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Comment by DanielBMarkham | Hacker News Reader

If there's a warrant, the warrant has to explain what the search was for. Somehow in this post the author fails to mention the details of the warrant, instead going off on a tirade about the loss of freedom.

In general, nobody is coming into your data center and seizing anything unless its part of a criminal investigation. As such, a judge has to sign the warrant and the petitioner has to explicitly describe what is being searched for.

I can understand the writer being upset about his datacenter, but either he is not fully aware of the situation or is being purposefully misleading. My opinion is that he wrote this before he became fully aware of all of the facts.

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Unless they use the state secret approach. They only have to convince a judge behind closed doors for a warrant.

Very good points, although it's worth pointing out that the system can be rigged. Meaning -- just speculating -- a guy like Rupert Murdoch can use his influence with a judge to get a warrant. It's also worth mentioning that the author claims to have been in Phoenix while the raid was in Dallas, so he had no direct access to the warrant. And no one is forcing the FBI to obey the law these days -- read the news.

There are a lot of businesses that could be brought down through the seizure of their datacenter, if even only for a few days. It could be something like an IP address in some log, connected with a kiddie porn. The authorities could easily concoct such a thing after they seize the center, then backtrack, later saying that the log entry turned out to be faked by the real criminals hiding their tracks. In the meantime, the business has been completely inoperative, it's websites utterly gone.

I could envision a corrupt branch of the FBI doing this on the behalf of an organized crime group.

There should be guidelines for the seizure of a datacenter, as this constitutes the ability to destroy a business, especially in cases where high availability is critical. (Often the entire center doesn't have to be seized, only access granted to forensic specialists while access by employees is severely restricted.)

Sorry you are wrong. Look up the patriot act, you will be surprised just how much the government can get away with without ANY just cause.

The government no longer has a need to actually notify you of why you are being arrested. The government does not need just cause to arrest you. The government can even arrest you for "possible terrorism suspicion" and hold you indefinitely without trial.

Its OK because obviously the patriot act only applies to those damn Muslim terrorists hiding out in NYC... it can never be abused in any way... right?

Well, no, they still need "cause" and a court order, it just may not be "just cause" in your opinion.

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