The Kent, Washington, police department has closed a criminal investigation of the alleged downloading of child pornography from one of two King County Library System computers, and city officials have agreed to pay $30,000 in library attorney fees plus $670 in court costs, according to the September 10 Kent South County Journal.
“What this has really accomplished is that it outlines the procedure the police need to follow to get information, regardless of what they are looking for,” KCLS Director Bill Ptacek told the Journal. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Marcia Pechman “adds to that body of law” pertaining to patron privacy, KCLS attorney Paul Kundtz agreed.
“We will be much more on the safe side,” echoed Kent Police Department spokesperson Paul Petersen. “We will get our search warrant as quickly as we can before we take anything physically from the library.”
Judge Pechman ruled August 13 that Kent police must immediately return two library workstations seized June 28 without a search warrant, despite being advised that the online cache of the computers is automatically purged daily.
Posted September 16, 2002.