Later on I actually did what I should have done in the first place -- actually read the thingy the police filed to get approved to search the guy's place. As others have pointed out before me, the police indeed _has_ a point here. The guy fiddled with the students' marks system of the school, and that imho really is something the police should deal with.

On the other hand, the quuotes on the eff.org page didn't state that issue at all and instead preferred to point out some exaggerately abstruse line of argue, like: the guy was using a shell and therefore he got searched.

I think, the intend of that indeed was to manipulate the readers of that "report", and to get that "report" re-told.

So, for me the lesson learned from this incident are actually two: 1) If there's a report of an obviously abstruse reasoning, have a second look and dig into it yourself (unless you're really not interested in it). 2) Never trust a press release, not even if it gets released by some of the good guys, i.e. not even the eff.

I think, by accidents like this one, even "the good ones" of organizations loose credibility.