United States v. Tagg
"The unique challenges of child-pornography crimes demand a practical approach to the probable-cause question." With that standard in mind, the Court in Tagg overturned a district court's suppression of a search warrant. This is another case coming as a result of the Government's operation of the Playpen website on the Dark Web.
The Court first delineated between evidence supporting a conviction and that supporting a search warrant. "[E]ven if the person never viewed illegal child pornography, knowingly accessing a child-pornography website with the intent to view illegal materials is itself a criminal act. It follows from this language that probable cause to search Tagg’s house would exist even if he was 'curiosity
shopping' for child porn on Playpen but never actually viewed an illegal image." Thus, the actions in accessing the website and browsing it were sufficient, and the Government was not required to prove that actual images were accessed and downloaded in order to obtain the warrant. "[T]he affidavit
need not “show” that Tagg had unlawful intent—it only needed to allege facts that create a reasonable probability that Tagg had an unlawful motive." The Court thus reversed the district court's suppression decision.
A final note: the opinion does a good job of explaining, in simple terms, how Tor, Dark Web, and IP addresses work. If you need to explain these to someone, this is a good primer.
1 comment:
Yes, but is "intent" MOTIVE? Perhaps. In further thought, did the Court satisfy an examination of the Mens Rea with regard to the "Inquiry" into the site and that in turn could satisfy an "Unlawful Motive" for the creation of a nexus of requisite culpability that was not able to be calved out as non-intentional.
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