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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]

#101

Post by Brian_K_White »

aiforecastthway wrote: post #55
kulahan wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to imagine a more "real-world" example of this to see how I feel about it. I dislike that there is yet another loophole to gain access to peoples' data for legal reasons, but this does feel like a reasonable approach and a valid goal to pursue. I guess it's like if someone noticed you had a case shaped exactly like a machine gun, told the police, and they went to check if it was registered or not? I suppos…

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…

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 owner "consented" to accept money in trade for use of property.

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

#102

Post by zeroonetwothree »

chaboud wrote: post #92
devmor wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the time, what they did was assumed to be legal because no one had ruled on it. Now, there is prior case law declaring it illegal. The ruling is made in such a way to say “we were allowing this, but we shouldn’t have been, so we wont allow it going forward”. I am not a legal scholar, but that’s the best way I can explain it. The way that the judicial system applies to law is incredibly complex and inconsistent.

This is a deeply problematic way to operate. En masse, it has the right result, but, for the individual that will have their life turned upside down, the negative impact is effectively catastrophic. This ends up feeling a lot like gambling in a casino. The casino can afford to bet and lose much more than the individual.

It doesn’t seem like it was wrong in this specific case however.

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

#103

Post by zeroonetwothree »

ninalanyon wrote: post #78

> the private search doctrine, which authorizes a government actor to repeat a search already conducted by a private party without securing a warrant. IANAL, etc. Does that mean that if someone breaks in to your house in search of drugs, finds and steals some, and is caught by the police and confesses all that the police can then search your house without a warrant?

I think the private search would have to be legal.

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

#104

Post by wonnage »

bluGill wrote: post #66
crooked-v wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hashes involved in stuff like this, as with copyright auto-matching, are perceptual hashes ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perceptual_hashing ), not cryptographic hashes. False matches are common enough that perceptual hashing attacks are already a thing in use to manipulate search engine results (see the example in random paper on the subject https://gangw.cs.illinois.edu/PHashing.pdf ).

It seems like that is very relevant information that was not considered by the court. If this was a cryptographic hash I would say with high confidence that this is the same image and so Google examined it - there is a small chance that some unrelated file (which might not even be a picture) matches but odds are the universe will end before that happens and so the courts can consider it the same image for search purp…

That's the exact conclusion that was reached - the search required a warrant.

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

#106

Post by tristor »

ninalanyon wrote: post #93
tristor wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It feels like it incentivizes the police to minimize their understanding of the law so that they can believe they are following it. That's a bingo. That's exactly what they do, and why so many cops know less about the law than random citizens. A better society would have high standards for the knowledge expected of police officers, including things like requiring 4-year criminal justice or pre-law degree to be elig…

In some countries you are required to study the law in order to become a police officer. It's part of the curriculum in the three year bachelor level course you must pass to become a police officer in Norway for instance. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Police_University_Co... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Police_Service

Yes, this likely explains part of why the Norwegian police behave like professionals who are trying to do their job with high standards of performance and behavior and the police in the US behave like a bunch of drinking buddies that used to be bullies in high school trying to find their next target to harass.

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

#107

Post by pavon »

shadowgovt wrote: post #14

Wow, do I ever not know how I feel about the "good faith exception." It feels like it incentivizes the police to minimize their understanding of the law so that they can believe they are following it.

The good faith exception requires the belief be reasonable. Ignorance of clearly settled law is not reasonable, it should be a situation where the law was unclear, had conflicting interpretations or could otherwise be interpreted the way the police did by a reasonable person.

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

#108

Post by joshuamorton »

chaboud wrote: post #92
devmor wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the time, what they did was assumed to be legal because no one had ruled on it. Now, there is prior case law declaring it illegal. The ruling is made in such a way to say “we were allowing this, but we shouldn’t have been, so we wont allow it going forward”. I am not a legal scholar, but that’s the best way I can explain it. The way that the judicial system applies to law is incredibly complex and inconsistent.

This is a deeply problematic way to operate. En masse, it has the right result, but, for the individual that will have their life turned upside down, the negative impact is effectively catastrophic. This ends up feeling a lot like gambling in a casino. The casino can afford to bet and lose much more than the individual.

I think the full reasoning here is something like

1. It was unclear if a warrant was necessary

2. Any judge would have given a warrant

3. You didn't get a warrant

4. A warrant was actually required.

Thus, it's not clear that any harm was caused because the right wasn't clearly enshrined and had the police known that it was, they likely would have followed the correct process. There was no intention to violate rights, and no advantage gained from even the inadvertent violation of rights. But the process is updated for the future.

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

#109

Post by oefnak »

kulahan wrote: post #99
aiforecastthway wrote: post #55

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.

With their hidden camera in the bathroom.

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

#110

Post by pdonis »

uniformlyrandom wrote: post #12

> 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.

> 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.

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