There is a german word for it - 'Zersetzung'. It was used by Stasi in former divided Germany and for sure has been used in recent years against other folks of the Tor community.
If you'll count "people running exit nodes" in "community", it's fairly common. People get searched and possibly charged for whatever is coming out of their node, but not convicted since its not their traffic.
And yes, that could be the legal system working normally, but there have been cases where the government already knows about the exit node, but doesn't reveal that information to the judge while obtaining a warrant.
What really worries me about this story is the following question: Are german agencies involved in this? I mean, assume the break ins are real, can the FBI operate in a foreign country without consent? At least they should know it and did nothing to stop it... Or am I msitaken here somewhere?
I always was under the assumption, that the FBI is a police-force, not a spy-agency (like the CIA or NSA). I kind of realize that the difference is getting smaller in recent years.
There is good reason to keep them (Police and Intelligence) separated, in germany we call this 'Trennungsgebot', this is a direct historical consequence of the Gestapo.
So, technically, is the FBI a police or an intelligence agency?
There is a german word for it - 'Zersetzung'. It was used by Stasi in former divided Germany and for sure has been used in recent years against other folks of the Tor community.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zersetzung