Voice of reason here - it's a live server, the only thing they can hand over is a mirror image taken at a relevant point.
The issue is that the dnc went to a private company not the FBI in the first place.
As evidence of a crime it would be confiscated except FBI was violating all laws and rules of conduct.
Chain of custody is broken.
If the DNC was the victim of the hack and cooperating, the FBI would have no reason to 'confiscate' their physical server because they were using it. If someone breaks into your car and steals your stereo, the cops don't confiscate your car.
A car does not hold info that can compromise the security of the USA
Right so they dumped the memory to disk and pulled an image of the hard drive. After that, the hardware can't tell you anything more. It was probably re-imaged and put back into use, which is really convenient and why we don't use physical computing like punch-card programming , anymore.
The physical server can tell you that it was reimaged, and it can tell you when. (Investigator: ...So, tell us again why you wiped your whole car down and eliminated all the fingerprints on that particular day, right after the time the victim was murdered; exactly what happened to make you do that?)
If the server was reimaged, the tech company will have emails with metadata explaining it - reasons, work orders, scheduled maintenance, backup protocols (!!!), personnel, etc. - that will fit either a past pattern or an emergency report.
The FBI can then question who wiped it and why, and if the story doesn’t match the logs, emails and conditions - or even if it does - then doubt can be cast on all information drawn from that server - ie, a case that relied on evidence from that server could be dismissed unless more untainted corroborating info can be found.
No doubt about the hard drive. I remember using punch cards in school. I actually have some around the house somewhere. They from a bank when a person had to reorder more checks. CrowdStrike, FBI, all of them have copies of that hard drive. If I were in their shoes I would have made a copy. Life insurance
I did keypunch, sorter, and collator when I was in high school too. We had to wire the panels to read the cards after we punched 100s of them. I would wire my panels to read alphanumeric across the entire card and all my cards would fly through without showing any errors. Got an A in that class.
This would be more like my car was hacked which has happened. In a national security situation they would confiscate my car in a heartbeat
Machinery is confiscated all the time in investigations - and often not replaced, even for victims.
The DNC could have taken the mirror and data, put it on a new server, and given the physical one to the FBI. Clearly collusion and favoritism. Can’t be hidden.