United States v. Maxwell

OPINION OF THE COURT

DIXON, Chief Judge:

This is a case of first impression in the military appellate courts involving criminal misconduct through transmissions and communications using an on-line computer service. It requires us to focus upon how well traditional legal concepts are suited to deal with challenges of the computer age. Specifically, we must decide whether the existing law of search and seizure can be appropriately applied to the search of information stored in computers, and to the seizure of electronically retrievable evidence that some contend exists only in “cyberspace.” We…