>Is this really that different from police asking for security camera footage from a convenience store after a robbery? This is closer to police asking for all

>Is this really that different from police asking for security camera footage from a convenience store after a robbery? This is closer to police asking for all security camera footage from all stores in town which sell a product that may or may not have been used in a particular crime. How do police know the image was procured firsthand from google? How do police know the google search was executed from within town? How do police know the image was procured in the given date range? You propose that the obviously innocent users will quickly be removed from the suspect pool after police investigate them. This may be true. I posit that it is unacceptable for the list to exist under these circumstances, because a warrant for information that users have a reasonable expectation of privacy should be specific enough that no innocent people should be affected. I say "reasonable expectation of privacy" here to mean that laypeople expect no tracking, and educated users expect information to be contained entirely in advertising businesses and their partners (google et al.). At no point does a user reasonably expect that, as a matter of course, their search history will be tied to them and presented to law enforcement. I strongly disagree that providing total transparency to law enforcement and trusting them to look only into the matter at hand, and dismiss and destroy all information relevant to the matter at hand, is the best course from a government perspective. Privacy advocates cry shrilly about big brother, but the end result of this policy is too close to call it anything else. Abrogation of a citizen's reasonable expectation of privacy should be undertaken only when absolutely necessary, and if the procured information leads nowhere pertinent to the investigation at hand, it should be destroyed. With the information I have, this particular case does not meet the constraints necessary for such a broad warrant to have merit (or be issued). >Unfortunately, I think obvious invasions of privacy (e.g., PRISM) have made folks very jumpy about any electronic evidence collection, which I don't think is warranted. This opinion makes sense from your point of view, but it may not hold up when you consider the matter from a "what is the role of government in this situation?" standpoint. The government was created, fundamentally, to uphold and guarantee the rights of citizens. I would be much more comfortable with your statement if it read more along the lines of "...electronic evidence collection, which I don't think is warranted, but I understand that other people can reasonably care more about privacy than I do."