United States v. Jeffrey Brian Ziegler

We must determine whether an employee has an expectation of privacy in his workplace computer sufficient to suppress images of child pornography sought to be admitted into evidence in a criminal prosecution.

I

A

Frontline Processing (“Frontline”), a company that services Internet merchants by processing on-line electronic payments, is located in Bozeman, Montana. On January 30, 2001, Anthony Cochenour, the owner of Frontline’s Internet-service provider and the fiancé of a Frontline employee, contacted Special Agent James A. Kennedy, Jr. of the FBI with a tip that a Frontline employee had accessed child-pornographic websites from a workplace computer.

Agent Kennedy pursued the report that day, first contacting Frontline’s Internet Technology (“IT”) Administrator, John Softich. One of Softich’s duties at Front-line was to monitor employee use of the workplace computers including their Internet access. He informed Kennedy that the company had in place a firewall, which permitted constant monitoring of the employees’ Internet activities.

During the interview, Softich confirmed Cochenour’s report that a Frontline employee had accessed child pornography via the Internet. Softich…