What happened?
At 20.45 on Saturday the 28th of November the police raided the social centre Utkanten in Malmö, where the hackerspace Forskningsavdelningen is housed. Twenty officers in full riot gear and ski masks broke into the space through the entrance and a backdoor, using crowbars. Shortly thereafter twenty to thirty more showed up, mostly dressed as civilians and some of them IT technicians from Länskriminalen (county police), who are suspected to be interested in the hackerspace. They stayed in the building for about six hours.
The official reason for the raid was to do a “pub check” because of the suspicion that there was illegal selling of alcohol going on. The allegedly illegal club activity was a punk concert, with about 40 guests at the time of the raid. After the raid the cops evacuated the building, searched through it and confiscated a lot of stuff. The police was indiscriminate as to whose effects were removed, taking a lot of equipment from Forskningsavdelningen and peoples personal computers, even though the hackerspace was unaffiliated with the group arranging the concert downstairs.
At the time of the raid there were about five people at Forskningsavdelningen. All of us were searched and photographed. Those who criticized the harrasment were threatened to be taken to the station for “drug tests”. Overall the police seemed hostile.
What did they take?
We have gone through our stuff and made a list of what is definitely missing, but since the cops havent given us a list of what they’ve taken we might have missed some stuff.
- 3 laptops
- 1 media computer, refurbished
- 2 office computers, refurbished
- 1 gaming computer, 6500 SEK
- 1 digital camera, Canon Powershot
- 1 external 2.5″ hard drive
- 2 key cutters
- lock-picking practice locks (cut-away)
- 1 network router (Linksys WRT-54G)
- 1 wlan dishes antenna
- 1 pocket calculator (casio)
- 5 bottles of rum (Bacardi)
- blank keys, to a value of 200 SEK (not more?)
- material for building metal lockpicks
- metal files
- 1 backpack
We need your support!
We all feel really offended by this and some of the confiscated equipment is going to be hard to replace. If you want to help us there are some things you can do:
- Publish an open letter of support and send us the link
- We’re gonna need to replace some equipment. If you have any of the following stuff and want to donate it, please bring it on tuesday or send us a mail.
- any “modern” pc to use as an office computer, we’re gonna need a couple of them (we still have two or three monitors and, plz, no CRT’s
- some kind of wifi router
- Do fun stuff with us, we’re gonna meet on tuesday as always. Come and help us make the place even better than it was before the raid and bring fun stuff to play with
.
It is common in Sweden that the police never return computers once they have been raided. If they give it back, it will usually at least take some years, the computers will be old by then. If you want to support us finacially you can donate money to a swedish account or a paypal one. All donated money will go to replacing the lost personal and collective hardware.
Please donate
Clearing#: 9159
Account#: 109.068-9
Bank: Skandiabanken
Account#: 109.068-9
Bank: Skandiabanken
or use PayPal
URLs
(in swedish)
http://sydsvenskan.se/kultur-och-nojen/article568467/Det-finns-inga-sparrar-allt-gar-att-knacka.html
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by taziden and Forskningsavd, Forskningsavd. Forskningsavd said: I CAN HAZ MOAR ‘BOUT TEH REID : http://tinyurl.com/yjh7et5 [...]
[...] har Forskningsavdelningens publicerat sin rapport också. Verksamheten på papperet som polisen ville åt var klubbverksamheten som utan tillstånd, [...]
put up a paypal donation link
Forskningsavdelningen » I CAN HAZ MOAR ‘BOUT TEH REID…
I CAN HAZ MOAR ‘BOUT TEH REID
11.29.09 | 1 Comment
What happened?
At 20.45 on Saturday the 28th of November the police raided the social centre Utkanten in Malmö, where the hackerspace Forskningsavdelningen is housed. Twenty officers in full riot g…
“I CAN HAZ MOAR ‘BOUT TEH REID
11.29.09 | 1 Comment
What happened?
At 20.4…”…
I CAN HAZ MOAR ‘BOUT TEH REID
11.29.09 | 1 Comment
What happened?
At 20.45 on Saturday the 28th of November the police raided the social centre Utkanten in Malmö, where the hackerspace Forskningsavdelningen is housed. Twenty officers in full riot g…
Yeah, put up a paypal account
Lame that they can take your “personal” laptops just like that 
Definitely put a payPal donation link!
Shipping cost to sweden are though from germany
I will spread the word, wish you lot good luck with your place!
acid
[...] gjorde ett misstag, sådant sker, men ge då gärna tillbaka maskinerna. I går kom det ett pressmeddelande från Forskningsavdelningen där det finns en lista över vad som har tagits. De har satt upp ett [...]
[...] Tweets about this great post on TwittLink.com [...]
[...] threatened to be taken to the station for “drug tests”. Overall the police seemed hostile. Source I guess the Swedish Police don’t take too kindly to hackers with alcohol =] Tags: [...]
OH NO! The rum is gone!
Seriously, I wonder if your police has the right to confiscate things they didn’t look for (i.e. what is described in the search warrant).
“The police was indiscriminate as to whose effects were removed, taking a lot …”…
The police was indiscriminate as to whose effects were removed, taking a lot of equipment from Forskningsavdelningen and peoples personal computers, even though the hackerspace was unaffiliated with the group arranging the concert downstairs….
[...] Forskningsavdelningen » I CAN HAZ MOAR ‘BOUT TEH REID [...]
I haz a wifi router! Men den är inte helt ok, men ni kanske kan trolla ihop den? Den funkar, men bara ibland liksom.
Sen har jag en massa datorskräp här hemma som kanske kan byggas ihop till nåt, vad vet jag liksom. En tjockismonitor har jag iaf, den kan ni ta om ni vill ha den. 
2009 Police raided Hackerspace in Sweden / Remeber ASCII Squat AMS back in 2004….
2009-11-28″At 20.45 on Saturday the 28th of November the police raided the social centre Utkanten in Malmö, where the hackerspace Forskningsavdelningen is housed. Twenty officers in full riot gear and ski masks broke into the space through the entranc…
Hey guys, my deepest Sympathys from Munich, Germany ..
if it wasn’t that expensive i would send you my old Laptop/eMac .. so if someone is making vacation in Southern Germany, let me know, you can have it.
How is this possible? I’m very disappointed that authorities can be so arbitrary. Here’s hoping you get your stuff back.
“At 20.45 on Saturday the 28th of November the police raided the social centre…”…
At 20.45 on Saturday the 28th of November the police raided the social centre Utkanten in Malmö, where the hackerspace Forskningsavdelningen is housed. Twenty officers in full riot gear and ski masks broke into the space through the entrance and a back…
@Snake: Since when has what the police has the *right* to do influenced what they *actually* do? If they want to do something, finding and/or inventing an auxiliary reason to do it. I remember once when we were being contained in an alley outside a club, because the police had barricaded both exists to the alley, saying that the OTHER side of the barricade was off limits. By virtue of not letting us pass by this barricade, they had in essence trapped us inside. Something I believe that they did not have the right to do. When asked about it, they certainly didn’t indicate that were were being held against our will with any legal justification.
“…finding and/or inventing an auxiliary reason to do it generally poses no problem”. Oops. forgot some words.
Har bloggat lite om det. Lycka till!
thanks for all the support!
JO-anmälan kanske är lämpligt?
Jag har en fungerande wlan-router över om ni behöver. Mail me plz.
I was planning to go to sweden for a year to study there, as I thought that society is more relaxed there than in germany. Looks like I should rethink that. Do such things happen often in sweden?
Sadly, Possible Visitor , it’s getting more common. The police used to be an ok sort (though obviously never perfect), but this last decade or so has seen them slip tremendously downwards, along with the politicians that guide them (as they shouldn’t, constitution-wise).
You probably won’t have any troubles if all you’re going here to do is study, but there’s a chance , what with all these FRA-shenanigans and other undemocratic notions, of electronic wiretapping.
Syron: Its mostly not being concerned about being assaulted by the police during my current stay – its that I want to visit sweden because of the freedom-embracing culture I was expecting, and I am worrying that I might not find that anymore. Lets hope the Piratpartiet will fix all that soon.
Oh screw those cops.
How come they can take your stuff when you werent related in any way? Such things suck. I hope it takes a good end.
(Why dont they give you the computers back, when they have been controlled by “experts”?)
[...] is totally insane. The Malmö police accuse the raided hackerspace “Forskningsavdelningen” of preparing grand theft. Insane, me tells [...]
Intressant att i exakt samma område finns Malmös mest kända svartklubb och lokaler för prostution och precis runt kröken gatuprostution.
Would you please be more specific and truthful about the circumstances?
We were in the process of preparing a statement when someone found this:
http://sydsvenskan.se/malmo/article580236/Dataintrang-kan-ha-haft-Utkanten-som-bas.html
now, we (metalab) really want to help you guys out with a statement of solidarity – this concerns all of us! -, however, we are a large organisation and can not voice an objection that can bite us in the ass afterwards.
To be clear: we want to issue a statement, but please help us with the “what is what”. Please collect *all* swedish media and authority sources about this incident and translate them to english, that would be of big help to us.
Philip: The article you linked to seems to indicate that the Police base their suspicions on computer intrusion on the “wlan dishes antenna” listed in the blog entry above. If that’s the only thing they got seems a bit silly and I guess it might be a part of a smear campaign or a way to keep the hackerspace computers for a while longer.
MC: that is exactly what we are unable to judge for ourselves. We can not understand swedish and we do not have the resources to investigate with that kind of a barrier.
The problem is as follows: we read your post, were concerned, wrote a very aggressive statement, then someone told us the police was actually investigating additional charges (nothing of that in this blogpost).
We don’t mind the charges themselves, as we can very well imagine how they came together.
But we do mind that it seems we could and should not rely on the information given in this blogpost – which we did in the first place. So the statement is on hold until we have a public discussion tomorrow evening, so please, if you are interested in statements from other hackerspaces, make every effort to translate swedish sources like police statements, media articles etc about the incident so that we (and probably a lot of other hackerspaces) can make a judgement for ourselves how far we can lean out without falling
(=lose our own credibility)
Also, a description of the normal procedures for what you call a pub check would also be very much appreciated, so we (the outsiders who are allowed to drink alcohol in our own hackerspaces without having to fear the riot police
can judge how much out of relation this was.
Btw, your vodka rocks.
Phil you are right, a more formal chain of events will be sent out, probably on the hackerspaces blog.
Translating all media articles is a tedious task, also they are based on assumptions which are hard to translate in a way that you can distinguish them from facts.
(This is not a complaint on media reactions, just a statement regarding translation)
At this time of writing there is still no formal charges just “suspicions about suspicions” which means its hard for us to be “up-to-date” with current rumours such as “Grand Theft” or “Computer intrusion” charges.
We are not intending to jeopardize our or your credibility in any way. The intention is to only report things we know for a fact, and if not then we will be specific that this is only assumptions.
Thanks for caring. Open will win!
Forks4ever: Thank you for your understanding, I want you all to know that we are unanimously outraged and we are rooting for you.
For the time being, would you mind translating the police statement? I gather polise.se is the official channel?
It’s actually about what the search warrant said. For PR reasons, it makes a huge difference whether they really had only “alcohol” on there but being prepared to seize the stuff they were actually after or they were being up front about their agenda.
It is curious that a band of open, intellectual people are being potentially pushed into the underground by numb violence and random legal attacks. We need to stand as one against this kind of development.
This is not *our* future we see here.
only 520 SEK per PayPal – but I hope it helps
oh the itch, the infinite, all over my brain itch of being a spectator to such sever misuse of power. I am with you all the way on this one guys.
[...] Så sent som i lördags så slog ju polisen till mot Forskningsavd’s lokaler i Malmö. En påstådd alkohol-razzia blev ett tillslag mot i princip alla elektronisk utrustning. Bara på det tillslaget var en 10 it folk medtagna från länskrim. [...]
Yes put paypal donate will send a little bit boney
I tried to summarize the news reports and press releases in a longer text here:
http://hack.org/mc/writings/hackerspace-raided.html
It may be updated as things develop and I find new articles or press releases. Comments welcome.
Better start including defenses against this stuff in your planned activities – I think since the Dutch boys showed Counterfeiting and Cuff keys on their site(s) they may as well have painted a giant red bullseye on all open hardware projects. Naivety is a fearsomely expensive trait – I too was raided 11 years ago – lost 8 PC’s and a bunch of software (20,000 worth) all on a false accusation – I gave up even thinking I’d ever get it back years ago – disperse your assets, wake up to the REAL situation, analyze why you where targeted and THINK. Police time is a scarce commodity, it is not used accidentally.
There are 10’s of thousands of us to each one of them. Good Luck.
Sure, I’m paranoid, but… am I paranoid ENOUGH?
Thank you. We will add it to the list of links.
[...] entry is my response to the Police raid on the premises of the hackerspace Forskningsavdelningen in Malmö:I have had a strong interest in technology since I was 4-or-so years old. I have a distinct memory [...]
my piano…
Megacool Blog indeed!… if anyone else has anything it would be much appreciated. Great website Enjoy!…
Please have a look at
http://metalab.at/
and
http://metalab.at/medien/forskningsavdelningen/
the facsimiles to the authorities 6 press will be sent out soon.
hth
So you have an IBAN / BIC number of your account?
Please also have a look at
http://www.action.at/theory/index.shtml?/cgi-bin/theory/page.pl?id=229
( nearly the same Text as Philips, except the language ( german only ) and the solidarity part.
We are a community of people who are interested art, culture and new media – also in supporting the cultural scene.
Philip and Andi: Thanks for the support!
[...] Read this blogpost: I CAN HAZ MOAR ‘BOUT TEH [...]
[...] We made statements in papers and blogs in English http://forskningsavd.se/2009/11/29/i-can-haz-moar-bout-teh-reid/ [...]