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Google’s TOS doesn’t eliminate a user’s Fourth Amendment rights, judge rules [pdf]

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Re: Google’s TOS doesn’t eliminate a user’s Fourth Amendment rights, judge rules [pdf]

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any such thing as this surveillence applying to the inside of the renters bed room, bath room, filing cabinet with medical or financial documents, or political for that matter? I don't think there is, and I don't think you can reduce reality to being as simple as "owner has more right over property than renter" renter absolutely has at least a few rights in at least a few defined contextx over owner because…

> Is there any such thing as this surveillence applying to the inside of the renters bed room, bath room, filing cabinet with medical or financial documents, or political for that matter? Yes. Entering property for regular maintenance. Any time a landlord or his agent enters a piece of property, there is implicit surveillance. Some places are more formal about this than others, but anyone who has rented, owned rental…

> Yes. Entering property for regular maintenance.

In every state that I've lived in they must give advance notice (except for emergencies). They can't just show up and do a surprise check.

Re: Google’s TOS doesn’t eliminate a user’s Fourth Amendment rights, judge rules [pdf]

#142

> Google’s hash match may well have established probable cause for a warrant to allow police to conduct a visual examination of the Maher file. Very reasonable. Google can flag accounts as CP, but then a judge still needs to issue a warrant for the police to actually go and look at the file. Good job court. Extra points for reasoning about hash values.

If the police “wanted” to look. But what if they were notified of the material? Then the police should not need a warrant, right?

Re: Google’s TOS doesn’t eliminate a user’s Fourth Amendment rights, judge rules [pdf]

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there any such thing as this surveillence applying to the inside of the renters bed room, bath room, filing cabinet with medical or financial documents, or political for that matter? Yes. Entering property for regular maintenance. Any time a landlord or his agent enters a piece of property, there is implicit surveillance. Some places are more formal about this than others, but anyone who has rented, owned rental…

> ...Google alerted the police to a hash match without actually looking at the image (ie, entering the bedroom). Google cannot have calculated that hash without examining the data in the image. They, or systems under there control obviously looked at the image. It should not legally matter whether the eyes are meat or machine... if anything, machine inspection should be MORE strictly regulated, because of how much ea…

[deleted]

Re: Google’s TOS doesn’t eliminate a user’s Fourth Amendment rights, judge rules [pdf]

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any such thing as this surveillence applying to the inside of the renters bed room, bath room, filing cabinet with medical or financial documents, or political for that matter? I don't think there is, and I don't think you can reduce reality to being as simple as "owner has more right over property than renter" renter absolutely has at least a few rights in at least a few defined contextx over owner because…

If I import hundreds of pounds of poached ivory and store it in a shipping yard or move it to a long term storage unit, the owner and operator of those properties are allowed to notify police of suspected illegal activities and unlock the storage locker if there is a warrant produced. Maybe the warrant uses some abstraction of the contents of that storage locker like the shipping manifest or customs declaration. Mayb…

I don't think that argument supports the better analogy of breaking into a computer or filing cabinet owned by someone renting the space. Just because someone is renting space doesn't give you the right to do whatever you want to them. Cameras in bathrooms of a rented space would be another example.

Re: Google’s TOS doesn’t eliminate a user’s Fourth Amendment rights, judge rules [pdf]

#145
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there any such thing as this surveillence applying to the inside of the renters bed room, bath room, filing cabinet with medical or financial documents, or political for that matter? Yes. Entering property for regular maintenance. Any time a landlord or his agent enters a piece of property, there is implicit surveillance. Some places are more formal about this than others, but anyone who has rented, owned rental…

> Yes. Entering property for regular maintenance. In every state that I've lived in they must give advance notice (except for emergencies). They can't just show up and do a surprise check.

Only in residential properties, typically. There are also states that have no such requirement even on residential rentals.

In any case, I think it's a bit of a red herring and that the "regular comings and goings" case is more analogous.

But also that, at this point in the thread, we have reached a point where analogy stops being helpful and the actual thing has to be analyzed.

Re: Google’s TOS doesn’t eliminate a user’s Fourth Amendment rights, judge rules [pdf]

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue of course being the government then pressuring or requiring these companies to look for some sort of content as part of routine operations.

> The issue of course being the government then pressuring or requiring these companies to look for some sort of content as part of routine operations. Was that the case here?

Not requiring, but certainly pressure. See https://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/09/technology/tech-giants-is... for example. Also all of the heat Apple took over rolling back its perceptual hashing.

Re: Google’s TOS doesn’t eliminate a user’s Fourth Amendment rights, judge rules [pdf]

#147
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main factual components are as follows: Party A has rented out property to Party B. Party A performs surveillance on or around the property with Party B's knowledge and consent. Party A discovers very high probability evidence that Party B is committing crimes within the property, and then informs the police of their findings. Police obtain a warrant, using Party A's statements as evidence. The closest "real worl…

This is an excellent example, I think I get it now and I'm fully on-board. Thanks. I could easily see an AirBNB owner calling the cops if they saw, for instance, child abuse happening on their property.

Ok. But that would also be invasion of privacy. If the property you rented out was being used for trafficking and you don’t want to be involved with trafficking, then the terms would have to first explicitly set what is not allowed. Then it would also have to explicitly mention what measures are taken to enforce it and what punishments are imposed for violations. It should also mention steps that are taken for compliance.

Without full documentation of compliance measures, enforcement measures, and punishments imposed, violations of the rule cannot involve law enforcement who are restricted to acting on searches with warrants.

Re: Google’s TOS doesn’t eliminate a user’s Fourth Amendment rights, judge rules [pdf]

#148
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes. Entering property for regular maintenance. In every state that I've lived in they must give advance notice (except for emergencies). They can't just show up and do a surprise check.

Only in residential properties, typically. There are also states that have no such requirement even on residential rentals. In any case, I think it's a bit of a red herring and that the "regular comings and goings" case is more analogous. But also that, at this point in the thread, we have reached a point where analogy stops being helpful and the actual thing has to be analyzed.

Fair enough.

Re: Google’s TOS doesn’t eliminate a user’s Fourth Amendment rights, judge rules [pdf]

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I import hundreds of pounds of poached ivory and store it in a shipping yard or move it to a long term storage unit, the owner and operator of those properties are allowed to notify police of suspected illegal activities and unlock the storage locker if there is a warrant produced. Maybe the warrant uses some abstraction of the contents of that storage locker like the shipping manifest or customs declaration. Mayb…

I don't think that argument supports the better analogy of breaking into a computer or filing cabinet owned by someone renting the space. Just because someone is renting space doesn't give you the right to do whatever you want to them. Cameras in bathrooms of a rented space would be another example.

But he wasn’t running a computer in a rented space, he was using storage space on google’s computers.

In an older comment I argued against analogies to rationalize this. I think honestly at face value it is possible to evaluate the goodness or badness of the decision.

Re: Google’s TOS doesn’t eliminate a user’s Fourth Amendment rights, judge rules [pdf]

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait until Trump is in power and corporations are masterfully using these tools to “mow the grass” (if you want an existing example of this, look at Putin’s Russia, where people get jail time for any pro-Ukraine mentions on social media).

Yeah I’m paranoid like I said, but this case it seems like the hash of a file on google’s remote storage flagged as potential match that was used as justification to request a warrant. That seems common sense and did not involve employees snooping pre-warrant. The Apple CSAM hash detection process, that the launch was rolled back, concerned me namely because it was run on-device with no opt out. If this is running on…

I think the better option is a system where the cloud provider cannot decrypt the files, and they’re not obligated to lift a finger to help the police because they have no knowledge of the content at all
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