ABSTRACT

In April 1991, Kevin Poulsen was arrested and charged with several computer hacking crimes, including telecommunications and computer fraud ( United States v.  Poulsen , 1994 ). Additional espionage charges for illegal possession of classifi ed government secrets were fi led after computer tapes were found in a storage locker rented by Poulsen. However, he claimed the computer tapes were illegally obtained, and therefore could not be used as evidence in the espionage case ( United States v.  Poulsen , 1994 ). According to court documents, Poulsen rented a storage locker from the Menlo-Atherton Storage Facility in April 1987. Poulsen was 71 days behind in rent and owed the company $155.50 for the storage locker. In January

1988, Menlo mailed a notice to Poulsen (who provided a false address and name on the rental agreement) stating that if the rent were not paid in full within 14 days, Menlo would terminate Poulsen’s right to the storage unit. In February 1988, after not receiving rental payment in full, the manager of Menlo removed the contents of Poulsen’s locker but noticed “a large amount of telecommunications equipment and manuals that apparently belonged to PacBell” ( United States v.  Poulsen , 1994 , para 7). Since the manager of the storage facility believed the telecommunications equipment was stolen, he contacted the police department and gave the detectives permission to seize all of the contents of Poulsen’s locker.