privacy police sexual-offences warrant police-power
How much evidence of sexual harassment do the FBI or the police require in order to get a search warrant for the servers of a company?
<p>Let's say a minor calls the police or goes to them and reports that she got a sexual text on snapchat, but she has no proof. Is that enough probable cause for police to seek a warrant directed to snapchat to view all chats?</p>
<p>If she does have a sexual text as proof, is that enough evidence for probable cause?</p>
<p>If they get warrant for snapchat servers and they see the chats are empty, no texts, no evidence nothing, but they see the current email and also a previous email (snap is able to retrive email accounts history, the one currently in use and the older one), do they have the power to seek any accounts that were created with the previous email and seek warrants for what's on snap servers?</p>
<p>I'm asking because maybe that email belongs to someone else. They may see the IP used to create other accounts are the same with the accused account that's using another email (the current one), but maybe there are more people in the house and the accounts may be the private property of the others in the house. I do not think it would be fair for police to seek warrants for everything if there's no evidence on the accused account and even if there would be a small hint. The other accounts may be the private property of others</p>

<h2>Warrants are issued upon <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probable_cause" rel="nofollow noreferrer">probable cause</a></h2>
<p>The Supreme Court defined this in 1964 in Beck v. Ohio as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>whether at [the moment of arrest] the facts and circumstances within [an officer's] knowledge and of which they had reasonably trustworthy information [are] sufficient to warrant a prudent [person] in believing that [a suspect] had committed or was committing an offense</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the context of warrants, the Oxford Companion to American Law defines probable cause as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>information sufficient to warrant a prudent person's belief that the wanted individual had committed a crime (for an arrest warrant) or that evidence of a crime or contraband would be found in a search (for a search warrant)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In Brinegar v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court defines probable cause as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>where the facts and circumstances within the officers' knowledge, and of which they have reasonably trustworthy information, are sufficient in themselves to warrant a belief by a man of reasonable caution that a crime is being committed</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the scenario that you describe the testimony of the child almost certainly gives rise to probable cause. A warrant issued on that basis is likely to be broad enough for the investigation to follow the path that you suggest - if the child claims there were inappropriate photos sent to them and there was evidence of subsequent deletion, law enforcement are entitled to trace that back to wherever it leads.</p>
