Archives

All posts for the month April, 2009

Phoenix police raided the home of a blogger who has been highly critical of the department.

Jeff Pataky, who runs Bad Phoenix Cops, said the officers confiscated three computers, routers, modems, hard drives, memory cards and everything necessary to continue blogging.

They broke into my safe and took the backups of my backups,” he said in a phone interview with Photography is Not a Crime on Wednesday.

“I can’t even file my taxes because all my business plans are gone. They took everything.”

I’m posting this not to point out the U.S. government’s violation of its Constitution (what else is new?), but two make two points:

  • If someone took all your hardware, your backups, and the “backups of your backups,”  how much trouble would you be in?  Is your critical data encrypted and stored offsite?  Is disaster one flood, fire, or police raid away?
  • Using some simple anonymity tools could prevent the raids in the first place.  If you think you’re immune because you’re not criticizing the government, read this.