It seems like a lot of people are objecting to the raid/seizure itself in addition to the possibility of conviction, so I have a question. Is it reasonable for the police to investigate an exit node operator for traffic coming from his node, even if they know he's an exit node operator?
The way I see it, it's their job* to determine whether the traffic in question was relayed, or whether it was the exit node operator himself generating that traffic. In an ideal world, they could just call him up and ask nicely - but if he was actually guilty, he'd say "No, no way it was me!" and immediately start destroying any evidence. On the other hand, raiding someone's home or server rack and confiscating all of their computers isn't a great solution if most exit node operators are not guilty themselves.
I'm not aware of a good solution that avoids inconveniencing exit node operators without giving them some kind of blanket immunity to investigation that goes beyond just relayed traffic.
* - I'm aware that this might be impossible, but you can't know whether it will be ahead of time. It's possible that they could raid him and find no proof, even if he's guilty. It's also possible that they could raid him and find exactly what they were looking for. Like many investigation tactics, there's no guaranteed payoff.
The way I see it, it's their job* to determine whether the traffic in question was relayed, or whether it was the exit node operator himself generating that traffic. In an ideal world, they could just call him up and ask nicely - but if he was actually guilty, he'd say "No, no way it was me!" and immediately start destroying any evidence. On the other hand, raiding someone's home or server rack and confiscating all of their computers isn't a great solution if most exit node operators are not guilty themselves.
I'm not aware of a good solution that avoids inconveniencing exit node operators without giving them some kind of blanket immunity to investigation that goes beyond just relayed traffic.
* - I'm aware that this might be impossible, but you can't know whether it will be ahead of time. It's possible that they could raid him and find no proof, even if he's guilty. It's also possible that they could raid him and find exactly what they were looking for. Like many investigation tactics, there's no guaranteed payoff.