PA Bill Number: SB945
Title: Consolidating the act of August 9, 1955 (P.L.323, No.130), known as The County Code; and making repeals.
Description: Consolidating the act of August 9, 1955 (P.L.323, No.130), known as The County Code; and making repeals. ...
Last Action: Third consideration and final passage (199-0)
Last Action Date: Apr 17, 2024
Could Your Router Get You Raided By A SWAT Team? :: 08/17/2014
A 68-year-old Evansville, Indiana woman and her 18-year-old adopted daughter really wish they had put a password on their wireless router.
According to a lawsuit they've filed against the City of Evansville, the Evansville Police Department, Police Chief Billy Bolin, and an unknown officer of the Evansville Police Department and SWAT team:
On June 21, 2012, the Evansville Police Department and officers of the EPD and its SWAT team executed a search warrant for computer devices and raided Milan's residence with a local television news crew in tow to memorialize the raid.
Only Louise Milan and 18-year-old Stephanie Milan were home at the time as officers pounded on the door, tossed flashbang's into the house, and then forced entry by breaking the glass outer door.
The lawsuit continues:
The officers smashed Milan's window and storm door and threw in two flash-bang grenades that created property damage in addition to the destroyed window and storm door. The officers used flash-bang grenades despite the fact that [there] were no threatening suspects visible. Milan and her daughter were ordered on to the floor at gunpoint, handcuffed and paraded in front of their neighbors into police vehicles. Both were detained and questioned by the officers.
The cause of this full-force entry by SWAT? An unsecured router.
More specifically, it was a series of anonymous e-mail posts threatening Police Chief Bolin that were traced back to the Milan's home. The anonymous posts repeatedly referenced guns and explosives causing a heightened response by police.
After police seized the family's computers and cell phones it was determined that the threatening posts were not made by anyone inside the house but by someone logging in through their unsecured wireless router. The FBI was called in to help track the person responsible. Local gang leader Derrick Murray, who lives with his mom in a nearby house, was later arrested. Earlier this month he confessed in federal court that he accessed the wireless network through his smart phone to make the posts.
The police department has paid for the damages to the home caused by the raid.
http://controversialtimes.com/politics/could-your-router-get-you-raided-by-a-swat-team/
