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Feds order Google to track people searching certain names or details

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Re: Feds order Google to track people searching certain names or details

#141

I'm not a Constitutional scholar, but I would bet SCOTUS rules this kind of warrant illegal. Google certainly has the resources to take the case that far. AFAIK a warrant usually is tied to a specific person or a specific crime. In other words, if an explosion killed Harry McHarryface, then it would be constitutional to ask for names of people who searched for Harry. Or if the fertilizer used in the bomb was shown to…

Look at it this way, if a car is involved in a drive-by shooting the police can't get a warrant to search every single home that has the same year/make/model of car registered to with that address. For a legal warrant you have to have probable cause that a specific person committed a crime. You can't just search everybody and see what sticks, that's blatantly unconstitutional.

If the car was used multiple shootings, the same phone was in that area and the phone was used to search for the victims name every time then we have everything we need but are unwilling to use it?

We can probably figure out how to extract such data and cross reference it without making any of it available to random government employees.

Say you take pictures of license plates, store the data some place safe and allow a query of 5 recent armed robbery locations. If the result contains multiple cars matching 2 locations no results are returned. The moment a 6th robbery happens and a single car matches 3 out of 5 law enforcement can start looking for it immediately.

Sure, you'd get pretty mad if every time you get robbed the police searches your vehicle but they don't need to break anything and you will get over it.

Re: Feds order Google to track people searching certain names or details

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide a source?

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-08-04/biden-... > The president knows this. He told the press that his administration had surveyed the opinions of constitutional scholars, and that most thought an extension would be unlawful. Yet under political pressure from the left, Biden nevertheless ultimately decided to issue the extension. In other words: SCOTUS wrote words clearly indicating a ban would be ill…

So in your own words the court did not issue a ruling, yet your original comment explicitly mentions a ruling without further elaboration. That seems disingenuous because without knowing what actually happened a reader could be easily mislead to believe that a ruling was actually issued, which is the only thing that matters with respect to the legal authority of the POTUS/SCOTUS.

Re: Feds order Google to track people searching certain names or details

#143
post #12

Some of these keyword orders seem obscene in terms of how many people they target: > ("fragmentation") AND ("bomb" OR "explosive" OR "ied" OR "explosion" OR "pipebomb" OR "pipe bomb" OR "PVC bomb")

I wonder what is the minimal set of English words covering all search engine users...

I would guess {"google"} would cover almost all users.

Re: Feds order Google to track people searching certain names or details

#144
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Show me the man and I'll show you the crime” was Beria's infamous boast. He served as deputy premier from 1941 until Stalin's death in 1953 ...

Ironic considering, soon after he was arrested, tried for treason and other offenses, sentenced to death, and executed on 23 December 1953.

I don’t think ironic is the right word. Just fitting - he knew the system and the system lived up to his promise.

Re: Feds order Google to track people searching certain names or details

#145
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a good political move though, now the courts actually have to make the administration stop and get all the negative heat from putting people on the street. I mean the supreme law of the land let an order they believed was unconstitutional stand because of their personal moral imperatives and empathy toward renters. Is it really that crazy to shoot your shot and see if they do it again? Like the whole situa…

> let a law they believed was unconstitutional Nobody alleged anything was unconstitutional. The question was whether the CDC exceeded the authority Congress gave it. The Court declined to answer that question when it was first raised. It answered it, definitively, the second time, striking down the moratorium extension.

Right, my only point was that it essentially cost the administration nothing to extend it on the chance that they would decline again or vote differently when it actually mattered.

Re: Feds order Google to track people searching certain names or details

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SCOTUS wrote words clearly indicating a ban would be illegal. By a technicality (expiration date), they didn't issue an explicit ruling. Biden did it anyway, while admitting he knew it was illegal. SCOTUS said the moratorium exceeded the CDC's legal authority, but declined to strike it down given it was soon expiring [1]. (They also strongly suggested that if POTUS tried renewing, they would strike it down.) POTUS…

This is next level rationalizing. For a president to say in no clear terms that he is going to make a rule he knows is illegal is something else. At least other administrations justify their attempts to break the law and mount some defense.

What are you talking about? The court ruled in favor of the administration in the first case, and against it in the second one. The administration complied after the second decision. This is how checks and balances work.

Re: Feds order Google to track people searching certain names or details

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-08-04/biden-... > The president knows this. He told the press that his administration had surveyed the opinions of constitutional scholars, and that most thought an extension would be unlawful. Yet under political pressure from the left, Biden nevertheless ultimately decided to issue the extension. In other words: SCOTUS wrote words clearly indicating a ban would be ill…

Is doing something that the Supreme Court may later overturn--and bear in mind it was a close decision--actually "illegal"? I could certainly see the argument that it's ill-advised, and indeed, it was struck down a few weeks later. However, I don't think concurring opinions are binding and you could imagine certain fact patterns that might have changed Kavanaugh's mind: Congress agrees on a similar extension, but the…

> Is doing something that the Supreme Court may later overturn--and bear in mind it was a close decision--actually "illegal"?

It's not illegal at all. Making it illegal would never work in practice.

It is however supposed to be politically embarrassing and should in theory hurt your party.

However right now, in practice, due to the polarized two-party shit show that is US politics at the top level, it doesn't matter. The constituents haven proven to lack both will and tools to hold their elected representatives accountable, who in turn have learned they can get away with pretty much anything.

What could they have done to avoid a president who would behave that way? Elect Trump? Hah.

Re: Feds order Google to track people searching certain names or details

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SCOTUS wrote words clearly indicating a ban would be illegal. By a technicality (expiration date), they didn't issue an explicit ruling. Biden did it anyway, while admitting he knew it was illegal. SCOTUS said the moratorium exceeded the CDC's legal authority, but declined to strike it down given it was soon expiring [1]. (They also strongly suggested that if POTUS tried renewing, they would strike it down.) POTUS…

This is next level rationalizing. For a president to say in no clear terms that he is going to make a rule he knows is illegal is something else. At least other administrations justify their attempts to break the law and mount some defense.

It's not an illegal rule until the Supreme Court actually makes a ruling. The Supreme Court does not determine Law merely by speaking.

Re: Feds order Google to track people searching certain names or details

#150
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at it this way, if a car is involved in a drive-by shooting the police can't get a warrant to search every single home that has the same year/make/model of car registered to with that address. For a legal warrant you have to have probable cause that a specific person committed a crime. You can't just search everybody and see what sticks, that's blatantly unconstitutional.

If the car was used multiple shootings, the same phone was in that area and the phone was used to search for the victims name every time then we have everything we need but are unwilling to use it? We can probably figure out how to extract such data and cross reference it without making any of it available to random government employees. Say you take pictures of license plates, store the data some place safe and allo…

>Sure, you'd get pretty mad if every time you get robbed the police searches your vehicle but they don't need to break anything and you will get over it.

Or I'll stop calling the police, especially if that first invasive experience doesn't end with my belongings returned.

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