Case Explained: UNITED STATES v. ERIC ROBERT JOHNSON

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit

Filed: 2026-07-07

The First Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of Eric Robert Johnson’s motion to suppress evidence obtained through the use of “Freenet Roundup,” a law enforcement modification of the Freenet peer-to-peer file-sharing network, concluding that Johnson lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in his activity on the platform. The court applied the two-pronged *Katz* test for Fourth Amendment searches, assuming without deciding that Johnson satisfied the subjective component, but holding as a matter of law that he failed to establish an objective expectation of privacy. The court reasoned that Freenet is not a ubiquitous part of daily life comparable to cell phones under *Carpenter v. United States*, and that by voluntarily operating in “Opennet” mode after receiving explicit software warnings that his IP address could be discovered by strangers, Johnson knowingly exposed his requests to the public, including law enforcement acting as ordinary users. The court further determined that Freenet Roundup did not constitute a search using technology “not in general public use” under *Kyllo v. United States*, as the tool merely logged information voluntarily transmitted with file requests and applied standard techniques to identify requestors, functioning analogously to an undercover officer participating in a transaction. Consequently, Johnson’s conviction for possession of child pornography under 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(5)(B) stands, and his sentence of 120 months’ imprisonment and five years’ supervised release remains in effect.

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