
Police ask for whole city's Google searches, and a judge says yes - johns
http://www.citypages.com/news/edina-police-ask-for-whole-citys-google-searches-and-a-judge-says-yes/416319633
======
unit91
I'm trying to see what the big deal is here (relax, I'll explain).

Police are not asking for the entire search history of everyone in the town,
then combing through it to see what they've searched for. Rather, police are
asking Google who, in a narrow amount of time, searched for the name of a
relatively unknown person who had $28K stolen from him.

Is this really that different from police asking for security camera footage
from a convenience store after a robbery? In either case, obviously innocent
bystanders will be quickly eliminated from the list of possible suspects. Any
remaining suspect(s) will still need to be (1) charged, (2) have a judge allow
the evidence in court, and (3) convicted on the basis of evidence beyond
reasonable doubt by a jury of their peers.

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.

EDIT: Thanks to guelo for pointing out that this was an unsuccessful attempt
at wire fraud, so the victim (fortunately) retained the $28K. I missed that
previously.

~~~
rayiner
> Is this really that different from police asking for security camera footage
> from a convenience store after a robbery.

The crux of the debate is whether Google is a quasi public place, like a
convenience store, or something private, like your closet.

I think _legally_ , Google is no different than any other business. Following
the appropriate process, police can ask a convenience store to search their
sales records to see who bought something on a particular date. They can ask a
credit card company about someone's purchases on a particular date.

On the other hand, people disclose information to Google that they don't
disclose to their convenience store clerk. That information is even more
intimate than what people disclose to a credit card company. Someone's
searches can reveal the deepest darkest things about them.

On the other other hand, Google as a service is not really one of trust. It's
not like a bank that provides a safe deposit box and promises to not look
inside (and is usually legally barred from doing so). Google rummages through
your personal information for its own profit. Twenty years ago, if you had
asked people: "If you had a service that data mined the information you gave
it for advertising purposes, where potentially dozens of engineers and
operators have access to that information--would you consider that a trusted
and private system?" They would have said "no."

~~~
Steeeve
Legally Google is different.

They are required to keep records that brick and mortar businesses do not.

They have a de-facto monopoly as the largest search provider for the general
populace. They are a public resource that is a requirement for many of us to
use in our day to day lives.

Google in this instance is more like a library card catalog that keeps records
of all of the things people search for.

This is the same as asking a library for all people who looked for books on
dogs.

Google not only has adults that search for things. They have grade school
children in their datasets.

If you are OK with this request, are you OK with the subsequent request to
facebook that says "give me the social network tree for all of the people
within this dataset"? we're looking for a woman who knows one of the people
that searched for Douglass on Google within the Edina area. And then the final
query to AT&T, "we need the phone records for all of the households on this
list of women who are within 3 links to people who searched for Douglass in
the Edina area"?

This is an overly broad search with no particular limit and no logical
connection to the crime. The police don't know for certain that the thief
arrived at the image used via a google search, let alone a google search for
someone's first name. They don't know for certain that the thief was in the
Edina area. They don't know for certain that the thief was in the Edina area
when searching.

~~~
tomcam
> Legally Google is different... They are required to keep records that brick
> and mortar businesses do not.

> They have a de-facto monopoly as the largest search provider for the general
> populace. > They are a public resource that is a requirement for many of us
> to use in our day to day lives.

Wait, what? Has the "defacto monopoly" been legally established? They're a
"public resource?" Please cite the legal meaning of "public resource" and
where it was established through legislation or judicial action that Google is
one?

~~~
Steeeve
[https://definitions.uslegal.com/d/de-facto-
monopoly/](https://definitions.uslegal.com/d/de-facto-monopoly/)

Jiminy christmas. I made a comment on hackernews and you're trying to parse it
like we're in a court of law.

The fact is that Google is different than a mom and pop shop with a video
camera. It's ludicrous to suggest otherwise.

~~~
tomcam
Forgive me for quoting you. You started with "Legally Google is different" so
I assumed you wanted to talk law or legislation.

Also, I don't recall comparing Google to smaller organizations.

I may be oversensitive, but when I hear terms like "They are a public
resource" I assume you mean that they should therefore be regulated by the
government and paid for with tax money.

~~~
Steeeve
Forgive me...

I made a flippant comment following this thread of conversation:

> Is this really that different from police asking for security camera footage
> from a convenience store after a robbery?

> I think legally, Google is no different than any other business.

And when I came back to the thread there was a series of comments parsing my
words.

I overreacted to the group and you were the target of that over-reaction.

~~~
tomcam
No prob! This is important stuff.

------
milesf
Which is why I use ddg.gg (DuckDuckGo). They don't track you.

People are starting to wake up to the implications of a world without privacy.
I carry around Snowden's quote on my phone and repeat it verbatim when people
say they have nothing to hide:

"Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have
nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech
because you have nothing to say".

Do not be discouraged. Just keep educating people one-by-one and we will win
this fight. We have to, otherwise our ancestors who fought and died for
freedom and liberty will have done so in vain.

~~~
angryasian
I know everyone wants to hate on google, but I think we should be more worried
about our government and ISP's

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/gop-senators-
new...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/gop-senators-new-bill-
would-let-isps-sell-your-web-browsing-data/)

no one is safe if this bill passes.

~~~
dkhenry
That bill opens up to ISP's what website's ( like google ) hav e been doing
for years. If no one is safe because of that bill, then no one is safe
already. VPN'ing around your ISP is about the same level of difficulty as
setting your default search engine to not be google.

~~~
angryasian
google doesn't sell or share your personal information to anyone. Its a huge
distinction.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _google doesn 't sell or share your personal information to anyone_ [ _sic_
> ]

The article is about Google sharing someone's private searches with the
police.

~~~
_archon_
TFA is about Google _being ordered to_ share information to police, _by a
(currently) legal court order_. There's no call for [sic] in your quotation of
GP.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
GP said Google doesn't share personal information with _anyone_. That's not
true. The article shows them sharing it with someone. The point isn't pedantic
when one of their competitors, DuckDuckGo, literally can't--court order or
not.

My use of _sic erat scriptum_ means I'm quoting GP, grammatical errors and
all. This point, in contrast to the previous one, is pedantic :). (One doesn't
share information _to_ someone, but _with_ them. "Google doesn't sell your
personal information to, nor share it with, anyone" or "Google doesn't sell or
share your personal information" are more correct.)

[1] [https://duckduckgo.com](https://duckduckgo.com)

------
danjoc
The police aren't asking for a city's searches. They're asking for anyone,
anywhere, who searched Google for 'Douglas ? ?' in a 5 week period. The
article this one links to explains this much better.

[https://tonywebster.com/2017/03/minnesota-search-warrant-
any...](https://tonywebster.com/2017/03/minnesota-search-warrant-anyone-who-
googled/)

Google isn't the only search engine on the internet, but the police claim they
were unable to find the information in Yahoo or Bing results. They suspect it
must have come from a Google search, because that's where they were able to
find the same information. The judge felt this provided probable cause to
permit the search on Google.

This article is bad. It appears to be written by a layperson who doesn't
understand law or how the internet works. And it pours on the hyperbole to
excite emotions.

Fake news.

~~~
eridius
This is not fake news. It's real news. Just because you don't think it's
particularly newsworthy doesn't make it _fake_.

~~~
danjoc
The citypages link on HN is fake news. It misrepresents and mischaracterizes
the events reported on the tonywebster link.

"Cops figure if they could just find out who in that affluent suburb has
Googled that name, they'd narrow their suspect list right down."

This is fabricated tripe. The cops are not looking specifically in the
victim's suburb. The person who wrote the citypages article is being a
complete imbecile. His heart might be in the right place, but he's got his
facts all wrong. The warrant pertains to information on anyone, anywhere on
the entire planet who might have accessed Google's servers and searched for
that name between Dec 1 and Jan 7.

~~~
eridius
Getting one fact wrong doesn't make the story fake news. Most of it (and, most
importantly, the actually important parts of it) are completely true.

Fake news is news stories that are intentionally made up, not news stories
that contain mistakes.

~~~
danjoc
The one fact he got wrong is the whole point of his fake news story.

~~~
eridius
Not really. The point is the police are trying to solve a case of attempted
fraud by asking Google for all searches for a particular name within a
particular time period, based on the fact that searching for that name in
Google Images comes up with the images used on the fake passport. The story is
reporting that they're asking specifically for searches made by people in a
particular city, but that detail is pretty incidental to the story itself.

And again, please stop calling this "fake news" just because it contains a
mistake. I've already explained that this is not at all what that phrase
means.

~~~
danjoc
"Police ask for whole city's Google searches, and a judge says yes"

Fake news. The title is entirely false.

"The people of Edina probably don't know it, but they're doing battle with the
Edina Police Department over the right to online privacy."

Fake news. The people of Edina are not the targets of the warrant.

"The cops are winning."

Be afraid! Cops are winning... something.

"a Hennepin County judge has granted the Edina Police Department an
extraordinary degree of access to citizens' Google history"

More fake news. Completely fabricated misrepresentation of the truth. The cops
have no access to their general search history at all.

"Of course, people's Google search history not only isn't public, it's not
usually available to local cops trying to bust a small-time swindler."

Fake news. Google is "bombarded" by user data requests from government.

[https://www.cnet.com/news/google-were-bombarded-by-govt-
requ...](https://www.cnet.com/news/google-were-bombarded-by-govt-requests-on-
user-data/)

The article is fake news. The title is fake news. The content is fake news.

~~~
eridius
Stop calling it fake news! It's a real story that's been misinterpreted by the
journalist. That doesn't make it fake. That just makes it an error.

Fake news is stories that are _made up_. This story isn't made up. It's just
erroneous.

Why do you keep insisting on incorrectly using the term "fake news" for this?

~~~
bigbugbag
Let's recap:

\- Misinterpreted real story, i.e. misinformation. \- Clickbaity eye-catching
headline, i.e. deliberate attempt to inflate readership and sharing.

AFAIK writing misinformation so it will spread falls into the realm of fake
news.

~~~
NiceGuy_Ty
IMO there's a difference between fake news and opionated news. Fake news is
stories like Ted Cruz's father being involved in the assassination of John F.
Kennedy. There's nothing factually true in the story itself. This is an
article that reports true facts and tries to subvert them to serve an agenda.
Almost all mainstream media outlets do this to varying degrees. But that
doesn't make this article fake news. Clickbaity title and opionated reporting
!= fake news.

------
ars
This title is click-bait.

They did not ask for "whole city's Google searches", they asked for the
identity of the "person who searched for a specific search string", which is
_not_ the same thing!

Suggested new title: "Edina police ask for identity of person who searched for
specific name, and a judge says yes"

~~~
emerongi
Technically they ask for ALL the identities that searched for that name.

------
deckar01
Here is the original source with more info on the actual crime they are
investigating and the reason they are targeting Google.

[https://tonywebster.com/2017/03/minnesota-search-warrant-
any...](https://tonywebster.com/2017/03/minnesota-search-warrant-anyone-who-
googled/)

Edit: I find it rather amusing that the cops found the image used in the fake
passport on google images, but decided to request google searches for the name
instead of access logs for the image on the actual server.

~~~
danjoc
Post-edit, this is the best comment in the entire thread. You should be at the
top of the page.

------
ascendantlogic
I'm not too outraged over this one. They're asking who in a specific city
googled a specific name during a specific timeframe. This is how you find out
who your suspects are. I understand it's a razor thin line between "normal
police work" and "dragnet surveillance" but this time I think it's the former.

~~~
bigbugbag
> They're asking who in a specific city googled a specific name during a
> specific timeframe.

Nope. the clickbait article that got posted here tries to spin it that way,
but the warrant is for anyone/anywhere.

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/judge-oks-
warran...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/judge-oks-warrant-to-
reveal-who-searched-a-fraud-victims-name-on-google/)

------
tabeth
Curious: if anyone thinks it is bad for Google to give the police information,
do you think it's bad for Google to have the information in the first place?

Another way to think about this is: _when_ (not if, but _when_ ) Google gives
a government information in some time in the future, would that change your
behavior now?

~~~
milesf
The problem with Google and Facebook is they lack context. Let's say you doing
a search for school on Islamic State. How do they know the difference between
you and a member of this terrorist organization?

Context is everything.

~~~
michael_fine
Isn't that exactly what the court system is for? I've never heard of anyone
being charged with terrorism merely for googling IS, and I suspect any judge
would throw out a case like that in a heartbeat.

~~~
nvarsj
The vast majority of prosecutions never go to trial. Plus the president can
lock up enemy combatants without trial.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The vast majority of prosecutions never go to trial.

But that's a result of the evaluation of prospects at trial, so the
protections that apply at trial directly influence that.

> Plus the president can lock up enemy combatants without trial.

Such detentions of alleged enemy combatants can be (and have been) challenged
in court as well.

~~~
gnaritas
> But that's a result of the evaluation of prospects at trial, so the
> protections that apply at trial directly influence that.

That would be nice, but it's not true. Prosecutors use the threat of trial to
get innocent people to accept plea deals out of fear of being found guilty
anyway and facing the full penalties of the charges.

You're assuming good faith from prosecutors, you shouldn't; they only care
about winning cases, not justice. The justice system is not your friend and is
not out to ensure justice is done. The justice system is for those who can
afford lawyers, it does its best to fuck anyone who can't.

~~~
dragonwriter
> You're assuming good faith from prosecutors

No, I'm not. Access to and competence of defense counsel is actually more
relevant to the _degree_ of effect that the available adversarial process has
on the outcome of plea deals that avoid (some part of) that process, but even
with imperfect access to and competence of counsel the fact that some share of
cases do go to trial and prosecutors can't certainly predict in advance which
cases will be in that set means that the protections in the adversarial
process create incentives that influence behavior in the process that precedes
arrest and charging.

(This contrasts sharply with, e.g., the foreign intelligence surveillance
warrant process, where the warrants do not feed into an adversarial process
even in principle, and thus there is far less constraint on government
misconduct even with a judicial warrant process.

~~~
gnaritas
Prosecutors know who they can bully unfairly and have the discretion to back
down if they make a mistake. If what would fly in court were any real behavior
influencer, they wouldn't bully people into plea deals that were unjust just
because they can. Most people do not have access to competent council and
prosecutors know it, and they know the fear of being found guilty will get
even innocent people to accept a plea; if you don't have money, the justice
system isn't for you.

------
jjawssd
The end-game of Google (and Facebook, etc.) is to feed on everything
everything you think, do, and say so they can predict and influence your
beliefs and what you purchase. Of course, law enforcement wants a piece of the
cake as well to be able to control and predict the behavior of the population.
Break free from the hive mind. Disconnect yourself from the spying apparatus.

And now for a more amusing take on the matter:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUIcCyPOA30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUIcCyPOA30)

------
k-mcgrady
>> police want to know who has searched for a particular name [douglas] used
as part of that fraud

This is a super click-bait headline. Sounds like Police got the search history
of everyone in the city. The reality, which is quickly explained in the
article, is nothing like that. They have a list of people in the city who
searched for a pretty specific term and it sounds like Google does the digging
and gives them a list of names.

Whether that's a problem or not is still up for debate but that headline is
ridiculous.

------
joshmn
Minnesotan here:

The inside joke about Edina is that it stands for "Every Day I Need
Attention"; it's mostly old money, old-ways of doing things. For example: Up
until a few years ago, they outlawed happy hour (as a state, we recently
approved liquor sales on Sunday; odd, I know) and no, I'm not kidding.

Having said, this doesn't surprise me at all. Not that a judge approved it,
but that Edina of all places requested it.

~~~
colanderman
Illinois banned happy hour until a couple years ago, and Massachusetts still
does.

~~~
koltaggar
Massacusetts sucks

------
gist
Mac addresses? Under what scenario does any provider (ISP even) end up with
your mac address? (Am I missing something here that I don't know about?)

Understand that your router has your mac address and in theory your ISP could
end up with it by getting it there if they wanted to but don't know of cases
where they legally actually do this or have any need for the info. True?

~~~
Operyl
I guess, if for whatever reason Google had a MAC address of say a Chromebook
in some other unrelated database. And the serial of that Chromebook was
associated with your account. It's a stretch, and you have to wonder if Google
would even go that far.

~~~
gist
The other scenario I thought about was the unique browser footprint. Info in
server logs that is very specific to someone's machine and the way they have
it setup (screen size, os, browser and a host of other info). In certain cases
the probability becomes highly likely that it can be linked to another log
where your identity is known because the same footprint (not sure if that's
the correct word) is in that other log.

------
coolsdude2282
This may sound silly to you all but I have recently given up paying for
internet at my house as an experiment due to the prevalence of free public
wifi nearly everywhere. I'm about 9 months into having cancelled my
internet/cable entirely and it is working out well for me. I have only ever
been very mildly inconvenienced by it.

Things like this make me never want to go back in all honestly, I save quite a
bit of money with basically no downside (unless you count buying very very
slightly more coffee than I otherwise might). Since I don't use google logins,
disable tracking/cookies, and also change my mac address semi-regularly this
seems like an adequate solution without going full on Tor/NoScript all the
time(which I would prefer but the inconvenience cost becomes too great).

If this is allowed to legally stand, I am going to have to think long and hard
about ever subscribing to an ISP or creating a google account ever again.

------
m00dy
If Google gives that information, I will stop using it right away

~~~
_archon_
Google is legally obligated to provide that information. They can fight the
subpoena's merit in court if they wish, but right now, the requesting police
and the issuing judge are the problem.

------
suprgeek
Terrible Headline but genuinely scary request.

Police are NOT requesting "whole city's Google Searches" \- they are
requesting the Whole WORLD's Google searches (if you will) for a specific
search string (actually a variation of strings).

Realistically complying will get them a bunch of IP addresses. Lets say they
get 100 IP addresses; then what? Track down and investigate every one of them?
For what? How do you go from IP address to potential suspect in Bank Fraud?

Apparently now rather than having a suspect and then going to Google for that
specific suspect's records is no longer the in thing. These lazy coppers want
Google's help to even develop a suspect...very very close to a fishing
expedition.

------
mgarfias
I'm not sure living in the future is worth this.

------
bigbugbag
How does this kind of clickbait which is false get promoted to HN front page ?

Specially when the source is given in the posted article and is the actual
original source[1] and has no clickbait nor lies. Also this story is covered
by ars technica[2] and a copy of the warrant is available online[3].

[1]: [https://tonywebster.com/2017/03/minnesota-search-warrant-
any...](https://tonywebster.com/2017/03/minnesota-search-warrant-anyone-who-
googled/)

[2]: [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/judge-oks-
warran...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/judge-oks-warrant-to-
reveal-who-searched-a-fraud-victims-name-on-google/)

[3]: [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3519211-Edina-
Police...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3519211-Edina-Police-
Google-Search-Warrant-Redacted.html)

------
ocdtrekkie
The best solution for avoiding government surveillance overreach continues to
be for nobody to store the data. A service provider can't be forced to
disclose information it doesn't have.

I recommend duckduckgo.com for those bothered by this: "We don’t store your
personal information. Ever. Our privacy policy is simple: we don’t collect or
share any of your personal information."

------
ohstopitu
This was unclear from the article...but from what I understand the police want
info on anyone who searched a specific term on google for a specific image
from geo-location/IP in that city a week before the crime took place ?

1\. What if the criminal didn't use Google?

2\. What if the criminal did use Google but used a VPN or Tor or a Proxy?

~~~
bigbugbag
This article is a piece of crap and is plain wrong.

Police asked for a warrant for anyone anywhere over a 5 weeks period who
search for the name that leads to the picture used in the fake passport that
you can find on google but not yahoo or bing.

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/judge-oks-
warran...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/judge-oks-warrant-to-
reveal-who-searched-a-fraud-victims-name-on-google/)

------
stagbeetle
If I understood the article correctly, the title is misleading.

The cops were not granted an entire raw database of all google searches by
person. Instead, they were granted _" 'any/all user or subscriber information'
of anyone in Edina who'd looked up that name between December 1, 2016, and
January 7"_ which is IMHO a much less serious breach of privacy.

You could retort that collecting these users' _" name(s), address(es),
telephone number(s), dates of birth, social security numbers, email addresses,
payment information, account information, IP addresses, and MAC addresses"_ is
a serious breach of privacy, but I believe those are all available to law
enforcement (save the internet-specific info).

~~~
johansch
That is still really quite bad though. And all of this privacy invasion just
for a wire fraud case?

~~~
rhino369
Google uses this stuff to advertise for toys etc. Using it to catch a
fraudster is more important than that.

~~~
ed_balls
Unless you are prosecuted by accident, news papers write about you and charges
are dropped. You apply for a job, someone googles you and reply with "Thank
you for your time. Unfortunately..."

~~~
rhino369
I don't think we can assume more information increases the likelihood of false
accusations. It certainly can for any given situation, but it can certainly
greatly reduce the risk by identifying the real perpetrator.

If I were on trial when I was innocent, I'd really appreciate having this
information available.

Though if there was empirical data to suggest that it was more risky, I could
be convinced.

------
tdfx
It does not mention what Google's response was, or if they have complied with
the order.

------
gondo
theoretical question: what if google will say that they do not know how to get
this specific information out of their data? how can anyone prove if its true
without full access to google infrastructure? will the police confiscate all
their servers?

------
joering2
Wait a second - I thought a year ago I had an email from Google telling me
this is last chance to opt out of them collecting my search queries. I
remember clicking and google page told me thanks we won't collect your
searches.

Is that not the case anymore?

------
forkerenok
I wonder what principles a judge in the U.S. justice system? Is it only
constitution? Can people somehow adjust what makes a judge? (speaking of
competency in privacy matters)

~~~
burkaman
It depends on the state. In Minnesota, judges are elected in nonpartisan
elections, so people can adjust their qualifications every 6 years.

------
r721
I wonder which is the case here:

1) Google will query some internal search logs

2) Google will query a bundle of search histories which we see at "My
Activity" page

------
JumpCrisscross
FYI, you can delete your Google account records from here
[https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/465?co=GENIE.Plat...](https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/465?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en)

~~~
krapp
You can _appear_ to delete your Google account records from there. I wouldn't
trust any company that cooperates with the NSA and State Department to
actually ever delete anything the government could find useful.

------
KindOne
I remember seeing something like this online. I think it was murderpedia.org ?

Details are a bit fuzzy and might be wrong. In the 90's someone murdered a
person or two. Somehow the cops asked the local ISP for anyone making constant
searches of the case. They traced it back to the murderer.

~~~
clubm8
Recall anything else? Even something as simple as the state, MO of the killer,
etc?

~~~
KindOne
I was kind of wrong on the details, was in 2002 and they asked Microsoft.

"Instead, agents simply tapped into the wealth of information that Microsoft
Corp. and other Internet companies keep on people who visit their Web sites
and use their services."

[http://murderpedia.org/male.T/t/travis-
maury.htm](http://murderpedia.org/male.T/t/travis-maury.htm)

------
frugalmail
We should have a new Technology court, where qualified hybrid
legal/whatevertech folks preside.

------
shmerl
So, unconstitutional decision by the judge, and cops are surely happy to run
with it.

------
nailer
Unvoted and flagged as misleading:

Title:

> Police ask for whole city's Google searches, and a judge says yes

Implying searches not related to the case are included.

Article:

> In specific, police want to know who has searched for a particular name used
> as part of that fraud.

------
tuxracer
This title is so inaccurate it should be changed. Asking who in a city
searched for a term is not the same as asking for a whole city's Google
searches.

~~~
bo1024
I actually disagree. Answering the question requires searching through each
and every person's Google searches. So it's the equivalent of going door-to-
door and searching every house for the one with the item.

~~~
tuxracer
The government is not getting access to (nor asking for) all queries. The
government is getting access to information identifying who searched for a
term. Google's query may include all search terms but Google obviously already
has that data anyways.

This is equivalent to asking FedEx who in a given city was shipped something
from a specific address. Sure when FedEx does a search it may technically
search over all shipments from any address, but the government isn't getting
access to that information. Hardly equivalent to door-to-door searches of
every house.

~~~
dragonwriter
> This is equivalent to asking FedEx who in a given city was shipped something
> from a specific address.

It is neither equivalent to nor even really analogous to it. It's more like
asking a retailer that keeps such records for a list of every purchaser of a
specific product.

Which, just to be clear, is something law enforcement will do in some
circumstances already.

~~~
tuxracer
Agreed that's a much better analogy. In this case the "retailer" already
maintains such records. The government isn't even asking for the list of all
purchases by all individuals, just the name of who purchased a particular
item.

Sure in the course of getting the answer to that question the _retailer_ may
sift through the records of all purchases, but this is data they already have.

This is hardly something to be outraged about. Title implies something much
different.

------
mirimir
Well, one would think that they'd have been bright enough to use
StartPage/DuckDuckGo, a VPN, Tor, or some combination of them.

------
ruleabidinguser
Good motivation to continue security work

------
avodonosov
It's not "whole city's Google searches"

------
danm07
That's it. Incognito mode, permanently.

~~~
jlgaddis
Is this a joke? I sincerely hope you understand that incognito mode will not
help in this case.

~~~
danm07
Yes. It is a joke.

------
BrailleHunting
Use duckduckgo. Problem solved.

------
james_niro
Is this an episode of South Park? Or it just seems that way

------
Winblows69
I totally agree with switching to DDG and ceasing all Google activity.

However, this is fear-mongering, slippery-slope-fallacy-ridden sensationalism.
They targeted a specific name. The judge isn't going much further than that.

I get it - the police are potentially violating innocent peoples' privacy.

But for some reason, what this judge did doesn't overly bother this Google-
hater / privacy defender. Maybe it's because the article is written for the
National Inquirer.

------
colanderman
Unfortunately there are people who don't really care for free speech either.
Our president is foremost among them.

~~~
buckbova
The potus revels in his 1st amendment rights. Not sure what you're getting at.

~~~
BookmarkSaver
His. No one else's. Have you been living under a rock?

~~~
buckbova
> No one else's.

You can hurl insults about the US president all you want. But, this is not the
forum for it. And if you do, please show some proof.

People are getting hysterical, making ridiculous statements intended to invoke
certain feelings about the potus based on false premises.

It's completely transparent and lame.

~~~
BookmarkSaver
No, it is pathetic that you are unaware of Trump's exclusion of major news
sources from coverage, baseless attacks on the credibility of sourced
articles, and explicit statements that he desires to go after news
organizations for unfavorable reporting using libel laws. Especially in the
light of his recent slander against Obama regarding wiretapping.

If you have your eyes closed in denial, then there is nothing I can do for
you. The fact that you consider my statement "ridiculous" or "hysterical" just
goes to show how utterly deluded you are about the activities and hypocrisy
that he's actually engaged in. Trump has absolutely no interest in defending
free speech, only his speech.

~~~
buckbova
> baseless attacks on the credibility of sourced articles

I'm sure potus gets it wrong firing from hip so often, but I don't know to
which articles you're referring. These news outlets are on full attack against
this administration. Just look at positive vs negative news coverage.

> Only 3 percent of the reports about Trump that aired on NBC and CBS were
> positive, while 43 percent were negative and 54 percent were neutral.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-
cage/wp/2017/02/2...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-
cage/wp/2017/02/28/news-coverage-of-trump-is-really-really-negative-even-on-
fox-news/?utm_term=.70b34ef1b543)

> Especially in the light of his recent slander against Obama regarding
> wiretapping.

Slander? You don't know the truth yet and you're ready to believe what you
want to believe. That's what's pathetic.

[https://www.infowars.com/former-cia-analyst-obama-gave-
green...](https://www.infowars.com/former-cia-analyst-obama-gave-green-light-
for-nsa-cia-to-sabotage-trump/)

------
canadian_voter
I think we need to get over the idea of privacy. It's not technologically,
politically or legally feasible to expect that anything you do on the internet
can or should be kept from the authorities.

Big data is such an incredible tool for crime prevention. Minority Report is
not a dystopian vision: it's a blueprint for a more just society.

If every "private" email, video conference and search is available for
inspection and cross reference, we can end anti-social behaviour as we know it
and achieve the kind of peace and harmony that only come from full
accountability.

Crime thrives in dark corners. A surveillance society is a searing searchlight
to expose and eradicate the the rot.

 _The question is: what comes next? If you bought a pressure cooker on Amazon
a month before the Boston bombing, do police get to know about it? "_

Absolutely. That is valuable information for an investigate. That doesn't mean
everyone who bought a pressure cooked should be locked up, but that
information can be used in conjunction with other information to narrow down a
list of suspects. Legitimate buyers have nothing to fear and terrorists get
caught.

~~~
tedajax
> Minority Report is not a dystopian vision: it's a blueprint for a more just
> society.

Yeah arresting people for crimes they have yet to commit doesn't sound more
just to me.

> Crime thrives in dark corners. A surveillance society is a searing
> searchlight to expose and eradicate the the rot.

Crime thrives when people have no other options. Providing economic
opportunities for everyone reduces crime far more than mass surveillance ever
will.

~~~
true_religion
The entire moral quandary behind minority report could be avoided simply by
having police monitor people, and _if_ they are actually about to commit
murder---prevent it and arrest them for _attempted_ murder.

The reason they didn't do that was simply because it's a movie, and movies
work better if instead of picking a compromise point between our society and
some future ideal---you just pick the future ideal that will seem crazy to
people.

It's like Logan's Run (movie) where the issue isn't just that you kill
everyone over 30 to save resources, but that you lie and pretend _no one can
physically live past 30_ and _everyone gets reincarnated_. They inserted the
moral quandary to make the story interesting.

~~~
tedajax
If the only moral quandary you see with Minority Report is that they do the
arrests before the crimes happen then I sincerely hope you're never in a
position to guide public policy on anything really.

