[AppyPappy]

The password protected ZIP file would have been bypassed in the search until they cracked the password. Remember, this clown was using his computers to sell fraudulent tax schemes so the computers were fair game.

[NJ_gent]

"The password protected ZIP file would have been bypassed in the search until they cracked the password."

Zip files generally use extremely weak encryption. I can bypass most zip file passwords on my home computer in under a minute. Using a brute force program, I can take down an 8-character long password, regardless of the characters used, in less than a week. I should certainly hope the feds are a little brighter than I am. Either they're lazy, stupid, incompetant, or severely backlogged, or this was an agent or two pissed off at the prospect of not being able to put this guy away after countless hours of fruitless work.

"Remember, this clown was using his computers to sell fraudulent tax schemes so the computers were fair game."

If the police have a warrant to search my home for a shotgun that was used in a crime, my home is 'fair game'. That doesn't mean that evidence they find in my cookie jar is fair game. Unless they can show that they had a reasonable suspicion that evidence of the crime being investigated would be found, they can't perform the search. You're not likely to find a shotgun in a cookie jar, and you're not likely to find evidence of tax evasion in a jpeg. Upon opening the zip, they had every right to look at files that could potentially contain incriminating evidence. Jpegs probably don't fit that mold.

If this guy's guilty of what they say he's guilty of, then he's a disgusting pig who deserves to die a horribly painful death. That being said, the feds still don't have the right to look in my cookie jar for that shotgun, and they don't have the right to go on a fishing expedition in this guy's computers to drudge up anything they can possibly find to make their efforts worthwhile.