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Is Internet chat subject to federal and state wiretapping laws? Are chat rooms public or private space? Does a law enforcement officer need a warrant to monitor online chat-room chatter9 Should a news reporter be able to kibitz and quote from chat-room dialog?
In jurisdictions throughout the U.S., these questions are arising in court hearings and other forums. A judge in Rockington County Superior Court, N.M. last month declined to admit key evidence obtained by a police officer posing as a young girl in an Internet chat room because police violated the state's wiretapping law. A defendant named Roland Macmillan was scheduled to appear at trial on charges of using a computer at a public library to meet a 14-year-old girl to have sex with her. Macmillan was actually chatting with an undercover police officer who posed as a young girl and "recorded" the chat-room conversation.
The judge ruled that the evidence against Macmillan was obtained illegally because the officer never received permission from the attorney general's office as required under the state's wiretapping law.
In a similar sex case still to be tried in Illinois, the attorney for Kevin Coan is arguing that chatroom evidence against him should be inadmissible because police conducted an illegal eavesdrop.
Federal and state laws prohibit electronically intercepting a conversation without the consent of a party to the conversation (and in some cases, the consent of both parties), or with a warrant approved by a court. On the other hand, it is not unlawful to intercept a conversation "through an electronic system that is configured so that such electronic communication is readily accessible to the general public."
In countless prosecutions of sex offenders who use Internet chat rooms to locate victims, inadmissibility of evidence has not been an obstacle.
What about non-law enforcement use of contents of chat rooms? Some moderators object to "lurkers" who monitor chat dialog and quote comments elsewhere.
"I'm not surprised," Internet...