>> When the call came in, staffers quickly remotely logged off every computer in the Montreal office, making it practically impossible for the authorities to retrieve the company records they’d obtained a warrant to collect. The investigators left without any evidence.
Just because some people in uniforms show up at your door and demand access, doesn't mean that's the entire process. Even if they have a nice piece of paper from a court, it's just the start of the process.
What if its just a ruse and they aren't really cops? What if they are cops, but the government is corrupt? What if the warrant was obtained in a faulty manner?
This sort of measure allows the company to engage with the process in a less disadvantaged way.
Making a mistake in this regard gets you a obstruction of justice charge. Call a lawyers, but don't expect a judge not to take this badly when they have issued a warrant.
> What if they are cops, but the government is corrupt? What if the warrant was obtained in a faulty manner?
That's for the lawyers to deal with in court. Once again, obstruction of justice on a legally issued warrant is going to be bad news for you.
This is the whole point of why police conduct raids:
...to use the element of surprise to arrest targets that they believe may hide contraband or other evidence, resist arrest, be politically sensitive, or simply be elsewhere during the day.
If he refuses to comply or try to alter the evidence while complying, sure, they are guilty and I'm pretty sure there's a legal process for this situation, but at this point right now if they seized the data, they can no longer alter it.
I keep my head above water so I really don't really care if the police can access the data. I do have a problem with the raid giving them access to data well beyond the scope of their warrant and relying on the courts to pare it down after the fact.