Advocating doing something isn't evidence for having actually done something
Nobody's saying it is. It does strongly suggest that given the chance, you will do something, though. That's the concern here, that the defendant would either wipe his hard disk or publish his ex-employer's proprietary information. On multiple occasions in the past, he'd released internal company information after being advised not to, and violated written contracts with the company. The main factor in having the restraining order approved with no advance notice is that his website said that he'd be releasing source code to his own product "soon".
Well, your link doesn't actually point to any evidence that he "released internal company information after being advised not to". What it does say is that he recorded demonstration videos, applied through the proper channels for authorization to release those video to beta and alpha testers. After obtaining the limited authorization, he then posted the video on his site and youtube. The plaintiff alleges that he overstepped the limited authorization given on releasing these demonstration videos. This is the only occasion I am seeing, unless I am missing something, additionally, it seems more like a misunderstanding than anything else.
In fact, everything that the complaint alleges that he might have done illegally is referenced to as "On information and belief", yet no actual information is provided to support their beliefs. Contrary to their beliefs, they have actually painted Thuen as a law abiding citizen, by detailing all of the legal recourse he took in order to ensure he was doing things by the letter of the law. They have shown that he has a long history of attempting to follow the proper legal channels in all of his actions.
Additionally, Thuen's site has this to say:
Hi. So, if you're here, you might have read about Battelle's lawsuit against us. Obviously, until the injunction hearing, we can't say anything about what's going on, and until the forensics guys are done imaging our computers, as they are right now, we can't even type it.
But I think it's safe to say that, no, we didn't steal government code and then open-source it. If you'd like to be updated on this case and the proceedings, you can follow us on g+ and twitter. We thank everyone for their support, genuinely. Thanks.
They must have some evidence of a crime, yes.
Nope. As you note later, they need "probable cause". That's not actual evidence, and it's not nearly the high burden of proof you seem to think it is. In this case, the court does have evidence that the defendant had an unauthorized copy of the source code previously, and the defendant has promised to release his own source code "soon". If what he releases is actually his ex-employer's code, that harm would be irreparable. That's plenty of reasonable cause.
That doesn't make sense to me. Probable cause is generally defined as: "a reasonable amount of suspicion, supported by circumstances sufficiently strong to justify a prudent and cautious person's belief that certain facts are probably true".
The plaintiffs own complaint lists out all of the steps he took to ensure that he was taking a legal course of action. The only thing a reasonable person could assume from this is that he was setting himself up to compete with the other company, which obviously, even they realized. A paranoid person might believe that he is using source code illegally, regardless of the evidence in their own claim that suggests otherwise. However, probable cause does not suggest that we take paranoia into consideration. As far as I know, prudent and cautious people don't assume that others act in complete discourse with their past behavior.
Suspicion isn't enough for a search warrant
But suspicion, probable cause, and a pressing time limit are.
They have suspicion, no probable cause, and an artificial time limit which was created by the assumption that their believes are true. In the end, all they have is suspicion and paranoia.
The warrant never should have been granted. Though at least they have opened themselves up to be counter-sued. I hope Thuen takes full advantage of that opening.