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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

#321

Post by 542354234235 »

foobiekr wrote: post #190
cogman10 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can look up terrorism incidents in the US [1]. Far right extremism is far more likely the reason for terrorism in the US vs far left extremism. In recent years, 115 far right attacks vs 19 far left (from 2008 -> 2016). And that's with adding another category for Islamic terrorism (63) (which, in and of itself would be far right terrorism.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States

this is true today, but the right has never come close to the left in 1970. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22571602-days-of-rage

Well, this kind of completely ignores the constant right wing attacks against black people, often backed up by local police. That isn’t a comparison of left vs, right. That is just a book about left attacks. The civil rights era was a violent time on all sides. To try and paint it as a time of violence just for the left is just blatantly incorrect.

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

#322

Post by jacquesm »

1cvmask wrote: post #81
cogman10 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can look up terrorism incidents in the US [1]. Far right extremism is far more likely the reason for terrorism in the US vs far left extremism. In recent years, 115 far right attacks vs 19 far left (from 2008 -> 2016). And that's with adding another category for Islamic terrorism (63) (which, in and of itself would be far right terrorism.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States

The FBI has a great track record of successfully thwarting Islamic terrorist plots that it creates: https://www.salon.com/2010/11/28/fbi_8/ https://theintercept.com/2015/02/26/fbi-manufacture-plots-te... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/16/fbi-entrapment... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/15/magazine/fbi-internationa...

At least they won't have to go hunt for them. And it makes the statistics look so much better.

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

#324

Post by bduerst »

thegabez wrote: post #256
bduerst wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC, Brave Search is a skin for Bing and Google search engines. These fed orders went out to Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo.

Yes it does mix in google results if you want it to, but the search is still anonymous.

> but the search is still anonymous

Is this verified though? I ask because Brave is known for some shady things, like pushing their alt coin or sneaking affiliate links into internet browsing.

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

#325

Post by hellojesus »

mikeyouse wrote: post #40
phkahler wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> It gives the government an easy in to collect more data on any and all of these users, regardless of whether it is pertinent to a specific case. That seems a little tinfoil hat to me. Like there are government people with lots of time on their hands to chase leads on things that are not related to a case. OTOH there seems to be a lot of pre-emptive searching going on, particularly in the area of terrorism related…

Right - the warrant indicates they're only interested in people from Texas searching for those terms in a two month period immediately before the active bombings. Feels a lot like a warrant to a hardware store for people buying a specific component they've found at crime scenes. Of course Daily Mail stripped that context. > The information requested in this Application is being sought by the FBI, in part, to establis…

I was aware of that as I clicked into the actual documents, and it does seem reasonable to me if left just there.

My concern is moreso with the courts at this point. Nothing stops the fbi from fabricating a crime or having an agent go undercover and post something potentially harmful which could could be used to obtain a warrant on these broad keywords.

Basically: wide keyword searches periodically with overlapping time frames gets you continuous data while making it seem just like a standard home depot purchase and video review warrant. I'll admit it's tin foil, but my default assumption these days is that the gov is already sniffing any and all data; their challenge comes in generating legal pretense for having it when they want to take action or get caught with it.

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

#326

Post by wayoutthere »

Stupulous wrote: post #318
wayoutthere wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire structure of the senate is designed to give maximum power to the slave-holding states, and every political decision in the country before the civil war was made with the aim of preserving their power in mind (this counts for the electoral college too). This is the reason votes in rural areas count so much more than urban votes. Because rural areas in the south were heavily populated by enslaved people and…

I think you're confusing cause and effect. The constitution was an agreement between states, and the senate was a compromise to ensure signers would retain power even if their population was dwarfed by other states. It is highly unlikely that it was intended to empower slave states; when it was created, only Massachusetts wasn't a slave state. Same goes for the electoral college. Also, in 1790 the US was much less ur…

> If every political decision in the US before the Civil War was made with the aim of preserving slave state power, why is it the South that left the Union? Couldn't they have just used their power?

They left because they were worried about losing their power — the northern population grew much faster than the south, and as the country expanded west most of the settlers were from free states, bringing attitudes about slavery with them. Things had reached a point where even deep compromises couldn’t tip the scales in the slavers’ favor, so the slavers decided to withdraw to attempt to preserve their power.

There were a significant number of northerners who were active abolitionists and not involved in politics. John Brown is an American hero in my mind. Slavery was doomed regardless of the political order, but the political order tried to protect it nonetheless.

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

#327

Post by tehwebguy »

UIUC_06 wrote: post #139
onetimemanytime wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Maybe the correct response to unconstitutional, secret warrants is to refuse to comply, maybe even refuse to respond? Ummmm, no. Correct response is courts and then comply. Pichai would lose his job in a minute.

You are ignoring the fact that Tim Cook fought the government on the San Bernardino shooter, and still has his job. The Board is not going to fire Pichai over this, provided he appears to be fighting through the courts rather than practicing outright defiance.

In a short search I didn't find any indication that this was one of the infamous "National Security Letters" that comes with a gag order.

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

#328

Post by 6510 »

vimacs2 wrote: post #185
6510 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, that seems a whole different problem that should really be addressed. In the Netherlands the police are the politest people one could ever meet. It takes very few complaints about politeness or excess force to lose the job. Ofc on the flip side they are also highly incompetent, have no tools, get to see just about ever crook released, are under paid and are very unprofessional. But polite, woah!

Cute attempt at establishing a completely made up dichotomy but generally the politeness of a police force is correlated with how effective it is, not inversely.

The work involves more than talking with people. They do get the full effect out of being polite but their effectiveness is hurt by a long list of things. For example, we can always spend more money on it. People will always find a way to spend more money. I would scale the budget with how long it takes to do basic things. If those take much to long they either need funding or have to prioritize tasks. Things like interview the witness before GC kicks in. There are crappy security cameras everywhere but the free plan doesn't store the recordings for very long. etc There are countless stupid stories.

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

#329

Post by csense »

RattleyCooper wrote: post #103
AlbertCory wrote: post #60

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.

A few years ago, in the context of justifying automatic license plate readers, the LAPD told a court that all cars in Los Angeles are under investigation:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7434448

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

#330

Post by salawat »

AlbertCory wrote: post #60

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…

It's sadly more nuanced than that because the answer to the question Can police do X? Is not effectively answered til binding precedent is created in the Courts, which requires someone to fight it all the way up. Remember, judges are signing these blatantly overbroad warrants in the first place. So there's a judiciary crisis already at play
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