Federal Government Shuts Down Megaupload

[BasharOfTheAges]

Should be an interesting case with some interesting 4th amendment violation claims coming from it.

Um, why 4th Amendment? They seem to have warrants and cooperation from the authorities of the other nations involved. Have you seen more details somewhere on this?

They seized the equivalent of an entire storage depot because the guys owning it were shady. The people in charge of Megaupload didn't own all the files that were seized - mostly uninvolved individuals did. There are those that believe they needed warrants and probable cause for every single person who had files on those servers to justify seizing it all like they did. Not sure what the precedence is on the real world equivalent. Can the feds raid and confiscate an entire storage facility because the owners were busted doing illegal business out of one of the lockers?

It's already started - http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news ... eizure.ars

[aesling]

Well, that is a pretty thorny question. Normally if it's files from another, unrelated entity or company, they would have to do their best to separate those out to avoid violating privacy or leaking sensitive information (which is why cases involving stuff like cloud servers are a bitch). However, that article makes it sound like they're concerned over the privacy of people who uploaded legitimate files to Megaupload? To be honest, I'm not 100% sure what the procedure should be in this case, but I would think they have to at least sort those files to see which ones are legit and which ones aren't. Unless they want lawsuits, they should keep the files not involved in the case as confidential as possible, though.