[HN Gopher] Police sweep Google searches to find suspects; facin...
___________________________________________________________________
Police sweep Google searches to find suspects; facing its first
legal challenge
Author : ceejayoz
Score : 44 points
Date : 2022-06-30 20:43 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nbcnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nbcnews.com)
| the_doctah wrote:
| It's an interesting subject until the article repeatedly suggests
| that these searches are going to be used to hunt down women who
| seek abortions. They could have picked literally any crime to
| pose that rhetorical situation for.
| daenz wrote:
| I wonder if the future of policing will become so
| lazy/understaffed that if they can't find a digital paper trail
| for a crime via ML, it will be kicked to the backlog.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Wouldn't change much. They solve 2% of major crimes.
| https://theconversation.com/police-solve-just-2-of-all-major...
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I agree with the other commenter who said that, if the keyword
| search is narrow in scope such that it would apply to _this_
| particular crime (in this case, the exact address, and
| timebound), then it strikes me as a "reasonable" search, and not
| a fishing expedition. Furthermore, it seems pretty analogous to
| what is required for a warrant for a physical search - you can't
| put out a broad dragnet, it must be targeted in scope, and the
| definition of "targeted" has pretty much always come out of case
| law.
|
| Now, when it comes to the fear about being used to prosecute
| abortions, that is really a totally separate issue, as doing a
| reverse keyword search for "get abortion pills by mail" is too
| broad. But I think the broader issue with the abortion examples
| is that many people fundamentally believe the laws are unjust and
| _deserve_ to be broken. Whatever the case may be, the legal
| system itself surely cannot differentiate between "unjust" and
| "just" laws.
| ciupicri wrote:
| Reminds of the "pressure cookers" and "backpacks" scandal from 9
| years ago.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| To be honest, this seems like a pretty reasonable search; a
| warranted search, narrowly scoped in both keywords (a specific
| address) and timeframe.
|
| Meanwhile, this:
|
| > "If Google is allowed or required to turn over information in
| this Colorado case, there is nothing to stop a court in a state
| that has outlawed abortion to also require Google to turn over
| information on that kind of keyword search."
|
| seems like it's of entirely different magnitude, far less
| amenable to such a narrow scope.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| > seems like it's of entirely different magnitude, far less
| amenable to such a narrow scope.
|
| Why?
|
| If the police finds a burnt house, and check who googled for an
| address... how is that different to them finding an illegal
| abortion clinic, and checkng who googled for that address?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > If the police finds a burnt house, and check who googled
| for an address... how is that different to them finding an
| illegal abortion clinic, and checkng who googled for that
| address?
|
| I don't think that sentence refers to _illegal_ abortion
| clinics; I think they 're referring to state laws that
| attempt to punish out-of-state abortions
| (https://www.usnews.com/news/national-
| news/articles/2022-05-1...).
|
| That said, a clinic is more like a house that burns down
| _several times daily_ , which dramatically expands the scope
| of any such warrant.
| lin83 wrote:
| If the requirement to be narrow and time limited is not
| codified in law (which afaik it is not) it is pretty much
| guaranteed such broad searches will happen. All it takes is
| convincing a judge.
|
| If the past has taught us anything it's that law enforcement
| will use any tool to the maximium of what is allowed and then
| beyond (e.g. coerced phone searches, racially motivated stop
| and search, drug dogs to force vehicle searches, privately
| sourced licence plate tracking and face recognition, criminal
| DNA testing from rape kits, forced biometric collection and
| more).
| tunap wrote:
| Oh no, they need not convince a judge. Thanks to the Patriot
| Act, they can surveil and ask for permission ex post facto.
| Or, surveil and never ask for permission, if the LEOs decide
| not to request a warrant... again, after the surveilling has
| been completed.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It is codified, in the Fourth Amendment.
|
| > no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported
| by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place
| to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized
|
| Legally, the term is "particularity".
| chucksta wrote:
| https://www.aclu.org/blog/documents-aclu-case-reveal-more-
| de...
|
| >The FBI's role in the process is a condition of the
| Federal Communication Commission's equipment authorization
| issued to the Harris Corporation.
|
| The result is that members of the public, judges, and
| defense attorneys are denied basic information about local
| cops' use of invasive surveillance gear that can sweep up
| sensitive location data about hundreds of peoples' cell
| phones. For example, when we sought information about
| Stingrays from the Brevard County, Florida, Sheriff's
| Office, they cited a non-disclosure agreement with a
| "federal agency" as a basis for withholding all records.
| When the ACLU of Arizona sued the Tucson Police Department
| for Stingray records, an FBI agent submitted a declaration
| invoking the FBI nondisclosure agreement as a reason to
| keep information secret.
|
| Yeah it works really well
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Stingrays are typically warrant _less_ ; a very different
| scenario than this case. Their very nature makes them
| pretty broadly scoped, too, impacting anyone in range.
|
| (I'm of the opinion they're a Fourth Amendment violation,
| and quite a few court cases are winding their way through
| the system. Quite a few judges have already ruled against
| their warrantless use. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stin
| gray_use_in_United_States_...)
| [deleted]
| slaymaker1907 wrote:
| I hope courts require both that the requested search data is
| very specific to the crime (which you are right, a specific
| address is specific), and I also think that such requests
| should be by court order/search warrant. The specificity
| requirement is most important, but I think law enforcement
| should not get a blank check to do these sorts of queries. It's
| a lot harder to convince a judge/jury that a query was too
| broad after it turned up good evidence compared to rejecting
| the query before it is run and collected.
|
| That's all from a legal perspective. From a policy perspective,
| I think our search histories should not be collected in the
| first place as much as practically possible. In meatspace,
| libraries are actually very protective of what books you look
| up/checkout. Seattle City Library actually requires you to opt-
| in for tracking of your checkout history because they know this
| sort of data is sensitive.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| Would person ___ searches 'within 2 weeks of last menstruation'
| be narrow enough?
|
| The case of this is fine to me on it's face. But examples like
| the above are terrifying.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I don't think that'd be comparably narrow, no.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| how about adding specific person Jane Doe searches address
| ___ of planned parenthood within 2 weeks of last
| menstruation
|
| To me the ultimate problem isn't the scope of the search.
| It's that the guardrails against partisanship are gone via
| takeover of law by Republicans and christian crusaders.
|
| Attorneys general and judiciaries have huge power and are
| so lopsided depending on geography and political party in
| charge. and I don't trust the ultimate Supreme Court to do
| what's right in the end
|
| that it's illegal now is crazy. That is seems likely that
| they will try to prosecute people (more likely TX style
| citizen suits) for getting healthcare in a different state
| is crazier.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Planned Parenthood provides prenatal care and other non-
| abortion services. No probable cause.
| matt321 wrote:
| Everyone agrees preventing criminals from burning people alive
| is wrong, but some people don't think abortion is wrong so
| there's grey area there.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Sure, but there's still a big scope difference; "who searched
| for this one address right before it burned down" versus "who
| searched about abortion; we don't know anything much more
| specific than that".
|
| > Google delivered information on 61 queries, according to
| court filings, along with the IP address -- a unique number
| for each computer on the internet. Investigators focused on a
| handful of those queries, asking Google to provide detailed
| user information for them. One of them was linked to the
| 17-year-old.
|
| That's pretty narrow.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-06-30 23:00 UTC)