Unicorn wrote:

No ISP in its right mind is going to ask for trouble. If I'm a prosecutor and I suspect that the ISP may be complicit in hiding evidence, I'm going to ask for a search and seizure warrant (a la sun devil) and just walk in and take the equipment I believe the data to be on and then satisify myself that it's unattainable.

Last semester I taught a seminar on computers, crime, and privacy and we had, as a guest lecturer one evening, Silicon Valley's one full time computer cop (he works for the SC County D.A.'s office). One of his comments was that ISP's were generally very cooperative, because they knew that he could legally impose large costs on them by seizing their systems as evidence. David Friedman