Police raid Swedish hackerspace

If you haven't already heard, the police raided the social center where Forskningsavdelningen is housed. Here's the full article.
http://forskningsavd.se/2009/11/29/i-can-haz-moar-bout-teh-reid/

I understand that the police are expected to uphold the law. Perhaps the best use of their time really was to raid a concert where there may be alcohol being sold to underage people. It's fine that they raided the place.

Now, did they have to come in riot gear and ski masks for an underage drinking accusation? No, they did not. We'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say that maybe they had reason to believe some patrons had weapons and planned to use them against police if it came down to it. If that's the case, and I'm not saying it is, then that would explain, and perhaps excust their actions.

Next, they started seizing stuff. This is understandable if they are alleging a crime has taken place. If they got there and found there was no underage drinking then there's no reason to take anything.

Finally, there's the three biggest issues. The police took things which did not belong to any suspects, they took things unrelated to the case they were investigating, and they seemingly didn't give anyone a list of things taken. The last item can be easily rectified, but it should have been done before the police cleared out. However, I can't think of any legitimate reason for taking items unrelated to the crime and not owned by the alleged criminals. The only logical reason I can come up with would be to cause harm to anyone affiliated with that venue.

I'm not familiar with Swedish law, so perhaps they have the authority to take anything they please without even as much providing any indication as to what they took. But even if they do have that power, it doesn't make sense as to why they would do so in this case unless they have some kind of vendetta against Forskningsavdelningen. If that's the case, then they should just get a warrant and raid them properly. This was of seemingly circumventing the law is unjust and likely illegal.

Hopefully the hackerspace will get their gear back in a timely manner, however that doesn't sound likely. The appropriate response by the police at this point would be to return the property of anyone who is not a suspect, apologize for the confusion, and provide a list of everything which is not being returned. What is done, is done, but it's not at all difficult for them to start doing the right thing. While most people aren't going to be happy about the whole situation, I think we can all find it acceptable. The longer the authorities fail to take this action, the more unacceptable their actions become.