Entering with an armed team is SOP, mostly to protect policemen. These are just guys doing a job, in the vast majority of cases a good and just job, who want to go home to their wives and children in the evening. Some (most) raids could theoretically be done by just knocking on the door; but sometimes some crazy man will start shooting back, or running away, or try to destroy evidence. Rush-entry raids with flashbangs etc. are designed to cause maximum confusion so that the people in the house are disoriented for a short time, hopefully long enough to be cuffed.

Anyway like I said sometimes these could be done by one guy with a briefcase, but how are you going to decide when to raid and when to knock on the door? And who is going to decide? When somebody makes a wrong call and a policeman gets killed, there's going to be a ruckus (police union, other policemen feeling unsafe causing worse performance, etc.) So the safe thing to do is to err on the side of caution. Sucks for those being raided when it wasn't really necessary, and even worse for those being raided in error, but as always it's a trade off.

That's how it came to be. IMO perfectly reasonable. One can disagree with specific cases, I do too; but try to put yourself in the shoes of someone designing or managing a law enforcement organization or system. If you have a solution that mitigates the problems yet addresses all the points and many more I brought up above, many many people would love to hear about it.

I'm sorry, but this is FUD. I have at least two objections to what you say (for the record, I'm not american).

1. Do you really want to live in a society where a visit from the police means a busted door just in case? If things degenerated so badly, the police has already failed, and failed hard. I mean Rwanda/Congo hard.

2. Since we both know this is not the case, and most visits from the police are done in the old-fashioned knock-on-the door manner, we have to wander if a pimpled faced computer hacker has _any_ quality making him more dangerous then average. I suppose a bureaucrat might go and say hacking was an act of terrorism and terrorists use bombs, but for any sane person it's pretty clear he is not above average. He's scraping the bottom of the barrel, statistically speaking.

I therefore tend to conclude that the busting of the doors is uses as a deterrent. A message for the Anonymous that if you play with fire, you'll have FBI agents with guns in your room.

(I'm not American either)

Re: 1, maybe I didn't make it clear enough in my original post, but indeed in general police do knock on the door, so I think we agree on this point - raids are the exception rather than the norm, but my point was that if there is any doubt at all whether or not a raid would have any advantages, then the raid option will be chosen over the knock-on-the-door option.

With this clear - re: 2, and in the specific case of computer crime, raids are SOP because suspects have a high probability of destroying evidence; at least here in the Netherlands (and policy here are, to put it mildly, not the Wild West type) this is the reason and practice. There have already been a number of cases where suspects (in child pornography cases) were literally forcefully pulled from behind a computer because they were deleting files as soon as they got wind of the police.

So yes, in case of computer crimes, entering with force does make sense (maybe not always - there have also been cases of 16 year olds where the police showed up when they were in school).

We don't know the real circumstances of these raids. Maybe there was a deterrent/revenge component (which would be illegal and undesirable), we don't know. Point is that the knee-jerk reaction(s) I was replying to are just that, and lacking any nuance. Many interests have to be weighed and safety of police officers and having a reasonable chance to save evidence are some of the factors that have to be weighed against the interests of the suspects. This may sound, in the limited context here, like I'm advocating a police state and anyone who knows me IRL knows that I usually am on the far opposite of that; but some force on entry is not a big a deal as some people make it out to be.

My (admittedly long-windedly made) point: no you're not being oppressed because the police put a hole in your door in the course of investigating your malicious disturbance of someone else's business.

Well, around here the cops know who has guns, as well as whether they're known to be a bit crazy. The police are also usually not treated like an invading army, so it's apples for oranges.

I'd at least suggest holstering the weapons until they're needed and weighing the probability of encryption against the probability of forceful self-defense, case by case. If for some reason there's reason to believe that the person is working next to both a loaded gun and an encrypted disk, sure, treat it as a hostage situation and call swat or the wiretappers in. I don't think that's the norm, though.

"The police are also usually not treated like an invading army"

(emphasis mine)

This shows you don't understand the point (I'm not so much talking about this specific case or even raids on computer criminals anymore, rather in general). The exact point is that sometimes it does happen, but you don't know why. That's why you need to treat every opportunity, no matter how minute, as more dangerous than it actually is, or than you actually think it will be, because the consequences are so out of balance.

Let me put it this way: do you feel that 500 unnecessarily forceful raids, each destroying a door and 2 pieces of furniture, and taking a night of sleep away from 500 individuals, are better or worse than 1 policy officer shot in the leg (not even deadly)?

I think the shot wound is worse, and therefore wouldn't mind authorizing a raid even when I'm not 100% sure there is acute danger. Actually I'd authorize when there's even just a 1% chance of forceful resistance with a knife.

(the trade off may get different when suspects are harmed in the raid, I'm assuming sufficiently trained police people)

"and weighing the probability of encryption against the probability of forceful self-defense,"

This I don't understand. I'm quite sure no suspect will try to fire at policeman with their Truecrypt USB drive.

"If for some reason there's reason to believe that the person is working next to both a loaded gun and an encrypted disk"

The 'and' between 'loaded gun' and 'an encrypted disk' should be an 'or'. Just one of the two is enough to warrant force.

Assuming that, well that's already the trade off being made. I just think you underestimate the amount of criminals using encryption. Even if only 5% of them do use it, that already makes it likely enough that any random one (because remember, before you enter you don't know what you will find) will use it to warrant force. QED.

I considered not using that word (usually), but decided I don't know enough to remove all weaseling. I didn't intend it to be taken as representative of my understanding. However, from your exposition, it seems fitting.

I'm firmly against all examples of zero tolerance. From your example, I think 500 disturbances of peace and destructions of property is far worse than one realization of a work hazard. I would draw the line at perhaps 10. There used to be a principle that it is better to let 10 guilty men walk than convict a single innocent - do you not subscribe to this either?

I'll clarify what I meant with the juxtaposition of encryption and forceful resistance: encryption is a justification for occupied searches, since you need to confiscate the electronics while they are unlocked. I don't know if that's actually done, though, since it's my understanding that the electronics are routinely removed from the premises and disconnected in the process. This scenario does not warrant the use of any force.

Armed defense is a justification for surprise arrests, since you need to arrest the suspect when they're not in defensive positions. A good time to do this is during ingress or egress. This situation does not warrant the use of devastating force.

The only reason to assault a dwelling with shock tactics would be to capture armed resistance in the act of handling evidence. Perhaps that's an actual worry for the FBI, who seem to assume all of their suspects are paramilitary, but I don't think it's a reasonable worry in the majority of cases, even the ones handled by the FBI.

I hope you now understand better where we disagree.

You're neglecting the danger caused by starting the raid in an escalated state.

I'm dead serious if I saw a swat team coming to my house I would start shooting with my ak-47 well that's what I think I would do I wouldn't care shot about there kids I've never committed any crimes yet well it actully depends cause if they were there with out any swat teams and stuff like that I would let them in as you might know AK-47 rounds are armor piercing so reber that but the second they tried taking my computer I would start shooting or I'm might get a dummy greanade out that looks like the real one and hopefully they would start running you are probly wonder what's on that computer I got ill make it into a ? A) porn b) its the computer that I can download songs for ipod c) none of the above d) all of the above and the correct answer was c the reason is I haveworld of warcraft on my pc Ithink me and everyone who plays it is at least a little addicted to it cause me and everyone who plays it plays it pays 15$ a month but hey its a good game so and its worth the money and if you live in California and you are looking for a job they might hire you if you ask and if you get hired you get it free for 25 years but I'm actully not sure if they are hiring cause I live in virgina so don't get your hopes too high and um I apologize for not using paragraghs I'm actully typed this on my phone