Mich. State Campus Cops Seize HDs With Riot Photos

Spintronic writes "This is old news here but others might be interested. There was a small riot here a few weeks ago due to the early exit of a certain basketball team. Because of riots years ago of a much larger magnitude and the black eye this is giving the university, the cops (local and campus I believe) are out looking to make examples. In their zeal they tried to get all the unaired footage and photos from the local media, who refused to comply. Not to let it go, they went on to seize hard drives from students who took digital photos that night. Here's info from the student nespaper, and here's an editorial."

Comments

Misleading...

[smoondog]

Once again it looks like the /. is misleading:

Last week, police obtained a warrant to confiscate a computer from an on-campus student. But the warrant wasn't necessary because the student handed over the computer without resistance.

Warrant: Yes. Seized: No. I read the article and it sounded like police stormed some guys house to hide evidence, implying that the evidence was some form of coverup. Jeez, they are looking for the identities of law breakers, and they had a warrant AND the person gave it to them freely.

There is nothing wrong with the police collecting evidence showing a crime, if they know that evidence exists and the crime occured, IMO. What is the problem?

If you had the gun that shot someone, they are allowed to get a warrant to collect that for fingerprinting. How is a video different than a fingerprint. It's still evidence.

-Sean

Re:Misleading...

[phyxeld]

If I owned the pictures in question, and the warrant demanded that I turn over my entire hard drive, I'd see them in court.

IANAL, but I think that, with a warrant, they just could take it from you immediately and any legal case you could make would be after-the-fact.

They can't have a blank warrant to seize anything at all that exists on the computer.

Well, from many books and news stories I've read on the subject (of computers and the law), I think that they can and do. (Not to say I think it's right, it's just that law enforcement gets to operate by a different standard for right/wrong than the rest of the human race...)

Re:Slashdot idiots

[unitron]

And in other news Slashdot user Jonathan Swift's post "A Modest Proposal" was also modded as "flamebait".

One wonders why this story isn't considered important enough for the main page. Will these seized computers ever be returned to their owners or will they wind up being sold at police auction? Even if the police can prove in court that they (the police) did not doctor the photos, can they prove that the photos weren't doctored before being seized?