I sincerely hope that I am wrong on this PI thing. But really, what other protection is there? A doctor, engineer, &c., these cats do not face such draconian "possession and control" penalties.
Must have missed something about the expert testimony in court business. Never entered my mind, that. My concern is a legal shield (state and federal) between me and whatever content I discover in the course of an investigation.
About the Chapman case Until something better comes along we should learn all we can from it. #1 lesson is to not assume that since we are "right" we will not become targets of some out of control apparatchik.
Regarding the CA CP laws… they became effective late 2006. One of my running mates is now a sex felon, his only crime was to bring a number of huge hard drives back from an overseas contract. One zip file, just one, out of well-over a terabyte of date. Clearly, he knew naught of that single file's existence, or even IF it existed prior to seizure. But his attorney finally got the point across.
It is a screwed up system, the Courts (genuflect) are decades behind technology. We had best protect ourselves every way we can.
But, hey, I could be wrong.
This thread inspired me so I wrote a new post on this subject on my blog. I cannot figure out why this is so complicated to get right.