Hash It Out: Fourth Amendment Protection of Electronically Stored Child Exploitation

Abstract

Few courts have addressed whether the use of hash values by ISP’s violate an individual’s Fourth Amendment rights, however, the Fifth Circuit has very recently been presented with this issue in United States v. Reddick. This note will examine the Fifth Circuit’s reasoning in the Reddick decision. While it ultimately agrees with the outcome, it attempts to reconcile the oversimplified analysis the Fifth Circuit used in arriving at its decision. It is increasingly important that future defendants are afforded a thoughtful, balanced, and definitive legal analysis. This note proceeds in three parts. Part I catalogs the constitutional and statutory requirements for searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment. Part II analyzes the reasoning for the outcome in Reddick. Part III concludes with a proposed analysis for all cases involving the use of the hash value, child exploitation, and Fourth Amendment violations.