The New California Republic wrote:Infected Mushroom wrote:I'd also like to add that when I say "probable cause" I don't mean that if the police were to sue or prosecute the donors they would win in court.
Just that there's enough "reasonable suspicion" that the courts would allow it go forward regardless of whether in hindsight it was justified or not.
If there was probable cause, then even if it turned out you were in the end of innocent, you have no recourse against the police because they were acting within their statutory authority
to give a simple example... assume the police had "probably cause" to search your home because they think you have illegal weapons; they search you and it turns out... NO WEAPONS. Can you sue the police? No because so long as there was probable cause and the formalities of the search were met, they're in the clear.
The test is not "were you, in hindsight, innocent or guilty" the test is... "was there probable cause/reasonable suspicion"
There is one crucial flaw in your argument: the oversight of the Hong Kong Police is abysmal. In the absence of oversight with any teeth, the system you are lauding is open to serious abuse.
IM also shows their ignorance of how Hong Kong's law works (at least in theory), although IM being ignorant of things in Hong Kong is nothing new. If police want to search your home for whatever reason, they will have to procure a valid search warrant from the court, which details what places they can search at what time, and what they can take away as evidence. Then again, it's not like the police cares that much about that law either, and you can't really stop them if they just arrest you and then enter your home anyway.