In this case, the state is expecting evidence to exist in the form of incriminating email communication between Smollett and his manager, and possibly additional people. From the public evidence so far, it sure seems like a reasonable expectation! I'm a pretty hardcore civil libertarian, and I'm having a hard time faulting the judge here.
I would expect a warrant for just the e-mail exchanges between Smollet and his manager (and perhaps other digital communication methods), not for his entire life.
I hear you, but that doesn't seem like how anything works in our legal system. When warrants are issued for cellphone records, text messages, financial records, etc, they don't have so narrow a scope.
The state has probable cause to believe there is evidence of criminal behavior in your <insert anything here>. Therefore the warrant gives them access to it in order to look for that (previously specified) criminal behavior. In this case everyone expects to find a smoking gun in his email - either talking to his manager or talking to someone else. That seems like probable cause to me.
> In this case, the state is expecting evidence to exist in the form of incriminating email communication between Smollett and his manager, and possibly additional people.
Then why is the warrant not for _that_? Instead, we have a broad-reaching data pull that will be filled with a ton of information is irrelevant.
In this case, the state is expecting evidence to exist in the form of incriminating email communication between Smollett and his manager, and possibly additional people. From the public evidence so far, it sure seems like a reasonable expectation! I'm a pretty hardcore civil libertarian, and I'm having a hard time faulting the judge here.
What else do you expect?