Re: Power Company Tip Leads to Bitcoin Mining Raid

I think it's close minded to think "excess" usage is automatically a grow op.

If the person had a record of growing marijuana before it's pretty natural to jump to that conclusion, regardless of how correct that assumption is.it's kinda like how excons got put into suspect list when related crimes occurred in the vicinity.

Quote from: BCwinning on September 17, 2014, 05:06:56 AM

A person could be doing one of several things easily. all consisting of working out of their home.
Even doing some of these things for a hobby would make a meter spin hard.
a good compressor will eat up electric (woodshop, autobody, mechanic etc etc)
a kiln will eat up electric (ceramics / glass making)
electric water heaters are notorious (chandlers and I have no idea what else) a lot of hot showers Tongue

hah
obviously a bitcoin datacenter Tongue

someone could even have a real garden as well. (not the kind in the topic)
It would help to know what they consider "normal" or "excessive"

I think "excessive " would mean having a electricity usage far higher than normal(maybe magnitudes higher than thy's neighbours).I agree any of the activity listed would trigger that alert.I'm willing to bet that even if his excessive usage were due to the other activities listed he would still be raided based on his previously record .Especially if he kept those "hobbies" outside superficial scrutiny.

He wasn't busted for growing but for possession of a 1/2 pound which is a big difference.
THerefore there wasn't probable cause that he was growing because he had possesion before.
If they caught him growing before ok but they didn't.
And really sherlock no shit "excessive" is more than "normal". Even I knew that.

What he is actually charged with has nothing to do with what probable cause the police had when the warrant was issued. There were signs that he was growing illegal drugs in his house (which turned out to be a false positive) therefore there was probable cause that he was growing drugs. The fact that the police found something unrelated to the crime they thought he was committing does not have anything to do with probable cause.

with your logic every criminal should be investigated because their is probable cause they will do it again.
Done arguing, go work for the prosecutors office they love guys like you.

I am not saying the probable cause was that the guy had grown drugs in his house before. I am saying that the probable cause was the fact that the electric usage was consistent with someone growing drugs in his house with very few other logical explanations to the high electric usage. Also you should remember that overall bitcoin adoption is well under 1% of the global population and the percentage of bitcoin users that are miners is also very small.