8 ms·
This part of the article was most interesting to me: "But the government stops short of using that law to collect the keywords people submit to internet search
by Lammy 6y ago
This part of the article was most interesting to me:
"But the government stops short of using that law to collect the keywords people submit to internet search engines because it considers such terms to be content that requires a warrant to gather"
…because it turns out it is legal to go the other way around and ask the provider for a list of people who searched for a certain keyword: https://www.cnet.com/news/google-is-giving-data-to-police-based-on-search-keywords-court-docs-show/ https://www.cnet.com/news/google-is-giving-data-to-police-ba...
"There are few things as revealing as a person's search history, and police typically need a warrant on a known suspect to demand that sensitive information. But a recently unsealed court document found that investigators can request such data in reverse order by asking Google to disclose everyone who searched a keyword rather than for information on a known suspect."
- mtgx 6y agoIsn't that the very definition of a fishing expedition? "Let's find all the people that committed X crime in this database." It's insane with how much of this unconstitutional stuff the U.S. government has gotten away with, all because Congress has suffered from systemic corruption for decades and no longer cares about the little guy, in the sense that it's no longer that dependent on the "little guy" to keep their jobs (as Larry Lessig would put it). If they can get donations from rich corporations or friends, it's fine by them to screw over the little guy, because that's mostly all they need to keep their jobs.
- rayiner 6y agoCan you explain to me what’s “unconstitutional” about this?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jedberg 6y agoIt's a violation of the fourth amendment. I'd consider it an unreasonable search.
- Lammy 6y agoI'd consider it an unreasonable search as well, but I'd also like to hear a court agree with me.
- rayiner 6y agoWhat is being unreasonably searched and who does it belong to? The 4th amendment says: > The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated[.] While digital records can easily be considered “papers” the function of the possessive adjective “their” in English hasn’t changed since 1791. A person can complain about an unreasonable search of their digital papers. They can’t complain about the digital search of someone else’s digital papers, like Google’s IP logs. Section 215 used to allow the FBI to apply to the FISA court for “an order requiring the production of any tangible things”—a subpoena duces tecum. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/subpoena_duces_tecum https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/subpoena_duces_tecum That legal instrument has been in use since the 1600s, and was imported into American law. Until the 20th century, nobody thought it was an unreasonable search under the 4th amendment for the government to subpoena documents where the person complaining about the subpoena had no property interest in the materials: https://commons.stmarytx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=thestmaryslawjournal https://commons.stmarytx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=105... Of course under a “living constitution” style reasoning you can do whatever you want. (After all many people think there is a right to “privacy” in the constitution, when it never uses that word, but think there is no right to own firearms, which is right there in black and beige!) We are probably well on our way to that with the Supreme Court’s 2017 decision in Carpenter which found the fourth amendment protected cell phone location information. But if you care about what the Constitution actually says, it’s difficult to understand why a defendant can complain about a fourth amendment violation for a subpoena demanding that Google turn over Google’s IP logs.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jimbob45 6y agoWouldn’t we have heard about this more from evidence presented in courts though? Like surely this is quantifiable if they’re actionably using ill-gotten evidence to prosecute.
- dundercoder 6y agoNot if it were part of the secret court proceedings happening under the same pretenses.
- esja 6y agoNot if they are using parallel construction: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
- Lammy 6y agoThis looks like a job for Parallel Construction! Why would they even risk showing ill-gotten evidence? It would be way easier to just keep that evidence secret and have a cop stand in the right spot to arrest the mark as they go about their usual routine. They probably "look suspicious".
- chalst 6y agoCurrently prevailing constitutional law is that the right to privacy is an unenumerated right, one that is not explicitly set out in the Constitution but follows from common law and what the Constitution does say, especially the 4th and 5th Amendments [1]. That is the basis for Roe vs Wade, and so there's been a 40 year-long struggle by conservative lawyers that threatens this right. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Right_to_Privacy_(article) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Right_to_Privacy_(article)
- dehrmann 6y ago> That is the basis for Roe vs Wade, and so there's been a 40 year-long struggle by conservative lawyers that threatens this right. It takes a pretty creative reading of the constitution to infer a right to privacy, then infer that that grants the right to an abortion. One of the criticisms of Roe is that states were legalizing abortion on their own already, so doing it through the court angered people more than if it had happened in each state, and it's build on shaky constitutional underpinning, so it's not necessarily a robust decision.
- humanrebar 6y agoAlso note that constitutional amendments basically dropped off at that point as the legislature abrogated responsibility of protecting natural rights in favor of blaming others, especially the court system. Why hasn't a right to privacy amendment been discussed at all? Or even a Privacy Rights Act? Those would clarify things too.
- blackrock 6y ago> If they can get donations from rich corporations or friends LOL. Welcome to democracy.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dalbasal 6y agoIDK if this particular issue relates to money-politics that much. There's always something, but in this case the primary "lobby" is probably law enforcement and intelligence. Corporations like google are somewhere between neutral and pro-privacy, or rather, against sharing their data with law enforcement. Where money-politics does play, it's probably apathy related. This isn't an issue that donors care much about, therefore legislators may not care much.
- marcusverus 6y agoAgreed. I would attribute this to self-interest. No politician wants to be the guy who voted to "take tools away from the law enforcement", for fear they'll be attacked in the next election cycle for "aiding terrorists and human traffickers".
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- LMYahooTFY 6y agoCan someone make a case for why this should be used? I didn't read anything particularly compelling from the article. This seems to contract the fence a lot closer to 'thought crime'.
- HappyDreamer 6y agoOr "curiosity crime" too?
- peppermint_tea 6y agoyes, see how the collared rkelly accomplice here : https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/09/google_search_arrest/ https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/09/google_search_arrest/ the judge are not supposed to allowed fishing expeditions, but in this case, the lookup requested was quite narrow. they still requested a search warrant.