Government ‘hacking’ and the Playpen search warrant

[Commentary] In recent months, over a dozen district courts have handed down divided opinions on the legality of a single search warrant that was used to search the computers of many visitors to a child pornography website. The warrant raises interesting legal issues, although I think the significant issues are mostly not the ones that have received the most media attention. Many of these cases are headed to various courts of appeal, so I thought I would present an overview of the investigation and discuss some of the legal issues raised by the warrant.
[Orin Kerr is the Fred C. Stevenson Research Professor at The George Washington University Law School, where he has taught since 2001. ]