What triggered the Fullfillment Plus raid

[Herb2]

What exactly were the grounds for the raid on the shipping records at Fullfillment Plus? What allowed them to raid Fullfillment that can't be used on other firms?

The major concern for many would be additional raids turning up their name again on another list. Does the settlement agreement cover this eventuality?

[BubbaHill]

DIRECTV Seizes Signal Theft Equipment from Businesses Nationwide

Seizures are the First Under the Digital Millennium Copyright
Act; Multiple Civil Suits Target Illegal Activity on the Internet

El Segundo, Jun 27, 2001 -- As part of its escalated campaign
to curb satellite signal piracy, DIRECTV, Inc. recently executed civil seizure and impoundment orders against several businesses
and individuals across the United States, and seized several truckloads of equipment used to illegally reprogram DIRECTV
access cards and steal DIRECTV® programming signals.
These seizures, believed to be the first under the provisions
of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, were conducted
in connection with suits filed in U.S. District Court in
California against multiple targets in California, Texas and
Florida. The most prominent targets were Santa Ana-based
Fulfillment Plus; WhiteViper Technologies and American Card Programmers of Anaheim; and the defendants believed to have
links to those businesses. They include: Derek E. Trone,
WhiteViper Technologies, Future Capital Corp.; Jennifer
and William Zinn, Mailroom & More; Bruce Allen Turner,
Vector Technologies, Inc., Global Capital Corp.; Jim Stevens, American Card Programmers; Robert Meadows, MEADCO; and
Scott Madzig, Fulfillment Plus, Parcel Handlers Ltd.

According to the complaints filed in these cases, the
defendants advertised and sold signal theft devices over
the Internet and provided and listed programs and instructions
for illegally modifying DIRECTV access cards. The targets
of the civil seizure and impoundment orders in these cases
have included the operators of the Web sites, as well as the manufacturing and distribution sites that supported the
Internet businesses.

Members of the DIRECTV Office of Signal Integrity, Engineering
and Legal departments conducted the seizures, with support from federal, state and local law enforcement entities.

"The use of civil seizures under the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act is a significant new weapon in our fight against
signal piracy," said Larry Rissler, vice president, Office of
Signal Integrity for DIRECTV, Inc. "By using this statute,
we are able to seize equipment or property without prior notice, before there is an opportunity to destroy or hide evidence.
We expect to conduct many more raids of this kind in the future against targets big and small."

In addition to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, the
complaints have also included claims under the Federal
Communications Act, Federal Wiretap laws and the California
Penal and Civil Codes.

After ordering the seizure and impoundment of illegal devices,
the courts in all cases have now issued either temporary
restraining orders or preliminary injunctions, barring the
defendants from continuing to conduct business over the Internet
or by any other means. Other websites shut down as a result of
these orders include www.axxessplus.com, and www.huexpress.com.

DIRECTV's intensified campaign to protect the security of its
signal includes civil actions and criminal referrals, frequent
raids in cooperation with local, state and federal law
enforcement agencies and the transmission of electronic counter-measures, designed to disable illegally modified access cards.

[Herb2]

I find this part of the quote interesting:

"By using this statute,
we are able to seize equipment or property without prior notice, before there is an opportunity to destroy or hide evidence.
We expect to conduct many more raids of this kind in the future against targets big and small."

Is a copy (digital or paper) of a shipping invoice considered "equipment or property"? Sounds to me like Mr. R. was talking about the actual hardware at the time. One wonders what the warrant allowed them to seize.

Have any subsequent raids taken place as advertised?