NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — A federal judge has ruled that investigators did not need a warrant before hacking a Newport News man’s computer during a child pornography sting.

The Daily Press of Newport News (http://bit.ly/29lvUSt ) reports U.S. District Judge Henry Coke Morgan Jr. ruled last month that because computer hacking is commonplace and data about people’s online usage goes to Internet providers already, 24-year-old Edward J. Matish did not have any “reasonable expectation of privacy” to his home computer.

Matish was arrested in February 2015 during an investigation in which the FBI allowed a secret child porn website to continue operating for two weeks while it tried to identify users.

Investigators had obtained a warrant, but in a ruling that’s garnering interest in legal circles nationally, Morgan said the warrant was not even necessary.

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Information from: Daily Press, http://www.dailypress.com/