They took about $10k worth of my home lab gear. After eight months I was told I could go collect it back after they found nothing.

It was pretty traumatic. I still need to write down the complete summary. I've got about 50 pages of notes.

Knowing I was innocent was a certain comfort, but I really didn't know if there were going to be other motivations to manufacture something. Thankfully that didn't happen.

Just getting raided for something like that, or accused without evidence, is enough to destroy a person's life.

At the time of the raid, and when I rang the lead investigator (roughly once a month) to get a status update and ask a couple of questions, the only answer I ever got was that the IP address of my household was flagged a number of times over the course of a few years.

Similarly to this "I know what you download" site listing something I definitely haven't downloaded, it makes me very skeptical of the thoroughness of both the Police's source information and their ability to understand what it actually means (and therefore any ability to apply logical reasoning to implications of it - such as it's potential fallibility).

All information I've received has been because I asked questions. Nothing was given voluntarily.

Upon asking "whether this was over", the lead Investigator gave me the impression I was still a suspicious character because:

- I had "tor" on one of my computers

- I had visited and downloaded things from Mega (apparently frequently used for such materials)

- I had virtual machines.

This is the Police's level of understanding of technology. It's scary, it's sad, and it's disappointing, and I fucking hope I never get caught in their web of incompetence ever again.

I actually viscerally feel like I'm still under some amount of surveillance. But that might be just standard background paranoia (refer: Slartibartfast).

I'm not a lawyer, but my business is networking hardware and monitoring software. My company has worked with law-enforcement in the past, so take this with a grain of salt…

My opinion is that you are still absolutely under a cloud of suspicion, and I would not rule out the possibility that there is a flag on your ISP account, police are continuing to actively monitor your traffic, and hopefully you don't have to undergo a background check anytime soon because it will probably come up.

I suggest you speak to a lawyer, maybe even send a freedom of information request to the police department, and to the FBI for your file, and a direct question if you are currently under investigation.

My guess is that they will lie and say no, but at least you have it in writing for someone else. You might get a Glomar which is the same as a yes. Either way you will have some insight.

But, after 12 months I had to re-do a police check, and I thought that was normal for the industry, but one of my co-workers who started around the same time as me didn't have to re-do any police check.

Maybe nothing, but maybe there is a little bit of a stain that just will not come out.

We have attempted follow ups with the police ombudsman and local politicians regarding this, but there's little recourse unless it's police misconduct as opposed to "the system is shit". Beyond that it becomes expensive and time consuming and I really, honesty, truly do not want this to consume me or become my life's purpose.

I'm still planning on pursuing various other (limited) avenues, but I'm at a point in my life where personal free time is at a minimum due to the age of my family, so the pursuit of this is a backlog item.

(the effect on my family is also a strong motivating factor - side note: the police appeared to have absolutely zero expectation that there were children in the house; there was an almost panicked reaction from the officer who woke up my kids when they went into their rooms)

Funny thing: I don't like talking about this, but I need to, to keep it fresh as a reminder, but it also makes me angry again. But I'm not someone who wants to live in denial of reality.

P.S. This is in Australia.