[tor-talk] Police was here - whats next?

[Joe Btfsplk]

On 5/30/2011 9:15 PM, andrew at torproject.org wrote:
> On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 09:46:29PM +0200, linuxhippy at gmail.com wrote 0.7K bytes in 19 lines about:
> : I ran a tor exit node at that time, and I am confident somebody
> : mis-used our tor exit node,
> : as our WLAN is WPA2 encrypted.
>
> This is likely.  You should talk to a lawyer first.  Julius of the CCC
> is a fine first place to start for your country.  Likely you'll want a
> signed statement from Tor saying we confirm this IP was hosting a tor
> exit relay at the time in question.
>
> There is sometimes a long time from when the police get the log
> file from a site and get around to raiding houses looking for evidence.
> Depending on your jurisdiction, the search warrant or active police case
> will have the details of why your computers were taken.
>
>
> Again, get a lawyer first.
I'll wholeheartedly agree w/ Andrew.  I'm not sure what the CCC is in 
Austria, but I would strongly suggest being VERY careful of what you say 
to the police w/o an attorney present.  I can't give legal advice, but I 
probably would NOT agree to questioning or interrogation by police 
without an attorney.

If the CCC Andrew mentioned is some group that provides free legal 
representation for certain cases, that's great.  In the US, some 
advocacy groups - particularly ones dealing w/ free speech / civil 
rights - might be interested in taking a case like this pro bono (for 
free) - or not.  That's assuming the person had been charged w/ a crime 
(or being investigated), or believed their civil rights had been violated.

Since YOU haven't been charged w/ anything - * yet * - it may be harder 
to find free legal help.  I would NOT let that stop me from speaking to 
an attorney before talking to the police, even if I had to pay a 
consultation fee.  I once got into a potential legal scrape, where I 
wasn't charged w/ anything, but it COULD have turned very nasty & 
costly, even though I would have eventually been cleared of wrong 
doing.  Hiring a (costly) attorney was a bitter pill to swallow, but 
fighting a case in court would have been much worse.