Fair Game: Zenon Panoussis on Fair Game Raid, 13 Sep 2002

Zenon Panoussis <oracle@xs4all.nl>
Raided again
13 Sep 2002

Ted Mayett wrote:

> I'm curious about things like floppies and
> cd's, about something like a filing cabinet
> for hardcopy materials, were they able to
> search through things like this?

They were, but they were not interested in anything except what could (a) be evidence of or (b) serve the purpose of distribution of materials to the general public. This means that they would be interested in a stack of identical CDs that are ready to go in the mail, but not in a dusty stack of CDs marked"taxes 1995", "taxes 1996" etc.

To understand this you need to consider the relation between the alleged offence and the permitted extent of the search. Theoretically, those CDs marked "taxes" could very well contain NOTs for distribution, but in practice it's not very likely. If they would try to search really thoroughly, they would have to tear down the house, dig in the garden, cut open the matress, go through every single data file and every single paper around.

The preliminary work would take three days and processing the material would take half a year. You can do that kind of search when you are investigating a murder, but not when you are investigating an ill-grounded suspicion of an offence that is punishable by a fine or a maximum imprisonment of six months. Not only because it would be a waste of police resources, but also (and mostly) because the balance of the interest of investigation against the rights of the suspect is not limited to whether a search may be conducted or not, but extends to *how* a search is conducted. A prosecutor who tears apart a house in a case like this would be killing both the case and his own career.

Z