
German police raid homes of Tor-linked group's board members - jfreax
https://www.zdnet.com/article/german-police-raid-homes-of-tor-linked-groups-board-members/
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merricksb
Heavily discussed 1-2 days ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17456289](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17456289)
(333 points/130 comments)

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n1231231231234
another example of tried overreach: a branch of the federal police,
"staatsschutz", raided the posteo office in 2013 and claimed to have a warrant
to seize _everything_. posteo immediatedly pushed back and it turned out that
the police only had a warrant for a single document [0](in german, tho). like
the investigating officers wouldn't be aware of this. it's their modus
operandi.

what they also like to do is to adjust events in hindsight such that it suits
their story. the case I have in mind concerns the NRW state police, but that,
too, seems to be common strategy. in this case, which is very recent, a
protester was arrested and police claimed, in their official report, that the
protester physically assaulted the officer and resisted arrest. the protester
disputed this, but without evidence would not have stood a chance in court.
moreover, the protester was badly injured during the whole ordeal. now a video
turns up and what do you see?: no physical assault, no resistance [1](also in
german). in such cases, i am glad that we live in the age of mobile phones,
where anyone can take recordings.

[0]
[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posteo](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posteo)
[1] [http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/wuppertal-fall-von-
polize...](http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/wuppertal-fall-von-
polizeigewalt-erregt-nordrhein-westfalen-1.4040203)

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anoncoward111
Wow, imagine being raided by police and having all your stuff stolen, just
because the police allege that you helped someone do something "anti-
government".

Tor board, I would offer you my help, but I'm an American, so we would
probably all be sent to Guantanamo

~~~
superkuh
I don't have to. It happened to me in 2010 in the middle of the USA. 6am no-
knock raid by regional FBI agents with guns drawn. They stole all of my
computer equipment and my flatmate's computer equipment too.

There were never any charges brought. We never got our stuff back. The local
police were brought in to try to charge me with something, anything, and the
best they could come up with was a city ordinance called "Maintaining a
disorderly house." \-- yeah, it tends to be a bit messy after the feds have
trashed it.

Of course back then the feds were really up in arms trying to squash any and
all grassroots political organizations (ie, wikileaks + occupy). Even more
than now.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Police raided my home in South Australia. It was drug related, and I was
dealing, so fair enough. They later dropped the charges, _nolle prosequi_.

But did they have to make such a mess? I mean, they had had my keys and still
busted open locks, pulled everything out of everything and threw it across the
room, upturned everything that wasn't bolted down. And they still didn't find
some of the drugs in plain sight, and a substantial amount of cash that was
barely hidden.

More recently they forced their way in to my home Sunday night at 12am and
dragged me off before I had a chance to get out of my pajamas to charge me
with assault on allegations I pushed someone over in to 2 feet of fresh snow.
Held me till midday Monday forcing me to miss a day at work and appear in
court in my bed clothes. Yeah, they dropped those charges too.

The police are _the enemy_. And an incompetent, gun wielding, violent enemy
immune to the law.

~~~
anoncoward111
The government quite literally hires goons to be... well... armed goons.

I am so, so sorry to hear about what you went through. These guys are overpaid
thugs with a lot of public support shockingly

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CBLT
I guess a big lesson here is: keeping the data on paper made it less secure.

The police made overreach on top of overreach and grabbed as much as they
could, far exceeding their warrant. They now have historical donor records for
an unrelated organization, when the warrant should have limited them in scope
and history. But the police can't compel them to unlock their encrypted hard
drives. If they kept that info on encrypted disk it would have been safe.

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forapurpose
I'm not speaking about the events in the OP, but generally I think people do
their cause harm when they say things such as the following (there are several
more examples in the article):

 _After the raids, Bartl was forced to take a break from work. He said that he
assumes, given his work on digital rights issues, that he may be under
surveillance. Bartl also expressed concern that future donors may also face
scrutiny, financially hurting the group 's projects._

Sometimes (I know nothing about these incidents), some of the reasons for
these actions are to intimidate you and disrupt your work. Letting them know
you are intimidated and disrupted not only encourages the bully, it spreads
those consequences much more widely than just you: It demoralizing people who
follow you, who depend on you, and who are in similar positions; and via the
news article it spreads the intimidation and disruption to a much wider
audience. How many on HN will now have second thoughts? The better response, I
think, is _f- that; we won 't be stopped or intimidated_.

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mindfulhack
This law enforcement overreach and breach of civil freedoms is fucked up.

How is it fair to just sit back and not wage war after persecution like this?
If I were in the CCC I'd be fuming and scheming right now. Not sure what sort
what the war would look like exactly, but I'd be thinking of something.

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hh3k0
> But, under pressure from tax authorities, the organization had compiled
> paper receipts with names and passport numbers of those the project had
> reimbursed.

> Bartl said those records have been compromised, putting the identities of
> those involved at risk.

Pretty sure those records have been compromised the moment you handed them
over to the tax authorities.

