Newspaper’s Computer Hard Drives Confiscated

Prosecutors confiscated computer hard drives owned by the Intelligencer Journal, part of the Lancaster Newspaper chain, as part of an investigation into whether a county coroner had impermissibly allowed journalists to use his password to gain access to a secure website. The newspaper had offered to provide the information sought but the prosecutors went to court to get control of the computer equipment itself. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court had declined to hear the case, allowing a lower court ruling to stand.  In that ruling, the judge, Barry Feudale, told prosecutors that the investigator who examines the data from the hard drives must show it to him before it is sent to prosecutors to ensure that only evidence relevant to the case is passed on. Read more here and here.