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Comment by Steuard | Hacker News Reader

I know this is only tangentially related to the HN content here, but does anyone have a sense of why the FBI would choose to respond to this sort of case with a dozen agents and weapons drawn? Rather than, say, two guys politely ringing the bell and asking him to come with them?

Unless there's a lot left out of this article, I wouldn't think most "unauthorized computer access" suspects tend to be heavily armed. (Particularly if the company actually reported the context of the "crime", including the fact that he had voluntarily notified them of the problem.)

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I imagine it's a part of a trend of "militarization" of law enforcement. In the last few years police forces have greatly expanded their SWAT forces, partly because of the practice of the US military giving away surplus military tech to law enforcement. And if you have a hammer, all the world seems like a nail.

The rationalization is that serving warrants can sometimes be risky, so why take the chance? It's in law enforcement's best interest to err on the side of caution: better to scare the crap out of people than get shot without warning. Which is why the government and the courts are supposed to balance LE's concerns with the rights of the people.

Until agents start getting thrown in prison for assault, their ridiculous assaults on harmless residents who pose no threat will continue.

The best policy may be, simply not to be home at 6 AM. They're psychologically incapable of raiding when normal people are awake, or of making arrests in safer ways such as via a phone call to an attorney or simply waiting by their target's car until he leaves for work in the morning.

SOP ...Military tactics against citizens. Overwhelm with force so the subject cowers in fear. Works great doesnt it ?

Yes, remember GwB's "Shock & Awe"

I believe the FBI wanted to seize all of the computers and data access devices before he flashed them somehow. I totally agree with you, but that is my only guess for having guns drawn and not allowing him to get dressed.

You guys in the US should be asking this question extremely loudly. You're seeing a full-scale militarisation of your police, and very public fear tactics being used against non-criminals in any case surrounding information security. These stories echo the Stasi-era more and more each day.

Any time part of an organization is given resources, they must use those resources to justify having them and continuing to have them.

They probably rarely have cause to perform this sort of raid, so they do so at any opportunity.

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