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Google turning over your search records to police even when you are not on the warrant


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2020 Oct 8, 9:12am   405 views  13 comments

by Patrick   ➕follow (55)   💰tip   ignore  

https://www.cnet.com/news/google-is-giving-data-to-police-based-on-search-keywords-court-docs-show/

There are few things as revealing as a person's search history, and police typically need a warrant on a known suspect to demand that sensitive information. But a recently unsealed court document found that investigators can request such data in reverse order by asking Google to disclose everyone who searched a keyword rather than for information on a known suspect.

...the report provides another example of a growing trend of data requests to the search engine giant in which investigators demand data on a large group of users rather than a specific request on a single suspect.

"This 'keyword warrant' evades the Fourth Amendment checks on police surveillance," said Albert Fox Cahn, the executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. "When a court authorizes a data dump of every person who searched for a specific term or address, it's likely unconstitutional." ...

The keyword warrants are similar to geofence warrants, in which police make requests to Google for data on all devices logged in at a specific area and time. Google received 15 times more geofence warrant requests in 2018 compared with 2017, and five times more in 2019 than 2018. The rise in reverse requests from police have troubled Google staffers, according to internal emails.

Google declined to disclose how many keyword warrants it's received in the last three years.

Reverse search warrants like geofence warrants are being challenged across the US for violating civil rights. Lawmakers in New York have proposed legislation to make these searches illegal, while in Illinois, a federal judge found that the practice violated the Fourth Amendment.


Google is evil, the dystopian panopticon.

No one should use Google for anything, ever. You should block every Google domain from being accessed from your computer.

Comments 1 - 13 of 13        Search these comments

1   Misc   2020 Oct 8, 9:18am  

They're a private company and can give their data to whomever they want. I'm sure if China asked for specific information, they would provide it for a price. Considering how our tech companies fawn over China, I would not be surprised if the CCP had a social scoring model performed on most Americans.
2   richwicks   2020 Oct 8, 9:27am  

Patrick says
No one should use Google for anything, ever. You should block every Google domain from being accessed from your computer.


I'd do that - got a list of every google domain?
3   Patrick   2020 Oct 8, 9:29am  

Here's one list:

https://techxt.com/list-of-all-google-domains/1373/

But those are easy, because they all have "google" in them.

They have other domains, like ggpht.com and some domain with "100" in it, probably just to avoid making it easy for people to block them.
4   Tenpoundbass   2020 Oct 8, 9:31am  

I used to search all kinds of shit just out of curiosity. Stuff I never thought of, but it popped in my head and I would just Google it.

Now I the only thing I Google is Recipes and local businesses. Hardly nothing else.
5   joshuatrio   2020 Oct 8, 10:02am  

What type of phone do you guys use? I have an android, but damn, it knows everything about me.
6   Patrick   2020 Oct 8, 10:10am  

I have an iPhone, but plan to get one of the two Linux phones, the Pine Phone (cheap) or Librum (expensive).
7   Patrick   2020 Oct 8, 10:11am  

Tenpoundbass says
I would just Google it.


https://duckduckgo.com/ is pretty good. Doesn't have everything, but does have most things.
8   rocketjoe79   2020 Oct 8, 10:39am  

I'm using DDG for search now - doesn't filter out Right-leaning search results like google does.

Thanks to Patrick for the reference to DDG
9   Tenpoundbass   2020 Oct 8, 10:41am  

Patrick says
https://duckduckgo.com/ is pretty good. Doesn't have everything, but does have most things.


It's Google with an alternate skin. DDG is still powered by Google, is it not?

That has always been my understanding, and with the exception of a few search terms, side by side comparisons yield the same results.
10   Patrick   2020 Oct 8, 6:53pm  

It is not. Completely different back end.
11   Tenpoundbass   2020 Oct 8, 7:19pm  

Patrick says
It is not. Completely different back end.


I always thought they used apis to Google to get search results, and their thing was they scrubbed all of the Google tracking, Supposedly.
12   FortwayeAsFuckJoeBiden   2020 Oct 8, 7:59pm  

Tenpoundbass says
Patrick says
https://duckduckgo.com/ is pretty good. Doesn't have everything, but does have most things.


It's Google with an alternate skin. DDG is still powered by Google, is it not?

That has always been my understanding, and with the exception of a few search terms, side by side comparisons yield the same results.


Hit dislike by fat fingers... sorry.
13   Rin   2020 Oct 8, 8:26pm  

People, use a VPN.

Never save anything from any session with a browser. So yes, if you log onto Google, Yahoo, or whatever for 'business', close your session out and delete all cookies and temp files, before browsing again.

Keep those links and info in a flat file on your system.

And finally, DuckDuckGo for searches.

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