I was about to say 'you should have other backups', but the FBI is a very powerful persistent threat, and might be the more important problem.
kids these days…
Perhaps you can eventually submit a FOIA request?
I see what you did there :)
I had a friend who owns a PC repair shop who bought a laptop from another 'friend' that was sold to him illegally. (He did not know it was illegally stolen from the next state over) The state police came in (with FBI in tow) and seized all of his equipment. Every last computer (all of his own, as well as customers that had their pc in for repair) in the shop was checked over.
They held onto his equipment (along with 3 other customers) for 6 months, and he had to make do with a laptop to keep his business running. Fortunately, he had backed up his PC repair software to another location. Or he would have been out of business.
All because the FBI wanted to be thorough. Not because he was on suspicion of a crime.
Then again I remember a story about a tire storage facility in Norway that went bankrupt and no one could get their winter tires out. Doing a bit of research on this it actually looks like it happened at least two times once in 2019 [1] and previously in 2011 [2]. Looks like all the customers eventually got their tires back, but in Norway we have deadlines for when you need to change from summer tires to winter tires and if you have studded tires then you have to change back by a week or so after end of easter. So customers were in a bit of a pickle.
1: https://www.nrk.no/sorlandet/bilverksted-har-stengt-dorene-_... 2: https://www.rb.no/lokale-nyheter/kunder-fortviler-over-dekkh...
Wish it were. There's more to the story that I'm not permitted to discuss. But the brush strokes are there, and all true. Unfortunately.
I didn't receive my computer equipment back until literally last year: 2022. And they shipped them back in two large thin cardboard box with computer parts sliding around freely inside. Literally it arrived at my house with a video card poking half out through the box side. Obviously non-functional. One last "fuck you" from the FBI for doing nothing but being politically active.
Were you uploading stuff to wikileaks? If so, what kind of stuff?
Were you donating to WL?
Did you have any "classified" data in your posession?
What did the warrant say about the target, the reasonable suspicion, etc?
Do you have a copy of the warrant you'd be willing to share?
You're a guilty criminal, so why wouldn't they trash your stuff just for being who you are?
And who is with them who's going to tell them not to do that?
It's also especially ridiculous behavior in the context of CFAA raids (compared to drug or armed robbery), where the most lethal thing on the premises is likely to be old pizza.
Also, isn't there a legal duration for how long the FBI could keep the evidence/equipment they gathered in the investigation? Ten years seems to be too long for that.