Germany seizes server hosting pilfered U.S. police files

BOSTON (AP) — At the behest of the U.S. government, German authorities have seized a computer server that hosted a huge cache of files from scores of U.S. federal, state and local law enforcement agencies obtained in a Houston data breach last month.

The server was being used by a WikiLeaks-like data transparency collective called Distributed Denial of Secrets to share documents — many tagged “For Official Use Only” — that shed light on U.S. police practices.

The data, dating back to 1996, include emails, audio and video files and police and FBI intelligence reports. DDoSecrets founder Emma Best said the data, dubbed “BlueLeaks,” comes from more than 200 agencies. It has been stripped of references to sexual assault cases and references to children but names, phone numbers and emails of police officers were not redacted, said Best, who uses they/their pronouns.

Best said that DDoSecrets obtained the data from an outside individual who sympathized with nationwide protests against police killings of unarmed Black people. Some of the files offer insights into the police response to those protests, they said.

While hacking into computers and stealing data is a federal crime, U.S. courts have consistently ruled that journalists may publish stolen documents as long as they are not involved in their theft. DDoSecrets says it is a journalistic organization that shares documents in the public interest, as WikiLeaks did in its early years before being used by Russian agents to influence the 2006 presidential campaign.

The documents came to light via a breach of Houston web-design company Netsential, which hosts portals for law enforcement agencies and “fusion centers,” state-run operations created after the 9/11 attacks to share threat intelligence with local...