4 ms·

Some of these keyword orders seem obscene in terms of how many people they target: > ("fragmentation") AND ("bomb" OR "explosive" OR "ied" OR "explosion" OR "p

Some of these keyword orders seem obscene in terms of how many people they target: > ("fragmentation") AND ("bomb" OR "explosive" OR "ied" OR "explosion" OR "pipebomb" OR "pipe bomb" OR "PVC bomb")

dvogel 5y ago
If the image is accurate I think "motion led" would also be in scope for initial collection. There is a filtering process after the search term net that determines whether it is in scope for the warrant. Given the dubious framing of these search terms and past examples like the NSA watching every Linux Journal visitor I'm disinclined to trust such a process. RIP to work schedule of the poor intern who has to weed out all the results for suburban parents setting up Halloween decorations with glowing eyes.
- Beaver117 5y ago
  It's motion ied not LED
hellojesus 5y ago
I think that's the point. It gives the government an easy in to collect more data on any and all of these users, regardless of whether it is pertinent to a specific case.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  Exactly. Gotta start collecting danger on every teenager who downloads the anarchist cookbook on the off chance they become a far right truck bomber in the next 20yr. Yet every time something happens it seems like the suspect was on law enforcement's radar and they did nothing. Odd. Oh well, I'm sure a bigger data haystack to find needles in will solve that. /s
  - boibombeiro 5y ago
    [flagged]
    - cogman10 5y ago
      You can look up terrorism incidents in the US [1]. Far right extremism is far more likely the reason for terrorism in the US vs far left extremism. In recent years, 115 far right attacks vs 19 far left (from 2008 -> 2016). And that's with adding another category for Islamic terrorism (63) (which, in and of itself would be far right terrorism.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States
      - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
        well I mean generally far right terrorism isn't described or charged as terrorism is it? So it seems unlikely that they would track a white kid in case they turned in to a far right terrorist, because the narrative is that's not a problem. Incompatible narratives should be resolved in one direction or another.
        0des 5y ago
        Didn't the mostly white population of protestors at the capitol get threatened with terrorism charges or something of that nature?
        bryanrasmussen 5y ago
        from reading this https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/capitol-breach-cases https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/capitol-breach-cases evidently they were not - although not sure what threats were made.
      - 1cvmask 5y ago
        The FBI has a great track record of successfully thwarting Islamic terrorist plots that it creates: https://www.salon.com/2010/11/28/fbi_8/ https://www.salon.com/2010/11/28/fbi_8/ https://theintercept.com/2015/02/26/fbi-manufacture-plots-terrorism-isis-grave-threats/ https://theintercept.com/2015/02/26/fbi-manufacture-plots-te... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/16/fbi-entrapment-fake-terror-plots https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/16/fbi-entrapment... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/15/magazine/fbi-international-terrorism-informants.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/15/magazine/fbi-internationa...
  - Mountain_Skies 5y ago
    Or more likely, any teenager who grows up to be an inconvenient political figure that the establishment at the time (which might or might not be ideologically different than the current establishment) wants to get rid of.
- phkahler 5y ago
  >> It gives the government an easy in to collect more data on any and all of these users, regardless of whether it is pertinent to a specific case. That seems a little tinfoil hat to me. Like there are government people with lots of time on their hands to chase leads on things that are not related to a case. OTOH there seems to be a lot of pre-emptive searching going on, particularly in the area of terrorism related activity. On the other other hand, in that case I think we want them to foil plots before they are enacted right? It seems to be a hard set of concerns to balance. We could opt for the most privacy oriented approach, but I don't think there's much public data on what the consequences of that would be in terms of bad things happening.
  - mikeyouse 5y ago
    Right - the warrant indicates they're only interested in people from Texas searching for those terms in a two month period immediately before the active bombings. Feels a lot like a warrant to a hardware store for people buying a specific component they've found at crime scenes. Of course Daily Mail stripped that context. > The information requested in this Application is being sought by the FBI, in part, to establish who searched for the Google Search Terms between January 1, 2018 to March 2, 2018. > While I believe that a pool of individuals searching for these bomb components or methods during the time frame prior to the explosions at the victim addresses will be limited, the pool of individuals will be minimal if limited to searches originating from Texas. By identifying the users of the Google accounts or IP addresses of the devices that searched Google for these terms and cross-referencing that data with other investigatory steps such as cellular telephone records, a suspect(s) or witness(es) may be identified. https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21077351/google-keyword-warrant-in-austin-2018.pdf https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21077351/google-keywo...
    - hellojesus 5y ago
      I was aware of that as I clicked into the actual documents, and it does seem reasonable to me if left just there. My concern is moreso with the courts at this point. Nothing stops the fbi from fabricating a crime or having an agent go undercover and post something potentially harmful which could could be used to obtain a warrant on these broad keywords. Basically: wide keyword searches periodically with overlapping time frames gets you continuous data while making it seem just like a standard home depot purchase and video review warrant. I'll admit it's tin foil, but my default assumption these days is that the gov is already sniffing any and all data; their challenge comes in generating legal pretense for having it when they want to take action or get caught with it.
Ekaros 5y ago
I wonder what is the minimal set of English words covering all search engine users...
- tata71 5y ago
  .
  - reuben364 5y ago
    By my interpretation, the empty set would cover no users, not all of them.
    - hansel_der 5y ago
      then again, dot is not part of the empty set
- reuben364 5y ago
  I would guess {"google"} would cover almost all users.
  - p1mrx 5y ago
    Frankly, I'm fed up with all those terrorists trying to break the internet.

Some of these keyword orders seem obscene in terms of how many people they target: > ("fragmentation") AND ("bomb" OR "explosive" OR "ied" OR "explosion" OR "pipebomb" OR "pipe bomb" OR "PVC bomb")

dvogel 5y ago

If the image is accurate I think "motion led" would also be in scope for initial collection. There is a filtering process after the search term net that determines whether it is in scope for the warrant. Given the dubious framing of these search terms and past examples like the NSA watching every Linux Journal visitor I'm disinclined to trust such a process. RIP to work schedule of the poor intern who has to weed out all the results for suburban parents setting up Halloween decorations with glowing eyes.

Beaver117 5y ago
It's motion ied not LED

hellojesus 5y ago

I think that's the point. It gives the government an easy in to collect more data on any and all of these users, regardless of whether it is pertinent to a specific case.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
Exactly. Gotta start collecting danger on every teenager who downloads the anarchist cookbook on the off chance they become a far right truck bomber in the next 20yr. Yet every time something happens it seems like the suspect was on law enforcement's radar and they did nothing. Odd. Oh well, I'm sure a bigger data haystack to find needles in will solve that. /s
- boibombeiro 5y ago
  [flagged]
  - cogman10 5y ago
    You can look up terrorism incidents in the US [1]. Far right extremism is far more likely the reason for terrorism in the US vs far left extremism. In recent years, 115 far right attacks vs 19 far left (from 2008 -> 2016). And that's with adding another category for Islamic terrorism (63) (which, in and of itself would be far right terrorism.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States
    - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
      well I mean generally far right terrorism isn't described or charged as terrorism is it? So it seems unlikely that they would track a white kid in case they turned in to a far right terrorist, because the narrative is that's not a problem. Incompatible narratives should be resolved in one direction or another.
      - 0des 5y ago
        Didn't the mostly white population of protestors at the capitol get threatened with terrorism charges or something of that nature?
        bryanrasmussen 5y ago
        from reading this https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/capitol-breach-cases https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/capitol-breach-cases evidently they were not - although not sure what threats were made.
    - 1cvmask 5y ago
      The FBI has a great track record of successfully thwarting Islamic terrorist plots that it creates: https://www.salon.com/2010/11/28/fbi_8/ https://www.salon.com/2010/11/28/fbi_8/ https://theintercept.com/2015/02/26/fbi-manufacture-plots-terrorism-isis-grave-threats/ https://theintercept.com/2015/02/26/fbi-manufacture-plots-te... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/16/fbi-entrapment-fake-terror-plots https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/16/fbi-entrapment... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/15/magazine/fbi-international-terrorism-informants.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/15/magazine/fbi-internationa...
- Mountain_Skies 5y ago
  Or more likely, any teenager who grows up to be an inconvenient political figure that the establishment at the time (which might or might not be ideologically different than the current establishment) wants to get rid of.
phkahler 5y ago
>> It gives the government an easy in to collect more data on any and all of these users, regardless of whether it is pertinent to a specific case. That seems a little tinfoil hat to me. Like there are government people with lots of time on their hands to chase leads on things that are not related to a case. OTOH there seems to be a lot of pre-emptive searching going on, particularly in the area of terrorism related activity. On the other other hand, in that case I think we want them to foil plots before they are enacted right? It seems to be a hard set of concerns to balance. We could opt for the most privacy oriented approach, but I don't think there's much public data on what the consequences of that would be in terms of bad things happening.
- mikeyouse 5y ago
  Right - the warrant indicates they're only interested in people from Texas searching for those terms in a two month period immediately before the active bombings. Feels a lot like a warrant to a hardware store for people buying a specific component they've found at crime scenes. Of course Daily Mail stripped that context. > The information requested in this Application is being sought by the FBI, in part, to establish who searched for the Google Search Terms between January 1, 2018 to March 2, 2018. > While I believe that a pool of individuals searching for these bomb components or methods during the time frame prior to the explosions at the victim addresses will be limited, the pool of individuals will be minimal if limited to searches originating from Texas. By identifying the users of the Google accounts or IP addresses of the devices that searched Google for these terms and cross-referencing that data with other investigatory steps such as cellular telephone records, a suspect(s) or witness(es) may be identified. https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21077351/google-keyword-warrant-in-austin-2018.pdf https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21077351/google-keywo...
  - hellojesus 5y ago
    I was aware of that as I clicked into the actual documents, and it does seem reasonable to me if left just there. My concern is moreso with the courts at this point. Nothing stops the fbi from fabricating a crime or having an agent go undercover and post something potentially harmful which could could be used to obtain a warrant on these broad keywords. Basically: wide keyword searches periodically with overlapping time frames gets you continuous data while making it seem just like a standard home depot purchase and video review warrant. I'll admit it's tin foil, but my default assumption these days is that the gov is already sniffing any and all data; their challenge comes in generating legal pretense for having it when they want to take action or get caught with it.

Ekaros 5y ago

I wonder what is the minimal set of English words covering all search engine users...

tata71 5y ago
.
- reuben364 5y ago
  By my interpretation, the empty set would cover no users, not all of them.
  - hansel_der 5y ago
    then again, dot is not part of the empty set
reuben364 5y ago
I would guess {"google"} would cover almost all users.
- p1mrx 5y ago
  Frankly, I'm fed up with all those terrorists trying to break the internet.