NACDL News: New Report Guides Defense Attorneys in Challenging Secretive Government Hacking

On Mar. 30, 2017, the American Civil Liberties Union released a report, to which NACDL and the Electronic Frontier Foundation contributed, that identified key legal arguments and strategies for challenging evidence seized by government-installed computer malware. The report, Challenging Government Hacking in Criminal Cases, assesses recent court decisions evaluating the government’s use of the controversial hacking technique and makes recommendations for the most promising avenues to have unconstitutionally obtained evidence suppressed. The report also looks forward, addressing changes to Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure that have given the government wide latitude to use hacking in their criminal investigations.