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Comment on Google forced to reveal users' search histories in Colorado court ruling

tsonfeir@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

search warrant that required Google to provide the IP addresses of anyone who had searched for the address of a home within the previous 15 days of it being set on fire

I’m fine with this. It’s specific to an actual crime that happened, and not targeting a known individual or preventing something that hasn’t happened yet, “for the children” or some nonsense like that.

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TWeaK@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It wasn’t specific to an individual criminal, though. Police aren’t allowed to get warrants for fishing expeditions, they’re supposed to find leads themselves and then get a concise warrant to evidence to confirm that. They searched people they had no right to search, and violated their constitutional rights.

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- tsonfeir@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It wasn’t specific to the fire? Like, whoever googled the address is a suspect. That’s a pretty good way to solve a crime.
  
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  - rgb3x3@beehaw.org ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Would you still feel the same way if the DMV was set on fire and you were a suspect because you’d searched for directions to the place?
    
    Or if you had searched that address because you were looking for homes in the area to compare with what you wanted?
    
    It shouldn’t be enough to make a Google search to assume an individual is a suspect in a crime.
    
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    TWeaK@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yes exactly. This story has echos of the guy who was hounded by police (and maybe even charged and convicted?) because he took a different route while cycling and rode past a house where a crime was committed. That, too, was Google.
    
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FutileRecipe@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
You’re fine with not targeting an individual and using blanket warrants instead? Even a judge said it was unconstitutional due to it not being individualized, and the EFF says it can implicate innocents. Even Google, who tracks and collects most everything, was reluctant to hand it over.

Sure, this reinvigorated the case, but it has an “ends justify the means” feel to it, which is a slippery slope. But you’re actively endorsing a less privacy friendly stance than Google, of all things. That blows my mind.

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- tsonfeir@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Everything must blow your mind. This is like going to a hotel and asking to see a list of people who stayed in the hotel last week because the suspect is probably staying nearby. Sounds like a pretty good way to get leads without asking for too much info.
  
  Figuring out who searched for the address where the crime happened actually just sounds like good police work
  
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  - FutileRecipe@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    Everything must blow your mind.
    
    Just people in a privacy community advocating for even less privacy than Google, who is decidedly anti-privacy, wants. The company who detests privacy and wants to collect data on everyone said, “this might be private and we shouldn’t go with it,” and you go “nope, it’s not, give it over?”
    
    So yes, no matter how much I experience in the world, people advocating for being taken advantage of or having their rights violated (which is what’s happening here) blows my mind, despite running into it semi-constantly.
    
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    tsonfeir@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    That’s not what’s going on
    
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  - hedgehog@ttrpg.network ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    This is like going to a hotel and asking to see a list of people who stayed in the hotel last week because the suspect is probably staying nearby.
    
    Going to the hotel and asking is fine. It’s up to the hotel to protect their guests’ privacy in such a case. It’d probably be more productive if they asked the hotel staff about particular suspicious behavior that they’d personally seen, especially if they could narrow down the time frame, though. “Did anyone smelling like smoke come through after 11 PM last night?”
    
    But the issue wasn’t what the police did - it was what the judge did. This situation would be more like if a judge issued a warrant for such a request without any evidence linking the hotel itself to the crime.
    
    Getting a warrant for the entire guest list would not be appropriate, though - at least, not without specific evidence linking a suspect to that specific hotel. “The crime was committed nearby” isn’t sufficient. They need evidence the suspect entered the hotel, at minimum.
    
    Sounds like a pretty good way to get leads without asking for too much info.
    
    Sounds like a pretty good way to trample over the privacy rights of the hotel guests who’ve done nothing wrong.
    
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    tsonfeir@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Agree to disagree
    
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  - Sentau@feddit.de ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    This is like going to a hotel and asking to see a list of people who stayed in the hotel last week because the suspect is probably staying nearby.
    
    And the hotel can deny to provide this information if it is an informal request. Only with a warrant will they forced to give up that list and a judge issuing the order will want some proof as why the police believe the suspect stayed in a hotel.
    
    I am not a lawyer so I could be wrong about the criteria for the issue of warrants.
    
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    tsonfeir@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Right. Google could have just looked that shit up voluntarily. I mean, it can’t be a long list.
    
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    BradleyUffner@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The police had a warrant for this information from Google. The problem isn’t what Google did, it’s that a judge signed off on a bad warrant and that the evidence obtained from it was still allowed to be used.
    
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Showroom7561@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Yeah, it’s a specific enough request that I don’t see any problem here.

Although, why the IP address? I would imagine most people using Google products would be logged into Google accounts. They’d probably know the exact account who made the search, rather than a vague IP that could belong to multiple people in.

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- tsonfeir@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Well, sometimes I google but I don’t have an account. And if I did, it wouldn’t have my real info.
  
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  - Showroom7561@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Fair enough. I don’t think it’s common for someone to be doing Google searches without having an account linked to other services, though.
    
    Anyone using YouTube, Gmail, etc. would be logged in.
    
    And everyone with an android phone who uses google search would very likely be linked to an account, for example.
    
    I just thought it would cut to the chase for Google to provide account holder info and not just IP addresses.
    
    Then again, the arsonists could have very well used any of the other search engines to look up the address. So… maybe police aren’t aware that other search options exist.
    
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    tsonfeir@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    It’s a shot in the dark for sure, but if it did have a hit, that’s probably the arsonist.
    
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