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Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

chicagotribune.com

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Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#151

Post by ethbro »

drevil-v2 wrote: post #98
analog31 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my view, the state has to ask a court to approve the purpose of each request, based on a reasonable hypothesis about what might be found. How this seems different is the lack of any limitation on the kind of content that can be turned over. And in my view, that was a mistake on the judge's part for approving such a sweeping request. For instance if I were accused of committing a crime against X, then I suppose tha…

How do you propose that works? Someone at Google searches for the information? An algorithm or an actual Google employee? If it is a human being then what about your privacy then? What if the Jussie and his manager were using codewords to disguise intent? A search algorithm would not be able to recognise that but a human being can easily infer meaning and intent from the context. What then? There are no easy answers.

Warrants shouldn't be intended to discover evidence, they should be intended to secure evidence that is expected to exist in a particular location.

This distinction wasn't a major concern when the former was impractical.

Because of digital records and search agents, suddenly either is practical.

The intent of privacy law has always been to raise the cost of targeted prosecution. E.g. "We want to charge this person with a crime, let's find a crime."

The state absolutely has a duty to prosecute and hold individuals accountable. And in extraordinary circumstances, may even need to target prosecution.

What is unacceptable in a free society is that the state should have the ability to target anyone for prosecution with no effective bounds in the number of simultaneous times it does so (aka everyone).

The difference between Orwell and a safe democracy is scale.

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#152

Post by cookiecaper »

drevil-v2 wrote: post #81
Mirioron wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree with you if our legal systems were built for that, but our legal systems are built to deal with a society that has privacy. People unknowingly commit crimes, or implicate themselves in crimes, all the time, because there are too many ways to do that. No reasonable person can be expected to avoid committing crimes when the government itself can't even keep track of the number of criminal laws there are.[…

I wrote this comment elsewhere below but it still applies The State has always been able to look up phone records, bank records, land records, criminal records, medical records etc etc as in order to pursue justice and prosecute. How is this any different?

It's way different because big tech cos acquire and retain far more data about individuals than anyone ever expected to be available.

10-ish years ago, it wasn't possible to retroactively subpoena a year of minute-by-minute location history, because unless you had an ankle monitor, that data didn't exist. You couldn't get a letter-by-letter log of every term typed into a search engine or a log of the amount of time spent looking at pages of reference material. You couldn't get a record of every keystroke ever typed into a mail client or word processor. You couldn't get every photograph ever taken by the individual, because cameras didn't automatically send a copy to the mothership. This is way above and beyond standard paper seizure or record demands.

"Write angry letters, but don't send them" used to be good advice, but now that the government can just casually dash off a search warrant to produce every keystroke and every location ping within a year of a suspected crime, we all have good reason to be scared. Why'd you search "marijuana" that day last October? You expect me to believe you were just researching a ballot measure? Pfft.

This makes Big Brother a tangible reality. It certainly feels big to me.

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#153

Post by Simulacra »

0xADADA wrote: post #3

I (and we should all) act as if this could happen to anyone. Essentially that the state can deputize any company to snitch on the digital ephemera that constitutes our daily lives, but especially those that we are deeply engaged: Google, Facebook, Lyft, Amazon. As such, we should not self-censor, but instead disengage from these proxy-cops and move to more distributed spaces.

It could but it's more than likely not. In this case a crime was committed and possibly covered up. As much as I agree with you to move to distributed spaces and increased privacy, I think Google has an obligation to comply here.

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#154

Post by thaumasiotes »

ip26 wrote: post #127
roenxi wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you add all those records together you get a fraction of the information you get from someone's Google history. We're talking records like search history, live GPS data and emails. That is a completely different level of scrutiny. So the difference is seeing something through a window with curtains vs. having a camera installed in the room. In principle, not so different. In practice there really is no comparison.…

It is basically a warrant to ruffle through someone's life Which, for what it's worth, is a warrant that is perfectly within the powers of a judge to grant.

It needs to be phrased more specifically, or it will violate the prohibition on general warrants.

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#155

Post by burfog »

nl wrote: post #42
m0zg wrote: post #18

I (rhetorically) wonder why the title does not contain the "actor's" name. But then again, we all know why that is.

The title is "Jussie Smollett investigation: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of the actor’s data as part of special prosecutor probe" which seems to include the the actor's name? But then again, we all know why that is. I don't know who Jussie Smollett is (other than this story) and I'm completely in the dark what this is supposed to be implying. Maybe you are seeing headline optimisation? Is that what t…

It intersects with our upcoming presidential election. Two of the candidates (Cory Booker and Kamala Harris) were trying to pass an anti-lynching bill, as if lynching wasn't already illegal many times over, and then very conveniently Jussie Smollett has his fake lynching. He's an actor. He knows both of those political candidates. He'd be perfect for the job. Kim Foxx (with connections to both candidates as well as the Clintons) and Tina Tchen (with connections to Obama) worked to get the charges against Smollett dropped.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Smollett+foxx+kamala+Harris+Cory+B...

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#156

Post by cookiecaper »

bitexploder wrote: post #75
drevil-v2 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

State has a duty to prosecute law breakers. This is a load bearing wall of civil society. Everywhere. Making sweeping general statements is good for riling up the mobs but I would implore HN readers to be more pragmatic about these things. Look at the context. This person sought to ignite racial tensions for personal gain. He was given a sweetheart deal. The State is going after him and those protected him. They (the…

This is all fine in theory. But why this guy? With limited prosecutorial resources, why are they doubling down on this guy? That is what I am always suspicious of.

Personalizing it is trivializing on an absurd scale. Getting the idea in prosecutors' heads that they can just grab a year of data on any accused party is the danger here, and it should scare the pants off all of us. Over the course of a year, you've surely typed something into Google that could be misconstrued.

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#157

Post by kempbellt »

ip26 wrote: post #127
roenxi wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you add all those records together you get a fraction of the information you get from someone's Google history. We're talking records like search history, live GPS data and emails. That is a completely different level of scrutiny. So the difference is seeing something through a window with curtains vs. having a camera installed in the room. In principle, not so different. In practice there really is no comparison.…

It is basically a warrant to ruffle through someone's life Which, for what it's worth, is a warrant that is perfectly within the powers of a judge to grant.

"You went 61 in a 60. Here's a ticket. Also, because you broke the law once and I'm in a pedantic mood, I'm issuing a warrant to go through all of your GPS history for the past two years. Oh look, 1 year ago you went 36 in a 35. Another ticket for you. 2 years ago you jaywalked. Another ticket."

At what point do we want the legal system to no longer have the power to scrutinize an individual's history?

I don't believe that a warrant to "ruffle through someone's life" without limits is within the powers of a judge. A warrant to procure relevant evidence to a case being investigated, legally, certainly.

Issuing an order for someone's entire Google history for a year is bordering "an unreasonable search and seizure", by my understanding. Do they have legitimate reason to believe that there is an email containing evidence? Or a document in Google drive? Location data for an entire year - how is this relevant to the case?

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#158

Post by cavisne »

bitexploder wrote: post #118
keanzu wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not this guy? Possibly because he generated a little too much infamy and now the public wants blood. Or maybe the prosecutor believes in the defendant's guilt and thinks they can make a strong case. Maybe a mix of both. Perhaps you'd prefer the prosecutor look at some other case but then the exact same question could be asked - why that guy? So why not this guy?

I imagine they have a lot of more serious crimes to pursue. This just seems to be high publicity so it is getting more resources. That means other crimes with high impact victims get de-prioritized. Plus it is Chicago, it is still rather corrupt there. I would mistrust anything with publicity involved until it is proven to be valid.

Something that should never be overlooked in this case is that after police identified the suspects and made arrests Smollett still stuck to his lie.

He was ready to send innocent people to a potential life sentence or the death penalty (which is how hate crimes are treated), and in fact is still maintaining his lie.

All over a contract dispute. Evil stuff.

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#159

Post by m0zg »

nl wrote: post #102
m0zg wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have preferred "Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of Juissie Smollett's data". It would be more informative, but it'd further damage the liberal narrative that Jussie was "attacked by the right" and "Trump supporters are racist". If you were to run a poll, I bet a non-trivial percentage of people still believes Jussie was attacked - people do not read retractions, and once the truth came out, this…

Why would it damage the liberal narrative? Wouldn't it add sympathy to him (given that most of the comments here are against the idea of Google getting access to his data) I really think you are overestimating how many people have heard if this guy (who seems pretty dodgy) and are looking for reasons to be offended here.

I have another example of self-censorship to further a narrative: your tweeting about Australian brush fires doesn't mention arson even once.

https://twitter.com/search?q=%40nlothian%20arson&src=typd

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#160

Post by burfog »

bitexploder wrote: post #118
keanzu wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not this guy? Possibly because he generated a little too much infamy and now the public wants blood. Or maybe the prosecutor believes in the defendant's guilt and thinks they can make a strong case. Maybe a mix of both. Perhaps you'd prefer the prosecutor look at some other case but then the exact same question could be asked - why that guy? So why not this guy?

I imagine they have a lot of more serious crimes to pursue. This just seems to be high publicity so it is getting more resources. That means other crimes with high impact victims get de-prioritized. Plus it is Chicago, it is still rather corrupt there. I would mistrust anything with publicity involved until it is proven to be valid.

The fake lynching looks like a crime done in order to pass a law, possibly to help someone get elected president, which is quite serious. Dropping the charges is highly suspicious too, having been done by people who were also associated with the presidential candidates trying to get their law passed.
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