So that's an interesting development if it's true ...
... Twitter indicated that the material was acquired illegally as their excuse to censor the story, but if the computer shop owner believed that the other participant in the sex video was a minor, it would have likely been illegal for the computer shop owner to not hand the laptop over to the FBI if they believed. Their only remaining argument is that the illegal act was the sharing of that content with the NYPost -- which, while illegal, would require them to scrub nearly every negative story about the President.
I am not a lawyer, but I consulted one when I opened up a side-gig repairing damaged hard drives and recovering their data for people who had tried everything else short of high-end data recovery. I haven't done that gig for over a decade (HDDs less common, SSDs very different recovery skillset), but at the time I was advised that should I inspect the contents of someone's drive and come across something that's questionable (not even obvious), I'll be calling him and expecting to pay a $1000 retainer. Thorny stuff you don't screw up.
Thankfully, the issue never presented itself. For my own protection I included a contract that clearly stated that I did not validate that the recovery is successful, only that non-random data including headers for common file types were saved to the replacement drive, which was how I had intended on operating, anyway. Never had an upset customer, never happened upon someone's super-organized, ridiculously large porn collection ... with that gig, anyway.
If you’re a repair guy, you have no legal issues to worry about. You were working on someone else’s property and noticed the illegal material. You going directly to the authorities (without attempting to bribe/blackmail the person) means you are clean.
I tried to find what federal law he was referencing -- this might be it: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2258A, though I'm not sure when this law took effect and I know it was new when he brought it up to me.
Since the drive belonged to the customer (and that's easy to prove), I didn't have to worry about it being mistaken for being mine (though, I'll admit, that was something I was very concerned about). The issue is that people in certain positions have a requirement to report certain types of illegal behavior. Normally you wouldn't think "Computer Service Provider", when you think mandatory reporting -- you think teacher, psychologist, etc. But thorny subjects like sex crimes against minors tend to be far reaching.
The repair shop owner made Hunter sign a document stating that if he doesn't pick the laptop up in 90 days it becomes the shops property including everything on the HDD. There is nothing illegal about how he obtained them. Twitter is bald face lying.
So that's an interesting development if it's true ...
... Twitter indicated that the material was acquired illegally as their excuse to censor the story, but if the computer shop owner believed that the other participant in the sex video was a minor, it would have likely been illegal for the computer shop owner to not hand the laptop over to the FBI if they believed. Their only remaining argument is that the illegal act was the sharing of that content with the NYPost -- which, while illegal, would require them to scrub nearly every negative story about the President.
I am not a lawyer, but I consulted one when I opened up a side-gig repairing damaged hard drives and recovering their data for people who had tried everything else short of high-end data recovery. I haven't done that gig for over a decade (HDDs less common, SSDs very different recovery skillset), but at the time I was advised that should I inspect the contents of someone's drive and come across something that's questionable (not even obvious), I'll be calling him and expecting to pay a $1000 retainer. Thorny stuff you don't screw up.
Thankfully, the issue never presented itself. For my own protection I included a contract that clearly stated that I did not validate that the recovery is successful, only that non-random data including headers for common file types were saved to the replacement drive, which was how I had intended on operating, anyway. Never had an upset customer, never happened upon someone's super-organized, ridiculously large porn collection ... with that gig, anyway.
If you’re a repair guy, you have no legal issues to worry about. You were working on someone else’s property and noticed the illegal material. You going directly to the authorities (without attempting to bribe/blackmail the person) means you are clean.
I tried to find what federal law he was referencing -- this might be it: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2258A, though I'm not sure when this law took effect and I know it was new when he brought it up to me.
Since the drive belonged to the customer (and that's easy to prove), I didn't have to worry about it being mistaken for being mine (though, I'll admit, that was something I was very concerned about). The issue is that people in certain positions have a requirement to report certain types of illegal behavior. Normally you wouldn't think "Computer Service Provider", when you think mandatory reporting -- you think teacher, psychologist, etc. But thorny subjects like sex crimes against minors tend to be far reaching.
The repair shop owner made Hunter sign a document stating that if he doesn't pick the laptop up in 90 days it becomes the shops property including everything on the HDD. There is nothing illegal about how he obtained them. Twitter is bald face lying.