Police raids

[Peter Fairbrother]

David Swarbrick wrote:

> 
> The police must have the power to remove whatever is required, subject
> only to proportionality. A proper investigation of a computer can be
> much more complicated than asking what is on teh hard drive.

Agreed, though that kind of examination is uncommon. However Plod probably
can't take a drive from a Windows (or MacOSX now) box and get it to work in
new hardware. 

So they should provide copies of the hard drive and any other seized storage
media, if requested. The business can hire new computers and geeks to get
them working. Expensive, but that would be enough to save a lot of
businesses. There are a lot of small businesses that just use one or two
computers to run the business.

(OT- My sister uses two 386 boxes to run hers, and recently bought two more
386's for backup - the software she uses won't run on anything more modern.
She's got a spiffy new P4 2300 box which she uses to drive a cheap desktop
inkjet, because it won't work on the 386's ... and don't ask, _nobody_ wins
an argument with her, ever. I love her dearly)


> If they think the disc contains child porn, they cannot simply leave it
> or give back copies.

I don't see why. They will give copies to the defence (eventually), if there
is a case. They will (in theory, and again eventually) give it back if there
isn't. 

There is likely to be other, perfectly legal stuff on the media, maybe work
for clients or trade secrets, and why should the owner be deprived of that?

They can take a quick look while it's being copied (and if they can't, they
can hire me to write the software to do it :) and refuse to give copies if
they see it's probably illegal. Then the owner should be able to apply for a
warrant to get a copy.

Data is different to objects. Data can be copied without loss of the
original. If Plod needs the original hardware (and they should make a case
for that) or media, okay. But there is no such thing as the "original data".

-- 
Peter Fairbrother