But they had evidence... They had evidence of child pornography that traced back to his computer network.

It's quite misleading to state only that "they had evidence of child pornography that traced back to his computer network."

What they (Seattle Police Department) claim to have was a tip, from 4chan, filtered through a national clearinghouse, that about seven weeks prior someone had allegedly transferred to 4chan a video of an unidentified woman abusing an unidentified child in an unknown location at an unknown time, allegedly from an IP address that they discovered was assigned by an ISP to David and that they learned prior to the search was the exit point from an anonymizing proxy network.

SPD staff involved were familiar with Tor and thus knew that there was no more reason to suspect David--an outspoken critic of their public surveillance programs and other privacy-invading programs--of uploading the evidence of some woman's crime to 4chan than to suspect any of the many thousands of users of the Tor network of such. This was pure harassment.

They also supposedly know what Tor is, which would mean that they should also know they would need more than just 'it came from this IP endpoint' to have evidence of his wrongdoing.

Would they raid a Starbucks if someone used Starbucks wifi to distribute CP? No, they would need more evidence that someone at that Starbucks was doing it and not just someone who bought a cup of coffee there that day.

Tor is open wifi, the IP of the exit node doesn't provide evidence that the person running the exit node has anything to do with the traffic.

> which would mean that they should also know they would need more than just 'it came from this IP endpoint' to have evidence of his wrongdoing.

That's why they raided his house.

> Would they raid a Starbucks if someone used Starbucks wifi to distribute CP?

Of course they would. Obviously aiming to try and catch the perpetrator in the act, but also at least to get a good look at the network configuration.

"CP came from this IP endpoint" means crime is being committed using this network. It's perfectly reasonable for them to go and investigate. And as others point out, them knowing how Tor works makes no difference - otherwise people making/distributing CP would host their own exit nodes with the sole purpose of being able to point them out to police and tell that CP it's not their traffic.

They didn't jailed him, they checked if he is in fact involved - and finding no additional evidence, left him in peace.

Your interpretation of the 4th amendment is slightly horrifying.

They claim to know how Tor works, which means his network is a _relay_, not an origin, and that by Tor's nature it would have no record of the file passing through, when it happened, or more importantly where it was from. Cursory knowledge of how Tor works would tell you that this was a dead end before they left the station. IMHO it's clear this is an attempt to try to hold Tor operators responsible for the traffic of the Tor network, and in so doing, dissuade people from operating Tor endpoints. There is no other reason for this action, it's good old fashioned scare tactics.

But they let him keep his life

We're in a weird place as a society when the police not shooting you dead is regarded as a "nice" thing for them to do.

Consider the bias of people making such statements. Society hasn't actually moved to that point, but many anti-police advocates want you to believe it has. In actual reality, most encounters with the police don't result in arbitrary killings.

Moreover, repeating such statements only makes the situation worse - especially if its repeated on the (inter)national media scale. Most police officers are normal people (just like most people in general), but when the society in general starts treating them as enemies, it doesn't help them doing their job in peaceful and responsible manner.

If police officers were intended act like normal people, they wouldn't be carrying military equipment.

Your implication that people who carry military equipment aren't meant to act like "normal people" would be incorrect even if it were the case that most police officers carried military equipment (which they don't.) The actions of the police in the posted article don't really support that assertion either.

US is a pathological case. I wrote this for the sake of fellow Europeans as well as the rest of the world, because I see the increase of anti-police sentiment (including linking to that "Don't talk to the police" YouTube video) in countries where it's not warranted.

Yeah, that's not the place we are in.

If you take anything but a ridiculously short term view, the expectations of how police will treat people today are far higher than they have been in the history of the US.

We still have to recognize and confront the remaining problems, but national media attention and prosecution of police who commit murders is a step up from police committing murders with no consequences.

You noticed that he's a white man right?