By Frank James

It's safe to say that federal judge Alex Kozinski has learned the hard way some lessons about computer security.

Kozinski, the chief judge for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals based in San Francisco, has apologized and been properly rebuked by his judicial colleagues for having once had naughty pictures on a personal computer server whose files, he didn't realize until too late, the public had access to.

Even though the photos were relatively tame by Internet standards (one showed naked women painted as cows) they still weren't the sort of things the federal judiciary wants associated with its members. It didn't help matters that Kozinski was sitting on a pornography case at the time and had to recuse himself because of the discovery and that a litigant filed a complaint against him.

So Kozinkski apologized for the embarrassment he caused his fellow jurists and acknowledged that he should've either had better computer security or deleted the files after he and his son turned the computer in question into a server which they did so the judge could have access to his personal files when he was away from home.

Since Kozinski is with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, judges of the Third Circuit heard the case and issued its 41-page report today.

An excerpt:

The question remains, then: what, if any, further action is appropriate? The Judge explained and admitted his error; apologized for it, recognizing its impact on the judiciary; and committed to changing his conduct to avoid any recurrence of the error.


The offending material has been removed and will be destroyed. The Judge's acknowledgment of responsibility combined with the corrective actions he has already completed or has committed to pursue and his apology, along with our admonishment, made public in this opinion, properly "remed[y] the problems raised by the complaint." Rule 11(d)(2). Accordingly, this proceeding is properly concluded.

2:19 - July 2, 2009

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