement the “hopping back” technique from server to server, and ultimately to identify Fred, as described in the casebook at pp. 5-6).
(Do not worry about the mechanics of matching the messages to implement the stepping-back technique, and do not worry about jurisdictional issues: you may assume that each of the steps in the chain of communication from server to server is subject to the procedural laws we’ve covered and that the logs will suffice to get from step to step)
(b) install at a point in a communication network a monitoring device (or a “packet sniffer”) that is configured to scan and record only “non-content” (Dialing, Routing, Addressing, or Signaling) information relating to any messages that Fred might send or receive in the future (perhaps to identify potential confederates he may have)
(c) install at a point in a communication network a monitoring device (or a “packet sniffer”) that is configured to scan and record all information, including the content of any messages that Fred might send or receive in the future (perhaps to catch him in the act of some later illegal scheme, or to find any confederates he might have and to catch them in some illegal activity)
(d) search and seize Fred’s computer? (and what happens if the search reveals records of some completely different crime?)
