AJ Dellinger reports:
The Fourth Amendment of the United State Constitution, which protects citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures, does not protect users on the PlayStation Network from warrantless searches conducted by network proprietor Sony, a district court judge ruled this week.
The case involved a PSN user going by the handle Susan_14. The account, owned by the defendant in the case Michael Stratton, was reported to Sony on several occasions for soliciting child pornography through spam messages.
Sony reviewed the account—without providing notice or acquiring a warrant—after receiving complaints and found the account had been used to download and upload several pornographic images involving children.
Sony reported the findings to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which then coordinated with the FBI to gather additional information about Stratton, including his email address (“nudesusan14@gmail.com”) and IP address acquired through subpoenas from Google and internet provider CenturyLink.
Read more on IBT.