The front page of the Taipei Times featured a story about police home searches of Taiwanese who have been involved in independence-related activities. The story speaks for itself, but there were a couple points I'd like to mention. From the Times:
“An agent who appeared to be the leader told me that I could be charged for interfering with official duties and asked me to delete all the pictures that I took,” [Chen Tsung-yi] wrote. “I didn’t know much about the law, so I deleted the pictures.”
For purposes of comparison, in America it is apparently OK for people to take photos of the police. Legally it's a mixed bag, however, as FlexYourRights.org explains:
Videotaping or photographing police in public places is usually legal [What about within PRIVATE places, such as your own home? — The Foreigner], so long as you don’t interfere with their activities. Nonetheless, doing so will often get you arrested.
Police don’t like to be watched or documented in any way, so they’ll sometimes bend the rules to stop you. We’ve heard many stories about people who got arrested for taping police, and the charges are usually dropped. If you’re taping or photographing police, make sure you don’t interfere, because “obstruction” is the most likely charge, and you’ll want to be able to defend against it. [emphasis added]
Despite the risk of arrest, we don’t discourage the taping and photographing of police. Video evidence is uniquely effective in exposing police misconduct. If you acquire video or photographic evidence that warrants an official investigation, create and secure copies of the evidence, then forward it to local police monitoring groups such as civilian review boards, ACLU, and NAACP chapters. You should also obtain legal representation for yourself in case the police department retaliates against you.
Nonetheless, that's America and this is Taiwan. I've no idea what the local law is regarding the matter.
Getting back to the Taipei Times' story:
Meanwhile, political columnist Paul Lin (林保華) penned an article in the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) on Wednesday in which he said police from his local precinct had come to his house for no reason.
Paul Lin said he suspected the visit had something to do with recent articles he has written on police abusing their power and disregarding human rights.
In response, police said they were on a routine household visit and that it had nothing to do with Paul Lin’s background or his political opinions. [emphasis added]
Err, I was under the impression that the Japanese-era law permitting police "household visits" was laid to rest just last year. In fact, I went out of my way to PRAISE the KMT for repealing the law, which I regarded as a license for law enforcement to go on legal fishing expeditions.
Since the law is obviously still in force, I withdraw my previous compliments.
UPDATE: It just struck me to wonder how the existence of digital images on someone's camera could POSSIBLY prevent or interfere with a police search.
Taking the pictures, yes, I can see how that MIGHT interfere, under certain circumstances. The cops want to search a cabinet, let's say, and the homeowner stands in their way with his trusty Nikon.
But if the homeowner stands off to the side and unobtrusively clicks away, I don't see how that constitutes interference any more than if he was simply standing there watching.
UPDATE #2: Deleted files, photos or e-mails aren't destroyed, so Chen Tsung-yi's data may still be readable. When one of my digital camera cards became corrupted a few years ago, I was able to recover MOST of my pictures using the $30 PhotoRescue program.
UPDATE #3: This is beyond satire. British police tell 64 year-old man that photographing teenage gang members may constitute assault. How long before Taiwanese police start using THAT as an excuse?
UPDATE #4: A good editorial on the general topic of videotaping police over at Fox News.
UPDATE #5: Oh, that's nice.