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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]

#251

Post by whoknew1122 »

AcerbicZero wrote: post #135
pdonis wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a judge still needs to issue a warrant for the police to actually go and look at the file Only in the future. Maher's conviction, based on the warrantless search, still stands because the court found that the "good faith exception" applies--the court affirmed the District Court's finding that the police officers who conducted the warrantless search had a good faith belief that no warrant was required for the search…

I wonder what happened to fruit of the poisoned tree? Seems a lot more liberty oriented than "good faith exception" when police don't think they need a warrant (because police never seem to "think" they need a warrant).

The cited ruling answers your question

The court ruled that at the time, when the State Police opened the file, they had no reason to believe that a warrant was required. While the search was later ruled unconstitutional, no court had ruled it was unconstitutional *at the time of the search*. One of the cornerstones of American jurisprudence is that you cannot go back in time and overrule decisions based on contemporary jurisprudence.

From the opinion: 'the exception can also apply where officers “committed a constitutional violation” by acting without a warrant under circumstances that “they did not reasonably know, at the time, [were] unconstitutional.”'

If you're interested, the discussion of a good faith exemption (and why fruit of the poison tree doesn't apply here) begins at page 40 of the doc.

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

#252

Post by K0balt »

CGamesPlay wrote: post #200
AcerbicZero wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what happened to fruit of the poisoned tree? Seems a lot more liberty oriented than "good faith exception" when police don't think they need a warrant (because police never seem to "think" they need a warrant).

IANAL, but as I understood, this exception is specifically about cases where precedence is established. This same trick or others substantially like it won't work in the future, but because it was not a "known trick", the conviction still stands.

Not only that, prior to the search another court had ruled that no warrant was required. The new ruling overrides the old one, but the search was in good faith.

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

#253

Post by dsign »

briandear wrote: post #243

Serious question: a Google employee is not law enforcement. So if they are examining child pornography, in even only to identify it, aren’t they breaking the law? 18 U.S.C. § 2252 … c) Affirmative Defense.—It shall be an affirmative defense to a charge of violating paragraph (4) of subsection (a) that the defendant— (1) possessed less than three matters containing any visual depiction proscribed by that paragraph; an…

I guess it's always grey area for Google. But most likely, their contractors are overseas, and they contract their work to a third party in a third country. It's entirely possible that the business has gone full-circle and the same studios deliver CP and the CP hashes.

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

#254

Post by K0balt »

AcerbicZero wrote: post #135
pdonis wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a judge still needs to issue a warrant for the police to actually go and look at the file Only in the future. Maher's conviction, based on the warrantless search, still stands because the court found that the "good faith exception" applies--the court affirmed the District Court's finding that the police officers who conducted the warrantless search had a good faith belief that no warrant was required for the search…

I wonder what happened to fruit of the poisoned tree? Seems a lot more liberty oriented than "good faith exception" when police don't think they need a warrant (because police never seem to "think" they need a warrant).

Prior to the search. A lower court had ruled that no warrant was required. The search was in good faith. The new ruling overturns the earlier ruling, but before, it had been ruled legal to do this kind of warrantless search.

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

#255

Post by scott_w »

thanksgiving wrote: post #250
GuB-42 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 4th amendment is about unreasonable searches and seizures, it is also about "persons, houses, papers, and effects", that is, not files stored in someone else's computer. The police here considered that a hash match was a reasonable enough condition to conduct a search, and that Google's TOS allowed it. They were wrong, but it is not obvious that they were by just reading the 4th amendment, and the situation is ra…

If I have documents in a locked briefcase in a hotel room, does the police get to read and copy them with the hotel operator's permission while I am in the shower? Assume that the locked briefcase is not particularly tamper proof. Anyone with decent lock picking skills can open one.

Is it your locked briefcase or the hotel's? I believe hotels have the ability to unlock their own safe, so I suspect they're allowed to ask the hotel's permission to look without a warrant.

Also, if a hotel cleaner found illegal material lying in your room, the police don't need a warrant to seize it and prosecute you.

If it's your briefcase then I think they need a warrant.

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

#256

Post by rendall »

HideousKojima wrote: post #245
alphazard wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This exactly. Bad people have to go free in order to incentivize good behavior by cops. You and I (as innocent people) are more likely to be affected by bad police behavior than the few bad people themselves and so we support the bad people going free.

>You and I (as innocent people) are more likely to be affected by bad police behavior than the few bad people themselves and so we support the bad people going free. I know anecdotes aren't data, but my only negative interactions with cops have basically been for traffic tickets. Meanwhile my negative interactions with criminals have been far more numerous, along with several second-order effects caused by their mere…

The threat to innocent people posed by incompetent or tyrannical police is arguably much greater than by ordinary criminality.

In small towns across America, corrupt police departments hassle outsiders and issue minor citations as a way to generate revenue. If someone is found to have large amounts of cash for some reason, they often will confiscate it in a process called civil forefeiture. Many US police officers act with impunity because their misconduct will be protected by local prosecutors and judges. There absolutely are towns and neighborhoods good people should avoid because of the police.

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

#257

Post by RHSeeger »

HideousKojima wrote: post #245
alphazard wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This exactly. Bad people have to go free in order to incentivize good behavior by cops. You and I (as innocent people) are more likely to be affected by bad police behavior than the few bad people themselves and so we support the bad people going free.

>You and I (as innocent people) are more likely to be affected by bad police behavior than the few bad people themselves and so we support the bad people going free. I know anecdotes aren't data, but my only negative interactions with cops have basically been for traffic tickets. Meanwhile my negative interactions with criminals have been far more numerous, along with several second-order effects caused by their mere…

> I don't think there's ever been a neighborhood law abiding citizens had to avoid because of fear of cops.

I think there's a fair number of stories of POC be accosted by police officers because they were in a neighborhood they didn't "belong" in, so your statement is likely inaccurate.

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

#258

Post by [deleted] »

HideousKojima wrote: post #245
alphazard wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This exactly. Bad people have to go free in order to incentivize good behavior by cops. You and I (as innocent people) are more likely to be affected by bad police behavior than the few bad people themselves and so we support the bad people going free.

>You and I (as innocent people) are more likely to be affected by bad police behavior than the few bad people themselves and so we support the bad people going free. I know anecdotes aren't data, but my only negative interactions with cops have basically been for traffic tickets. Meanwhile my negative interactions with criminals have been far more numerous, along with several second-order effects caused by their mere…

[deleted]

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

#259

Post by maronato »

anigbrowl wrote: post #219
maronato wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As many others have said, Google isn’t using a cryptographic hash here. It’s using perceptual hashing, which isn’t collision-safe at all.

Did you read the whole thing? and a more detailed examination of common perceptual hashing algorithms (skip to table 3 for the collision probabilities): https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2904/81.pdf And there was a whole lot of explanation of how probable cause works and how it's different from programmers' aspirations to perfection.

The table only proves the point. The lowest probability in the table is 1 in 100_000. Most others are 1 in 100.

28 billion photos are uploaded every week to Google Photos[1]. That’s at least 280k false positives per week.

Should we really be performing 30 search warrants on innocent people per second?

[1] https://blog.google/products/photos/storage-changes/

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

#260

Post by krageon »

whoknew1122 wrote: post #251
AcerbicZero wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what happened to fruit of the poisoned tree? Seems a lot more liberty oriented than "good faith exception" when police don't think they need a warrant (because police never seem to "think" they need a warrant).

The cited ruling answers your question The court ruled that at the time , when the State Police opened the file, they had no reason to believe that a warrant was required. While the search was later ruled unconstitutional, no court had ruled it was unconstitutional *at the time of the search*. One of the cornerstones of American jurisprudence is that you cannot go back in time and overrule decisions based on contempo…

As someone not from the US the fact that "uwu we didn't know" is an adequate defense for the police to do something illegal is really weird. Is there some crucial context I'm missing?
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