The FBI raided the offices of Berkeley-based Long Haul, a community centre for radical grassroots activists in August. The raid, conducted in conjunction with the Almeda County Sheriff's Department and the University of California Police, is said to have led to the confiscation of all computers in the building, including those behind locked doors in the organization's offices.

The statement of probable cause presented to the magistrate as justification for the raid alleged improper use of a public access computer located at Long Haul's offices. During the raid, the complaint alleges that the officers also broke into the adjacent offices of the East Bay Prisoner Support Group, and took computers from that organization, too.

The complaint accuses the defendants of gaining access to locked offices that were not available to members of the public, even though the warrant only expressed interest in public-access computers.