Judge signs warrant ordering Google to provide info on anyone who searched for specific name

[Exterminator]

Search warrants are certainly not a new thing, but they tend to have a limited scope of application, as per the Fourth Amendment. It is therefore a little troubling to see this new report detailing an apparent disregard for the aforementioned section in the United States Constitution.

Due to a fraudulent transfer of $28,500 from Spire Credit Union to Bank of America by an unknown party, Edina Police Detective David Lindman filed a request for a search warrant covering certain Google search terms. While the subject of the warrant may seem bizarre, it is worth noting that the credit union used a copy of the victim's passport as proof of identity.

The passport was in fact a forgery, and police spotted the image of the person whose photo was in it on the first page of a Google search. As a result, a warrant covering certain terms in people's Google search history was requested, in an attempt to identify the person who had downloaded the image for use in the fake passport.

The reason given for limiting the warrant to Google, but not adding Bing or Yahoo, was that upon input of the same query into the last two search engines, the image in question could not be found.

A copy of the filing obtained by Tony Webster shows the terms of this warrant:

• Any/all user or subscriber information related to the Google searches of:

- Douglas [redacted]

- Douglas [redacted]

- Douglas [redacted]

- Douglas [redacted]

• From the timeframe of December 1st, 2016 thru January 7th, 2017
• The specific date/time the searches took place
• The user / subscriber information to include, but not limited to: name(s), address(es), telephone number(s), dates of birth, social security numbers, email addresses, payment information, account information, IP addresses, and MAC addresses of the person(s) who requested/completed the search

However, this warrant granted by Hennepin County Judge Gary Larson on February 1 doesn't apply to just the residents of Edina. According to The Register, the search warrant may have been filed in the "city or township of Edina, County of Hennepin, State of Minnesota", but the extent to which it applies is unlimited. Anyone, anywhere, who has searched for the name of this victim on Google falls under this warrant.

As far as privacy is concerned, this is quite a worrying development in no small part when viewed alongside the FBI's newly granted abilities, which would give even more weight to a single warrant.

In an email to The Register, a Google spokesperson declared that although the company cannot comment on specific cases, it will "always push back" upon receiving "excessively broad requests for data about our users".

The Electronic Frontier Foundation's criminal defense attorney, Stephanie Lacambra, called the warrant "unusual" and "overbroad" due to the lack of any other limiting factors beyond the time frame and search queries.

Another article on the this hot topic Police warrant for Google search an invasion of internet privacy

 

[larry goes to church]

Every time I hear a story of police successfully requesting tech companies to return statistics or specific materaisl for something I get scared.

ANY/ALL is what is even more terrifying. Not only must they provide your name but they must give ALL info they have.
The internet is becoming a scare place fellas/

 

[DracusNarcrym]

What the hell... What if the search was coincidental? What if you incriminate innocents?

"How to hide a murdered body" or something like that is actually a highly popular search term (in the scale of millions of searches per a given period of time), does that mean that all people who searched for it are murderers trying to hide their tracks?

They would need FAR more information from Google than just "who" performed those searches if they want to incriminate them, otherwise their verdict would be flawed. (unless they have some more evidence of which I am unaware)

 

[jamescv7]

Really? So it defeats already the 'due process', considering the fact any search related queries can be inaccurate without further strong evidence.

Google by itself like other search giants are more to gather information with minimal context to understand it, the search results were depend on how a website organized through structure of source code to meet the category content when gathered.

 

[Amelith Nargothrond]

This is what happens when tech giants / corporations owns your *ss. Everybody knows it, even when they don't, specially you (obviously i'm speaking in general). Your life is uploaded "to the cloud" and from the look of it, they will download you as soon as they want to.