Google forced to reveal user search history in Colorado court ruling

[midian182]

What just happened? The Colorado Supreme Court has upheld a search warrant that involved the examination of Google users' keyword history to identify suspects in a fatal 2020 arson fire. The decision has drawn criticism from privacy advocates, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which wants a full ban on keyword warrants.

In the case of Seymour v. Colorado, Denver police executed a search warrant that required Google to provide the IP addresses of anyone who had searched for the address of a home within the previous 15 days of it being set on fire. The attack killed five Senegalese immigrants, including an infant and a toddler.

ABC News writes that Google wasn't quick to comply with the request due to potential violations of its privacy policy, but the company eventually relented and handed over the IP addresses without any matching names. There were 61 searches made by eight accounts, five of which were based in Colorado. Police obtained the locals' names through another search warrant, eventually identifying three teens as suspects.

Denver police released this images of three masked suspects in 2020

Police say that one of the boys, Gavin Seymour, had used Google to search for the property's address multiple times before the fire. His lawyer asked for the evidence to be thrown out as it violated the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches and seizures by not targeting a specific person suspected of a crime. It's noted that the police investigation had gone cold, leading them to seek the reverse keyword warrant to identify possible suspects.

While the court said Seymour had a constitutionally protected privacy interest in his Google search history and assumed the warrant was "constitutionally defective" for not specifying an "individualized probable cause," the justices decided in a split decision that the police acted in good faith, meaning the evidence will be allowed in court despite the warrant being legally flawed.

Monica Márquez, one of the dissenting judges, wrote, "Today, the court blesses law enforcement's use of a powerful new tool of the digital age: the reverse-keyword warrant."

"The warrant here was invalid […] and the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule cannot salvage its unconstitutionality."

The EFF and Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed amicus briefs highlighting the privacy implications of reverse keyword warrants. The EFF states that these warrants have the potential to implicate innocent people or target those who search for information about abortion in states where it is criminalized.

Google said in a statement that it was important the court's ruling recognized the privacy and First Amendment interests involved in keyword searches.

"With all law enforcement demands, including reverse warrants, we have a rigorous process designed to protect the privacy of our users while supporting the important work of law enforcement," the tech giant said.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/100529-google-forced-reveal-users-search-queries-colorado-court.html

 

[Theinsanegamer]

All the more reason to never google anything while signed in, always use a VPN, and avoid google, if possible.

 

[Uncle Al]

I have set up my system to avoid google is all cases, but it's interesting how frequently I get pinged with a request to use google ..... in any Federal court that might be considered as "stalking" .....

 

[arjayfon]

Not a fan of big brother, but seems to me that identifying people who have committed disgusting acts of violence against people who have done nothing to them is not an undue intrusion into generalized privacy.
Claiming the search order had a technical violation because it did not have an individualized probable cause seems extreme as it could also apply to DNA searches, which have long been upheld as valid.
I make no argument otherwise, the government has no unfettered right to my search history. But, neither do people have the right to use a search engine to prey upon innocent people, research destructive means, or destroy someone else's quality of life, reputation, finances, or sanity.
Select and purposeful warrants for information when alternative investigation sources have been exhausted do not hang a Damocles Sword above our browsing.

 

[Trapped Nowhere]

All the more reason to never google anything while signed in, always use a VPN, and avoid google, if possible.

Indeed. Makes it much harder to not get charged in a quintuple homicide if they can't track your search history

 

[VaRmeNsI]

If you use Google services logged in, have a separate browser for it and don't use it for searches.

 

[WhoCaresAnymore]

I guess I would be guilty of searching for images of female beach volleyball players.

 

[RandomWAN]

Not a fan of big brother, but seems to me that identifying people who have committed disgusting acts of violence against people who have done nothing to them is not an undue intrusion into generalized privacy.
Claiming the search order had a technical violation because it did not have an individualized probable cause seems extreme as it could also apply to DNA searches, which have long been upheld as valid.
I make no argument otherwise, the government has no unfettered right to my search history. But, neither do people have the right to use a search engine to prey upon innocent people, research destructive means, or destroy someone else's quality of life, reputation, finances, or sanity.
Select and purposeful warrants for information when alternative investigation sources have been exhausted do not hang a Damocles Sword above our browsing.

They're not identifying anything other than someone who searched for an address for whatever reason. It's circumstantial evidence with nothing evidentiary to tie the person to the crime. They're doing a fishing expedition that will lead to more bad police work. They're essentially starting with a conclusion instead of following evidence to the perpetrator.

Realistically, people need to start operating with the mindset that everyone is tracking them (because they are, even if it's only for behavior trends) and operating online with a mind towards preventing their ability to track you, if you want true privacy.

 

[Mark Fuller]

The EFF to me is the cyberworld's version of the ACLU. Same tactics.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Not a fan of big brother, but seems to me that identifying people who have committed disgusting acts of violence against people who have done nothing to them is not an undue intrusion into generalized privacy.
Claiming the search order had a technical violation because it did not have an individualized probable cause seems extreme as it could also apply to DNA searches, which have long been upheld as valid.

So, maybe you havent noticed, but there isnt a centralized database of the DNA of every human on earth. In fact, efforts to collect DNA have come under massive scrutiny for, you guessed it, privacy reasons!

This would be comparable to the government ordering you, and every other person in america, to submit to a DNA swab so they could "establish a secure method of finding criminals" or some such nonsense. That should horrify you as a gross overstep of privacy.

 

[mbk34]

This would be comparable to the government ordering you, and every other person in america, to submit to a DNA swab so they could "establish a secure method of finding criminals" or some such nonsense. That should horrify you as a gross overstep of privacy.

I think it horrifies me more that people would get away with murder if they didn't. If ordinary policing doesn't work then sure, use what tools are available.

 

[smitz]

It sounds as if everyone assumes the suspects had searched for the address on a desktop browser, but it is more likely that the suspects used Google Maps on their mobile phone (and that the warrant covered Google Maps searches). This sounds like one step away from a executing a warrant to find every mobile phone that was pinged within the vicinity of a crime. Big Brother, here we come.

 

[sauri]

I think it horrifies me more that people would get away with murder if they didn't. If ordinary policing doesn't work then sure, use what tools are available.

It's a start. In a dozen years they will come for you for googling some banned book, like the Constitution.