PRISM: NSA/FBI Internet data mining project

Fri Jun 21 18:31:46 UTC 2013

On Fri, Jun 21, 2013 at 11:19 AM, Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com> wrote:
> On Jun 21, 2013, at 5:10 PM, Phil Fagan <philfagan at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I would think this is only an issue if they throw out the Fourth in that when
>> they use that data collected "inadvertantly" to build a case a against you
>> they use no other data collected under a proper warrant.
>
> That statement ignores a longstanding legal principle known as "fruit of the poison tree".

Howdy,

In spite of what you may have seen on TV, law enforcement is not
required to ignore evidence of a crime which turns up during a lawful
search merely because it's evidence of a different crime. Fruit of the
poisonous tree applies when the original search for whatever it was
they were originally looking for is unlawful. Supposedly the FISA
court found the NSA's troll for terrorists to be lawful. Once that's
true, evidence of any crime may be lawfully introduced in court.

For a fun read, check out the Ilustrated Guide to Criminal Law:
http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=18

Regards,
Bill Herrin

-- 
William D. Herrin ................ herrin at dirtside.com  bill at herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/>
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004