8 ms·

Have legal representation show up quickly means nothing. Consider the many, many scenarios where search warrants are served on companies with in house legal. L

Have legal representation show up quickly means nothing. Consider the many, many scenarios where search warrants are served on companies with in house legal. Law firms. Individual lawyers. Literally happens every single day. Law enforcement has a warrant signed by a judge. Just because a lawyer of some sort is there doesn't mean they're going to stand around paralyzed saying "Oh there's a lawyer here, better stop what I'm doing and wait for XYZ". They're going to say "Oh you're a lawyer? Good for you. Here's a copy. Get out of the way and stand over there." Same thing for any technical or legal competence on the part of the authorities. You assembled enough cause for the warrant to be issued and you're going to walk away because the subject of the warrant basically says "Well see, I can explain everything..."? This is probably the equivalent of Neil deGrasse Tyson talking his way out of a speeding ticket on the side of the road by giving one of his (in)famous "Well actually officer, the Earth revolves around the sun while turning on it's axis at 25k MPH so actually I was..."[0]. Their version of events makes absolutely no sense to me. [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyZSBqQ813c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyZSBqQ813c

troad 4y ago
This is quite silly. A warrant isn’t a magic bullet that ends all your rights and gives the police superpowers. A lawyer can very much say “no, this information isn’t responsive to the warrant”, where a lay person may not realise this, and volunteer information that they have no legal obligation to hand over. The police absolutely rely on the information and power asymmetry between them and the public. You honestly don’t think the police behave very differently being watched (and these days often filmed) by a dozen high powered lawyers in suits, who will challenge absolutely everything they’ve just done as soon as they’re out the door?
- zaphirplane 4y ago
  Items removed outside the scope of a warrant have similar standing to items seized without a warrant.
  - u320 4y ago
    Yes, in the sense that they are both admissible in court. This is Sweden, not USA.
    - zaphirplane 4y ago
      Are you saying in Sweden police can enter your home, seize your computers, phones and documents without a court order, to look for evidence of some hunch? No that is very far from the general western democracy laws we broadly expect Search and seizure laws are designed to protect citizens from the police and from the state, not some humanitarian protection for criminals
- hammock 4y ago
  Many cases the police don’t let you watch, they make you wait outside. Reason to have cameras in your place (pros and cons)
  - yellowapple 4y ago
    Pros: excellent material for a music video mocking the cops doing the search.
    - zhengyi13 4y ago
      Point of order: multiple music videos, not just one.
  - RoyGBivCap 4y ago
    In America maybe. This was in Sweden.
    - kkielhofner 4y ago
      Yes it was. I don't understand how you could have a functioning legal system anywhere if a search warrant can be neutralized by saying "I don't have that" without any kind of search taking place.
      - smsm42 4y ago
        If the search warrant says "take servers containing information about X" and the search team asks which servers contain information about X and gets answer "none" which they have reason to believe it's true - then there's no point taking anything and not taking anything would not hurt the function of the legal system. Of course cops may go on a power trip and take stuff anyway to show how powerful they are, but that has nothing to do with the legal system. Apparently these cops weren't of that sort, congrats to them.
  - antman 4y ago
    In other places in the world they can only search room by room so that you can be present and oversee the process.
- kkielhofner 4y ago
  This is extremely silly. I did not say it ends your rights. I did not say it gives them superpowers. What it does do is give them government and legally sanctioned power backed up by force to do whatever the warrant says. They can tear your house apart. Seize your property. They can withdraw your blood by force if necessary. Micheal Jackson (rich, famous, and powerful) had his genitalia examined. They can certainly (and do) go in your office and take every single thing computer or data related if those devices may contain information relevant to the warrant. "This information isn't responsive to the warrant?" - I feel like I'm living in an alternate universe at this point... That's borderline "One weird trick just say these magic words and the police disappear". Watch video of search warrants being executed. They walk out with TONS of material - anything electronic related, hand trucks with boxes of documents, etc. When the FBI searched a billionaire former US President they walked out with 28 boxes of documents[0]. Is anyone here under the impression that a search warrant for relevant electronic records involves the police sitting down with you and looking at your computer? No. They'll take EVERYTHING, image it for evidentiary purposes, and then take as much time as they need to review it in search for whatever was specified in the warrant. A person or lawyer can say anything they want but the outcome in 99.9% of cases is the guys with the guns are going to do whatever they feel empowered to do. If there's anything questionable it can be argued in court later. High powered lawyers in suits? The FBI executed a search warrant on a billionaire former United States President... Yes they'll likely behave differently but they're certainly not scared of you or whatever you or a lawyer says in the moment. In street crime this is often called "You can beat the rap but you can't beat the ride". In the moment the power asymmetry is very real. I point you to thousands of hours of YouTube police body camera footage, etc that demonstrates it. [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcnJNfJqJTI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcnJNfJqJTI
  - 411111111111111 4y ago
    > They can tear your house apart. Seize your property. They can withdraw your blood by force if necessary. Micheal Jackson (rich, famous, and powerful) had his genitalia examined. They can certainly (and do) go in your office and take every single thing computer or data related if those devices may contain information relevant to the warrant. Thats only true for the US, which isn't where Mullvad is located.
semanticist 4y ago
This feels like a very American-centric perspective, this happened in Sweden. For a bunch of reasons policing outside the US is very different to policing in the US.
- kkielhofner 4y ago
  I realize this happened in Sweden. My dad was a professor at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm; I practically grew up there. My first name is spelled "Kristian" for this reason. Yes Sweden is very different from the US. In fact, seven years ago some Swedish cops on vacation in NYC became somewhat famous and drew significant attention (at the time) to policing issues in the US[0]. People in the US were literally saying "WE NEED SWEDISH COPS". That said... Even by Swedish standards (of which I'm familiar) I find it very, very, very hard to believe the government would bother to do an initial investigation, draft and apply for a warrant, serve the warrant with SIX police officers, and then walk out with a handshake because some guy in the office says "we don't have that". [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izdfnHBMwSs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izdfnHBMwSs
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - hnarn 4y ago
    > I find it very, very, very hard to believe Well I guess that settles it
  - LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
    Meh, police get the address wrong sometimes. I could totally see them either not understanding of not believing a 'no logs' policy. So they get a warrant for 'servers with client connection logs' and when they arrive they discover that there are no servers - nothing with a HD and certainly no storage systems, and then they contact their boss and are more willing to re-examine and maybe decide to trust that the company was being honest. Mullvad don't say they weren't searched, just that nothing was taken. They informed the police that what they wanted didn't exist and demonstrated it to the police/prosecutor's satisfaction. Cops have access to technical consultants if they need expertise to verify this. Good code and wiring probably helped - if there's a rat's nest of cables running into the ceiling it's hard to trust, but if there's a really clean patch panel and short direct runs between equipment it's easier to demonstrate that what you see matches the device map and how it's configured.
tiahura 4y ago
How about the possibility that this is Sweden with a different set of priorities, an underlying crime that's relatively petty, and a prosecutor that is mostly disinterested in the case but had to at least pretend to make an effort?
burnte 4y ago
Maybe in Sweden, telling and proving to the prosecutor "I simply do not have what you want, and I can show you" works better than elsewhere.
- kkielhofner 4y ago
  I don't know where this perspective of "Sweden has so many rights and protections the legal system is parallel to general practice in the rest of the world" comes from. See Julian Assange[0]. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assange_v_Swedish_Prosecution_Authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assange_v_Swedish_Prosecution_...
  - burnte 4y ago
    > I don't know where this perspective of "Sweden has so many rights and protections the legal system is parallel to general practice in the rest of the world" comes from. I don't know where that came from either, I certainly didn't say anything like that. However using his rape accusation to show Sweden is bad isn't a great example. He raped a woman, they tried to get him for it.
    - kkielhofner 4y ago
      I'm not saying "Sweden is bad" I'm saying "Sweden, like any other government in the world, has a lot of power and they use it". I used Assange specifically because I think it's pretty clear the lone superpower in the world (the United States) clearly threw their weight around on the Assange situation. It's not a leap (at all) to think a popular VPN provider that (due to the nature of their business) likely attracts the interest of law enforcement from governments around the world - almost certainly including the US - would trigger similar levels of interest at the highest levels of government internationally. Rape is clearly abhorrent but I think it's pretty obvious Assange had a gigantic target on his back because he pissed off and embarrassed the United States. Any rape investigation should be taken very seriously but when you look at the Assange situation it's VERY clear the aggressiveness and pursuit of that was far beyond what is likely typical in those kinds of investigations. I think the same would happen in this scenario and anyone who says "oh they're just a VPN provider Sweden wouldn't take it too seriously" is pretty naive.
kelnos 4y ago
I don't know how things work in Sweden, but I wouldn't be surprised if this process was more reasonable than in the US. It's funny how much we talk about the 4th amendment and due process, when our level of due process is actually not that great. If police come knocking at your door in the US, they are likely to trend toward the most extreme actions they can get away with. That doesn't need to be how things work, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that law enforcement behaves better somewhere like Sweden.
singleshot_ 4y ago
This analogy breaks down at a certain resolution but imagine if the cop who pulled over Tyson brought the district attorney with him and Tyson has God in the passenger seat. I could absolutely envision a situation where God explained the facts to the DA who subsequently changed his mind about whether there was a substantial likelihood of a conviction, which is (usually) the ethical threshold for bringing prosecution.
- tomjakubowski 4y ago
  Godwin's Law: the longer the Internet argument, the more likely someone invokes God to make an analogy - and wins

troad 4y ago

This is quite silly. A warrant isn’t a magic bullet that ends all your rights and gives the police superpowers. A lawyer can very much say “no, this information isn’t responsive to the warrant”, where a lay person may not realise this, and volunteer information that they have no legal obligation to hand over. The police absolutely rely on the information and power asymmetry between them and the public. You honestly don’t think the police behave very differently being watched (and these days often filmed) by a dozen high powered lawyers in suits, who will challenge absolutely everything they’ve just done as soon as they’re out the door?

zaphirplane 4y ago
Items removed outside the scope of a warrant have similar standing to items seized without a warrant.
- u320 4y ago
  Yes, in the sense that they are both admissible in court. This is Sweden, not USA.
  - zaphirplane 4y ago
    Are you saying in Sweden police can enter your home, seize your computers, phones and documents without a court order, to look for evidence of some hunch? No that is very far from the general western democracy laws we broadly expect Search and seizure laws are designed to protect citizens from the police and from the state, not some humanitarian protection for criminals
hammock 4y ago
Many cases the police don’t let you watch, they make you wait outside. Reason to have cameras in your place (pros and cons)
- yellowapple 4y ago
  Pros: excellent material for a music video mocking the cops doing the search.
  - zhengyi13 4y ago
    Point of order: multiple music videos, not just one.
- RoyGBivCap 4y ago
  In America maybe. This was in Sweden.
  - kkielhofner 4y ago
    Yes it was. I don't understand how you could have a functioning legal system anywhere if a search warrant can be neutralized by saying "I don't have that" without any kind of search taking place.
    - smsm42 4y ago
      If the search warrant says "take servers containing information about X" and the search team asks which servers contain information about X and gets answer "none" which they have reason to believe it's true - then there's no point taking anything and not taking anything would not hurt the function of the legal system. Of course cops may go on a power trip and take stuff anyway to show how powerful they are, but that has nothing to do with the legal system. Apparently these cops weren't of that sort, congrats to them.
- antman 4y ago
  In other places in the world they can only search room by room so that you can be present and oversee the process.
kkielhofner 4y ago
This is extremely silly. I did not say it ends your rights. I did not say it gives them superpowers. What it does do is give them government and legally sanctioned power backed up by force to do whatever the warrant says. They can tear your house apart. Seize your property. They can withdraw your blood by force if necessary. Micheal Jackson (rich, famous, and powerful) had his genitalia examined. They can certainly (and do) go in your office and take every single thing computer or data related if those devices may contain information relevant to the warrant. "This information isn't responsive to the warrant?" - I feel like I'm living in an alternate universe at this point... That's borderline "One weird trick just say these magic words and the police disappear". Watch video of search warrants being executed. They walk out with TONS of material - anything electronic related, hand trucks with boxes of documents, etc. When the FBI searched a billionaire former US President they walked out with 28 boxes of documents[0]. Is anyone here under the impression that a search warrant for relevant electronic records involves the police sitting down with you and looking at your computer? No. They'll take EVERYTHING, image it for evidentiary purposes, and then take as much time as they need to review it in search for whatever was specified in the warrant. A person or lawyer can say anything they want but the outcome in 99.9% of cases is the guys with the guns are going to do whatever they feel empowered to do. If there's anything questionable it can be argued in court later. High powered lawyers in suits? The FBI executed a search warrant on a billionaire former United States President... Yes they'll likely behave differently but they're certainly not scared of you or whatever you or a lawyer says in the moment. In street crime this is often called "You can beat the rap but you can't beat the ride". In the moment the power asymmetry is very real. I point you to thousands of hours of YouTube police body camera footage, etc that demonstrates it. [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcnJNfJqJTI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcnJNfJqJTI
- 411111111111111 4y ago
  > They can tear your house apart. Seize your property. They can withdraw your blood by force if necessary. Micheal Jackson (rich, famous, and powerful) had his genitalia examined. They can certainly (and do) go in your office and take every single thing computer or data related if those devices may contain information relevant to the warrant. Thats only true for the US, which isn't where Mullvad is located.

semanticist 4y ago

This feels like a very American-centric perspective, this happened in Sweden. For a bunch of reasons policing outside the US is very different to policing in the US.

kkielhofner 4y ago
I realize this happened in Sweden. My dad was a professor at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm; I practically grew up there. My first name is spelled "Kristian" for this reason. Yes Sweden is very different from the US. In fact, seven years ago some Swedish cops on vacation in NYC became somewhat famous and drew significant attention (at the time) to policing issues in the US[0]. People in the US were literally saying "WE NEED SWEDISH COPS". That said... Even by Swedish standards (of which I'm familiar) I find it very, very, very hard to believe the government would bother to do an initial investigation, draft and apply for a warrant, serve the warrant with SIX police officers, and then walk out with a handshake because some guy in the office says "we don't have that". [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izdfnHBMwSs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izdfnHBMwSs
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- hnarn 4y ago
  > I find it very, very, very hard to believe Well I guess that settles it
- LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
  Meh, police get the address wrong sometimes. I could totally see them either not understanding of not believing a 'no logs' policy. So they get a warrant for 'servers with client connection logs' and when they arrive they discover that there are no servers - nothing with a HD and certainly no storage systems, and then they contact their boss and are more willing to re-examine and maybe decide to trust that the company was being honest. Mullvad don't say they weren't searched, just that nothing was taken. They informed the police that what they wanted didn't exist and demonstrated it to the police/prosecutor's satisfaction. Cops have access to technical consultants if they need expertise to verify this. Good code and wiring probably helped - if there's a rat's nest of cables running into the ceiling it's hard to trust, but if there's a really clean patch panel and short direct runs between equipment it's easier to demonstrate that what you see matches the device map and how it's configured.

tiahura 4y ago

How about the possibility that this is Sweden with a different set of priorities, an underlying crime that's relatively petty, and a prosecutor that is mostly disinterested in the case but had to at least pretend to make an effort?

burnte 4y ago

Maybe in Sweden, telling and proving to the prosecutor "I simply do not have what you want, and I can show you" works better than elsewhere.

kkielhofner 4y ago
I don't know where this perspective of "Sweden has so many rights and protections the legal system is parallel to general practice in the rest of the world" comes from. See Julian Assange[0]. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assange_v_Swedish_Prosecution_Authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assange_v_Swedish_Prosecution_...
- burnte 4y ago
  > I don't know where this perspective of "Sweden has so many rights and protections the legal system is parallel to general practice in the rest of the world" comes from. I don't know where that came from either, I certainly didn't say anything like that. However using his rape accusation to show Sweden is bad isn't a great example. He raped a woman, they tried to get him for it.
  - kkielhofner 4y ago
    I'm not saying "Sweden is bad" I'm saying "Sweden, like any other government in the world, has a lot of power and they use it". I used Assange specifically because I think it's pretty clear the lone superpower in the world (the United States) clearly threw their weight around on the Assange situation. It's not a leap (at all) to think a popular VPN provider that (due to the nature of their business) likely attracts the interest of law enforcement from governments around the world - almost certainly including the US - would trigger similar levels of interest at the highest levels of government internationally. Rape is clearly abhorrent but I think it's pretty obvious Assange had a gigantic target on his back because he pissed off and embarrassed the United States. Any rape investigation should be taken very seriously but when you look at the Assange situation it's VERY clear the aggressiveness and pursuit of that was far beyond what is likely typical in those kinds of investigations. I think the same would happen in this scenario and anyone who says "oh they're just a VPN provider Sweden wouldn't take it too seriously" is pretty naive.

kelnos 4y ago

I don't know how things work in Sweden, but I wouldn't be surprised if this process was more reasonable than in the US. It's funny how much we talk about the 4th amendment and due process, when our level of due process is actually not that great. If police come knocking at your door in the US, they are likely to trend toward the most extreme actions they can get away with. That doesn't need to be how things work, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that law enforcement behaves better somewhere like Sweden.

singleshot_ 4y ago

This analogy breaks down at a certain resolution but imagine if the cop who pulled over Tyson brought the district attorney with him and Tyson has God in the passenger seat. I could absolutely envision a situation where God explained the facts to the DA who subsequently changed his mind about whether there was a substantial likelihood of a conviction, which is (usually) the ethical threshold for bringing prosecution.

tomjakubowski 4y ago
Godwin's Law: the longer the Internet argument, the more likely someone invokes God to make an analogy - and wins