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Found something interesting not mentioned in the article: apparently, police ransacked six innocent peoples' Google data, in the process of getting to the two g

Found something interesting not mentioned in the article: apparently, police ransacked six innocent peoples' Google data, in the process of getting to the two guilty ones. - "Google produced a list of eight anonymized accounts that had been at two or more of the six locations at the relevant time periods. Of the eight accounts, one had been at four of the geofence locations, one at three locations and the remaining six had been at two locations. Haas requested, and Google produced, identification information for all eight accounts. Two of those accounts (the ones that had been at three and four of the locations) ultimately led authorities to Meza and Meneses." The court document doesn't elaborate on what happened to those six people (were they even informed of the search, after the fact?) Maybe they don't care. From the judicial perspective, there is no such thing as a constitutional privacy right. The Fourth Amendment, for example, protects more narrowly against search in the context of criminal prosecution: no prosecution, no rights violation.

kadoban 4y ago
> The Fourth Amendment, for example, protects more narrowly against search in the context of criminal prosecution: no prosecution, no rights violation. How can that be true, since the 4th amendment doesn't include any word or phrase referring to a prosecution?
- perihelions 4y ago
  Neither does it have any specific language for remedies. The courts created a remedy for Fourth Amendment violations in the context of prosecution (exclusion of evidence), but not for the general case.
- CobrastanJorji 4y ago
  The Constitution puts limits on what the government can do, but if the government does those things anyway, there's no automatic penalty. You as an individual could ask a court to order the government to stop or otherwise undo the harm, but if you weren't harmed as a result of that unconstitutional act, or if you were harmed but there's nothing the court could do about it, then you don't have standing to ask the court to do anything. It's something of a bug in the way America works. If cops conducting a search of your home disconnect all of your security cameras during the search, that's probably unconstitutional, but you can't prove that it harmed you, and being illegal isn't the same thing as being a crime, so it's just an unconstitutional thing that happened, and that's where the story ends.
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    Of course, you could argue that qualified immunity has no constitutional or solid legal basis either, and is basically a creation of the judicial branch to simplify exception handling.
    - deleted 4y ago
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    - torstenvl 4y ago
      Qualified immunity is self-evident. The idea that the government can violate the government's laws by performing lawful government duties is an inherent absurdity. It would also completely undermine democracy. It's also tangential and off topic to this conversation.
      - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
        that's not what qualified immunity is. qualified immunity means government officials can violate your rights by doing obviously illegal things as long as no government official has previously been convicted for doing the exact same thing.
        torstenvl 4y ago
        No. You fundamentally misunderstand qualified immunity. What you have repeated here, I assume unwittingly, is a dishonest description put forward by activists. Qualified immunity is the principle that a public official acting in good faith cannot be held personally liable for an action that is later determined to violate the Constitution. No reasonable person, other than a nihilist, could possibly disagree with qualified immunity. (For those who insist on viewing everything through a political lens, qualified immunity was first articulated wrt police officers by the extremely progressive Warren Court in an 8-1 decision, the same court that gave us Miranda and struck down anti-miscegenation laws in Loving.) What many people do reasonably disagree with is the shift in Harlow so that the official is presumed to be acting in good faith, and the person whose rights were violated has the burden of proving otherwise (by showing clearly applicable precedent). A reasonable person can, and many reasonable people do, oppose Harlow and think it should be overturned. But it is not possible to oppose qualified immunity without also opposing functioning democracy.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > > The Fourth Amendment, for example, protects more narrowly against search in the context of criminal prosecution: no prosecution, no rights violation. > How can that be true, It’s not.
mikece 4y ago
From past episodes of the Privacy, Security, and OSINT Podcast (hosted by a former FBI special agent) EVERYONE returned by a geofence warrant will be listed in the investigation whether exonerated or not, which then, because of public records laws, means the data becomes public and innocent names are mixed with criminal records (and HR background check companies don't always filter out names in criminal reports who aren't charged with anything).
- mindslight 4y ago
  > HR background check companies don't always filter out names in criminal reports who aren't charged with anything This is its own problem that requires strong privacy laws. If innocent suspects aren't used as a plausibly-indicative red herring, something else will be.
- nceqs3 4y ago
  >because of public records laws, means the data becomes public This is absolutely not how public records laws work. Look up the Privacy Act.
- P_I_Staker 4y ago
  I don't think those generally show up in reports, and this would be virtually impossible if you use a reputable background checking company. Every "hit" shows on your copy of the record, and you should be able to challenge it.
jonas21 4y ago
> police ransacked six innocent peoples' Google data That's a bit extreme. The police were given their identification information, not the contents of their accounts.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dragonwriter 4y ago
> The Fourth Amendment, for example, protects more narrowly against search in the context of criminal prosecution: no prosecution, no rights violation. False. Fourth Amendment violations can be the basis for civil liability (or in some cases criminal liability) for the offender, even if no prosecution occurs. Qualified immunity and other issues make this difficult sometimes, but that’s a separate issue from whether there is a violation of legal rights. But the most familiar remedy for Fourth Amendment violations (the exclusionary rule) only applies to criminal prosecution, and only criminal prosecution of the party whose rights were violated (violating someone other than the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights will not result in exclusion of the evidence from a criminal case.)

kadoban 4y ago

> The Fourth Amendment, for example, protects more narrowly against search in the context of criminal prosecution: no prosecution, no rights violation. How can that be true, since the 4th amendment doesn't include any word or phrase referring to a prosecution?

perihelions 4y ago
Neither does it have any specific language for remedies. The courts created a remedy for Fourth Amendment violations in the context of prosecution (exclusion of evidence), but not for the general case.
CobrastanJorji 4y ago
The Constitution puts limits on what the government can do, but if the government does those things anyway, there's no automatic penalty. You as an individual could ask a court to order the government to stop or otherwise undo the harm, but if you weren't harmed as a result of that unconstitutional act, or if you were harmed but there's nothing the court could do about it, then you don't have standing to ask the court to do anything. It's something of a bug in the way America works. If cops conducting a search of your home disconnect all of your security cameras during the search, that's probably unconstitutional, but you can't prove that it harmed you, and being illegal isn't the same thing as being a crime, so it's just an unconstitutional thing that happened, and that's where the story ends.
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  Of course, you could argue that qualified immunity has no constitutional or solid legal basis either, and is basically a creation of the judicial branch to simplify exception handling.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - torstenvl 4y ago
    Qualified immunity is self-evident. The idea that the government can violate the government's laws by performing lawful government duties is an inherent absurdity. It would also completely undermine democracy. It's also tangential and off topic to this conversation.
    - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
      that's not what qualified immunity is. qualified immunity means government officials can violate your rights by doing obviously illegal things as long as no government official has previously been convicted for doing the exact same thing.
      - torstenvl 4y ago
        No. You fundamentally misunderstand qualified immunity. What you have repeated here, I assume unwittingly, is a dishonest description put forward by activists. Qualified immunity is the principle that a public official acting in good faith cannot be held personally liable for an action that is later determined to violate the Constitution. No reasonable person, other than a nihilist, could possibly disagree with qualified immunity. (For those who insist on viewing everything through a political lens, qualified immunity was first articulated wrt police officers by the extremely progressive Warren Court in an 8-1 decision, the same court that gave us Miranda and struck down anti-miscegenation laws in Loving.) What many people do reasonably disagree with is the shift in Harlow so that the official is presumed to be acting in good faith, and the person whose rights were violated has the burden of proving otherwise (by showing clearly applicable precedent). A reasonable person can, and many reasonable people do, oppose Harlow and think it should be overturned. But it is not possible to oppose qualified immunity without also opposing functioning democracy.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> > The Fourth Amendment, for example, protects more narrowly against search in the context of criminal prosecution: no prosecution, no rights violation. > How can that be true, It’s not.

mikece 4y ago

From past episodes of the Privacy, Security, and OSINT Podcast (hosted by a former FBI special agent) EVERYONE returned by a geofence warrant will be listed in the investigation whether exonerated or not, which then, because of public records laws, means the data becomes public and innocent names are mixed with criminal records (and HR background check companies don't always filter out names in criminal reports who aren't charged with anything).

mindslight 4y ago
> HR background check companies don't always filter out names in criminal reports who aren't charged with anything This is its own problem that requires strong privacy laws. If innocent suspects aren't used as a plausibly-indicative red herring, something else will be.
nceqs3 4y ago
>because of public records laws, means the data becomes public This is absolutely not how public records laws work. Look up the Privacy Act.
P_I_Staker 4y ago
I don't think those generally show up in reports, and this would be virtually impossible if you use a reputable background checking company. Every "hit" shows on your copy of the record, and you should be able to challenge it.

jonas21 4y ago

> police ransacked six innocent peoples' Google data That's a bit extreme. The police were given their identification information, not the contents of their accounts.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

dragonwriter 4y ago

> The Fourth Amendment, for example, protects more narrowly against search in the context of criminal prosecution: no prosecution, no rights violation. False. Fourth Amendment violations can be the basis for civil liability (or in some cases criminal liability) for the offender, even if no prosecution occurs. Qualified immunity and other issues make this difficult sometimes, but that’s a separate issue from whether there is a violation of legal rights. But the most familiar remedy for Fourth Amendment violations (the exclusionary rule) only applies to criminal prosecution, and only criminal prosecution of the party whose rights were violated (violating someone other than the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights will not result in exclusion of the evidence from a criminal case.)