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Comment by st3fan | Hacker News Reader

I think there is more to this story than people realize.

My Swedish is a little rusty, but from what I read in the media and the police press announcement, the following happened:

The Malmo hackerspace is located in a building that has roots in the squatter/anarchist collective scene. That group was organizing a party there where they were apparently selling alcohol without a proper license.

During the raid of that party, the police simply went through the whole building. Including the hacker space.

If this is what happened then the raid had probably completely nothing to do with the hackerspace and everything with their hosts.

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So then the Police entered the building ostensibly to break up an illegal party, and then decided to confiscate the computers while they were there?

That sounds like a fishing expedition to me.

I don't know what the law is in Sweden, but in the US there are 4th amendment protections against that sort of thing.

Sweden does not have any such protections.

All evidence is admissible in court no matter how it was obtained, legally or illegally.

Of course if you can prove that the evidence was obtained illegally you can file charges for that, but the evidence will still be used.

Does this include statements made under duress?

Yes. There are two parts to this: parties in a trial are free to present any evidence to the court, no matter how it was obtained.

However, the court alone decides the value of the evidence presented, and thus the weight it places in such evidence.

Obviously statements from people suspected to be coerced in some way is not considered high-value evidence.

I am shocked. This is an awful policy!

Most countries have similar laws. The US is fairly unique in its strong laws about inadmissible evidence. The argument for those policies is that it stops people being let go on a technicality due to someone signing the wrong form or whatever.

However just because evidence is admissible doesn't mean it has to be taken into consideration. Often the court will decide that certain evidence won't be taken into consideration due to how it was obtained. This is an entirely separate decision than whether or not it should be admissible.

From over this side of the world it appears those protections aren't actually of any use:

http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=9462

"Police seize DJs' laptops New police chief apparently condones policy that critics call illegal and punitive"

Doesn't matter what the police chief thinks the law is. It matters what the courts think.

Yes, but once your computer is siezed, you're screwed. It only takes one link in the chain to think it's a good idea.

Oops, sorry, "seized."

What the police think matters on the scale of hours, days, weeks -- because even if the courts decide otherwise, practically, the remedy is likely to be limited to the return of the equipment, with no penalties for the police. (The pattern of abuse would have to be egregious, or damages very tangible, for courts or legislatures to rule otherwise.)

According to the hackerspace page, the police had IT-techs with them from the start. Why would they bring techs with them if they where just going to bust an illegal bar.

well, actually, the hackerspace is located in a building that is rented. The rest of the rented space is used for various of things, i.e. reparation of bicycles, cheap/free restaurant (mondays), concerts etc. The space is not a squatt.

the raid had probably completely nothing to do with the hackerspace and everything with their hosts.

If that's true, than the warrant would have been limited in scope. Clearly it wasn't since the police seized everything. You can be sure there's a larger agenda than busting underage drinkers.

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