Possibly the worst thing to be raided for: distribution of CSAM.

Apparently based purely on the 'evidence' of my IP address being on some list - that's the only explanation I ever got.

Funny thing is, they did so little background research they didn't even know to expect kids in the house when they raided at 6:30am.

It still triggers me. This was in August 2022. I wrote pages and pages of my memories and thoughts about it, and it still makes me angry for about ten different reasons.

The long version I haven't written yet and probably never will. I don't want to dwell on it, I want to get on with my life and have an even worse drama to deal with at the moment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44533637

I know I'm alive, that's for sure. I'm trying to make lemonade by the goddamn bucket load.

P.S. I have written prior HN comments referring to the raid if you care enough to go back that far.

I wasn't arrested or charged, they found nothing of what they were looking for on the multi terabytes of disks they seized. No further action other than the raid.

Sure you can sue anybody for anything. Whether your case actually gets heard or not is another consideration. And even if it gets heard, the judge can simply dismiss it for a variety of reasons before proceeding to trial.

Also, state and the federal governments have sovereign immunity and qualified immunity. Basically the government has to allow itself to be sued.

True this doesn't apply to counties or cities, however there is still a much higher bar for tort even for local police. Generally if they are operatikng within the law, like executing a valid search warrant, the standard is much higher than it would be for an average citizen.

Meerly suffering harm from government action is not sufficient. Having property impounded as part of an investigation, pursuant to a warrant, is likely not actionable, unless there was malice involved. Using slim evidence isn't really actionable.

We looked into anything that could be done to minimise the chances of such a thing happening to innocent parties, but the only option was to make a complaint about an individual officer. There's no (easy, obvious) way to question the system they use to determine "validity" of raids or due diligence prior to requesting a warrant, or evidence required to justify a warrant.

The whole thing just felt to me like it was blindly rubber stamped all the way through because "protect the children". Pity my daughter was a child and absorbs such experiences... My son was also a child, but he's less affected by such things.

And Japan, while being clean, safe and Kawai, its legal system has like a 90%+ conviction rate, so make of this what you will.

So, Norway, Dennmark, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, France, Spain, Austria, Switzerland

So what exactly are you referring to?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/german-woman-given-harsher-senten...

https://www.foxnews.com/media/germany-started-criminal-inves...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/10/autistic-teenage...

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-greens-habeck-presses-charges-...

Germany and the UK seem to be the worst offenders in regards to this, but that may just be selection bias on what gets into English language media. I can pull more articles if you're actually interested.

I think it's fair to demand that people follow laws on the internet as in person. Germany has laws against supporting nazism and for good reason. I don't give a crap about those people's right to free speech. The laws against insulting politicians seem a bit less reasonable but honestly just don't call people names online. Can't say I'm bothered by these articles.

Mention to them that the only way Communism and Nazism differ is Nazism following Engel's nationalist approach to overthrowing capitalism rather than Marx's international one and Nazis having been obsessed with spiritual and Iranian occultism and you're met with blank stares.

Yet those are the fundamentals of Nazism everything else derives from. Including the Holocaust.

Same goes for the understanding of the Nazis "Nationalism". Most Germans just won't believe you when you tell them that it was an absurd use of that term and much more similar to the modern "pro-EU" mindset than the modern understanding of nationalism.

The Germans are propagandized into thinking the definition of Nazis is being called "rightwing" by the media and wanting decentralization of power and cultural homogenity (modern nationalism). Yet the left:

- has already its SA precursors back on the streets (Hammerbande, Antifa, "NGOs")

- is getting rid of free speech to the maximum extent they somehow can pull off within the limits of the law and beyond that through mandatory voluntary industry initiatives (e.g. "Trusted Flaggers")

- are manufacturing external enemies at fault for all wrong (the Russians)

- is spinning up the war machine (massive military spending at 5% of GDP, near limitless commitment to finance the Ukraine war instead of trying to push for peace)

- Are centralizing more and more power in the hands of highly intransparent or even unelected institutions (e.g. EU or international contracts)

And various other stuff. E.g. some of the stuff you can hear on e.g. party congresses of the German "Die Linke".

But God forbid if you're ever caught for any crime whatsoever. Or if you're detained for domestic violence. Especially if not in Dubai (which is miles more lenient than other emirates).

When the police abuse their power, it's the community that pays their salaries that feels the pain.

My home was searched by the police for something much less serious (buying lab equipment, completely legally), and the experience left me having panic attacks every time there was a knock at the door.

Depriving people of their valuable property for 8 months or more is also abusively punitive. In warrants that grant seizures of all or most digital devices, judges should require police to return the items within 30 days if they don't either file charges or go back to the judge with good cause for an extension. If police can't get around to actually looking at the evidence they claimed was so crucial in 30 days maybe it's not a high-priority crime. And if having a reasonable time limit makes it too hard to look through so much stuff, they're free to more narrowly tailor their seizure requests so they don't have so much to troll through.

To possibly make this even more frustrating, when I was told I could pick up my gear, the detective in charge said that a few things they found flagged as suspicious:

1. I had / used virtual machines

2. I had "Tor" on my computer(s)

3. I had downloaded stuff from Megaupload

Now I'm not entirely sure whether these comments were based on what they found on my seized gear, or whether these were actually sufficient 'red flags' to make them think the warrant was justified initially, but, my god, how completely out of their depth, and therefore totally unqualified, they are to make life-changing adjudications about these things - and that their access to metadata only makes it more likely that they'll make false positive mistakes (which is just terrible for society overall).

I'm literally not sure what they meant by saying "you have tor on your computer", whether there's evidence of my having visited the dark web, or just having a (way outdated) copy of the tor browser saved somewhere.

And I think the only things I'd ever downloaded from Megaupload were Android ROMs.

Regarding Virtual Machines: I can't even... they're obviously non-technical so couldn't possibly understand, and yet... gah, I can't even...

My concern is around the sequence of events that needed to take place for this to happen to you. Also as a former network operator I want to know how laws like the data retention act, identify and disrupt, etc play a role in these situations - ie who triggered what. I think I’ll review your comment history.

Sounds like you have handled it in about as healthy manner as one could hope. I saw that as a compliment.

As someone who was arrested in his PJs at 4am due to a false accusation that the police did not investigate and for which they did not have probable cause, I feel this in my bones.

$15k in legal fees, a day in jail, and three months later, the charges were dropped because, as per the DA, “we cannot in good conscience pursue this case”.

No consequences for the person who made the false accusation, or the officer that enacted an arrest without probable cause.

My heart still skips a beat whenever I think I hear a knock at the door or noises in the middle of the night. I’ll wake up from a dead sleep in a panic. In theory I could pursue a lawsuit against both the accuser and officer, but that feels overwhelming — I’ve just tried to move on.

It completely changed the way I see the police and the criminal justice system. The process is, in of itself, punishment.

I was fortunate enough to be able to afford good legal representation, and I now have a great deal of empathy for those who are railroaded by the system because they cannot.

> It completely changed the way I see the police and the criminal justice system. The process is, in of itself, punishment.

One million times this. Even if it's not completely true at it's base, it's true for those unfortunate enough to have experienced this.

One of the funny (?) things about it, is that most of the individual officers were nice enough people, personable (other than one inflammatory officer who should not be employed in a role that comes into contact with people), one even gave the cat a pat. It's the system / systems, and likely the perverse incentives for their monthly stats.

I'm glad I didn't end up needing legal representation.

The way I deal with it is to actively let it go, forgive the situation in my mind, treat it as one of those anomalous circumstances that happen every second on a global scale. Treat it as a reminder of the unpredictability of life and an opportunity to be thankful that it's not my 'normal'.

Well,hopefully it has also changeed the way you see society in general, it's terrifying how common people willingly ( even when they have options) defer to the govt./authorities. The system didn't get be this this way overnight. Covid was one example of the tyranny of the majority.

I don't like that it can be interpreted that way, but I also refuse to stop using it since that's someone else's reading.

The only factor I use to treat one human different from another is whether they're a jerk or not, and I have to know them well enough to work that out. I've come across a few jerks in my time, and they take many and varied forms.