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]
#2The judge doesn't really understand a hash well. They say things like "Google assigned a hash" which is not true, Google calculated the hash.
Also I'm surprised the 3rd-party doctrine doesn't apply. There's the "private search doctrine" mentioned but generally you don't have an expectation of privacy for things you share with Google
Re: Google’s TOS doesn’t eliminate a user’s Fourth Amendment rights, judge rules [pdf]
#3It's crazy that the most dangerous people one regularly encounters can do anything they want as long as they believe they can do it. The good faith exemption has to be one of the most fascist laws on the books today.
> "the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule supports denial of Maher’s suppression motion because, at the time authorities opened his uploaded file, they had a good faith basis to believe that no warrant was required."
In no other context or career can you do anything you want and get away with it just as long as you say you thought you could. You'd think police offiers would be held to a higher standard, not no standard.
Re: Google’s TOS doesn’t eliminate a user’s Fourth Amendment rights, judge rules [pdf]
#4The Fourth Amendment didn't help here, unfortunately. Or, perhaps fortunately.
Still, 25 years for possessing kiddie porn, damn.
Re: Google’s TOS doesn’t eliminate a user’s Fourth Amendment rights, judge rules [pdf]
#5> As the district court correctly ruled in the alternative, the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule supports denial of Maher’s suppression motion because, at the time authorities opened his uploaded file, they had a good faith basis to believe that no warrant was required
So this means this conviction is upheld but future convictions may be overturned if they similarly don't acquire a warrant?
Re: Google’s TOS doesn’t eliminate a user’s Fourth Amendment rights, judge rules [pdf]
#6The judge doesn't really understand a hash well. They say things like "Google assigned a hash" which is not true, Google calculated the hash. Also I'm surprised the 3rd-party doctrine doesn't apply. There's the "private search doctrine" mentioned but generally you don't have an expectation of privacy for things you share with Google
Out of curiosity, what is false positive rate of a hash match?
If the FPR is comparable to asking a human "are these the same image?", then it would seem to be equivalent to a visual search. I wonder if (or why) human verification is actually necessary here.
Re: Google’s TOS doesn’t eliminate a user’s Fourth Amendment rights, judge rules [pdf]
#7The Fourth Amendment didn't help here, unfortunately. Or, perhaps fortunately. Still, 25 years for possessing kiddie porn, damn.
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Re: Google’s TOS doesn’t eliminate a user’s Fourth Amendment rights, judge rules [pdf]
#8The Fourth Amendment didn't help here, unfortunately. Or, perhaps fortunately. Still, 25 years for possessing kiddie porn, damn.
The harshness of sentence is not for the action of keeping the photos in itself, but the individual suffering and social damage caused by the actions that he incentivizes when he consumes such content.
Re: Google’s TOS doesn’t eliminate a user’s Fourth Amendment rights, judge rules [pdf]
#9The judge doesn't really understand a hash well. They say things like "Google assigned a hash" which is not true, Google calculated the hash. Also I'm surprised the 3rd-party doctrine doesn't apply. There's the "private search doctrine" mentioned but generally you don't have an expectation of privacy for things you share with Google
Erm, "Assigned" in this context is not new: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca5/17...
"More simply, a hash value is a string of characters obtained by processing the contents of a given computer file and assigning a sequence of numbers and letters that correspond to the file’s contents."
From 2018 in United States v. Reddick.
Re: Google’s TOS doesn’t eliminate a user’s Fourth Amendment rights, judge rules [pdf]
#10> As the district court correctly ruled in the alternative, the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule supports denial of Maher’s suppression motion because, at the time authorities opened his uploaded file, they had a good faith basis to believe that no warrant was required So this means this conviction is upheld but future convictions may be overturned if they similarly don't acquire a warrant?
This specific conviction upheld, yes. But no, this ruling doesn't speak to whether or not any future convictions may be overturned.
It simply means that at the trial court level, future prosecutions will not be able to rely on the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule if warrantless inculpatory evidence is obtained under similar circumstances. If the governement were to try to present such evidence at trial and the trial judge were to admit it over the objection of the defendant, then that would present a specific ground for appeal.
This ruling merely bolsters the 'better to get a warrant' spirit of the Fourth Amendment.