Google forced to reveal users' search histories in Colorado court ruling
Google forced to reveal users' search histories in Colorado court ruling
In the case of Seymour v. Colorado, Denver police executed a search warrant that required Google to provide the IP addresses of anyone who had searched for...
That headline misses the big problem. It's not that Google was forced to give up search history data. If Google gets a warrant, they will comply. The real problem is that the justices acknowledged that the warrant was unconstitutional and permitted the evidence anyway. They claim the police "acted in good faith" while violating the constitution, which is a horrifying precedent.
If you're thinking "alls well that ends well," because they caught the arsonists who murdered a family of five, I can sympathize with that feeling, but consider that the murderer may have his conviction overturned on subsequent appeals.
The police obtained a warrant for everyone who searched for a thing from Google, and the search information was used against the accused in court. 14 states currently outlaw abortion, and there's some cousin-fucking conservative prosecutor in Dipshit, Alabama, just salivating over the prospect of obtaining the IP addresses of every person looking up directions to clinics.
I wonder how many companies like Cambridge analytica or TPUSA just have access to these. It wouldn't surprise me if there's some social engineering dark arts underground of pretending to be police and getting this data to study
This is in fact a thing
https://cyberhoot.com/blog/fake-emergency-search-warrants-becoming-a-problem/
Not long after Dobbs, someone posted a guide on r/WitchesVsPatriarchy on how to securely find* this information without opening yourself up to potential harm. Terrifying that that’s even a thing that needs to exist.
"Ahhh gosh oh golly I guess i better comply with this police warrant" says the company that actively engages in one of the largest tax fraud operations in human history.
Forced? Not at all. Google happily complied.
Stop using Google products, people. There are alternatives for every service they offer. They haven't invented anything new in over a decade
Permanently Deleted
So, I have a few solutions for this.
First, I use GrapheneOS, so I can continue using Gboard and a few other Google products that do not warrant or require an internet connection, with network access disabled.
Alternatively, the next best keyboard is grammarly (also with network access dsiabled) and you can also use https://voiceinput.futo.org with that one.
Understanding that you probably paraphrased for brevity, it's hard to respond with anything helpful because only you know where the goalposts of, "actually works," are -- same thing with, "reliable push messages," and, "works for banking." I've used swipe input on the native Samsung keyboard and SwiftKey and found that they work just fine, but not as good as GBoard. If you're going from a Google-invested product to pretty much anything else, it's likely going to be a worse user experience, so you just have to set your expectations appropriately and keep in mind that what you're getting in return for that is intangible but important.
What have you tried so far, and how have they failed you with respect to the metrics you've stated?
for speech recognition there is "futo voice" which not only works better than Google's speech talk-to-type by allowing the user to fluently speak, but it also works offline and doesn't upload voice recordings anywhere. You won't be able to use it with gboard because google will not allow the use of another talk-to-speech engine with gboard, you'll have to download another keyboard first.
mobile banking is an unnecessary luxary. Moving money around/paying CC biils often takes days to go through anyway so the urgency of "doing it now" mobily can wait until you're at your desktop.
Push notifications, I'll give you. Without any services some apps cannot recieve push notifications. As the other user suggested, using a pixel with grapheneos, you can install sandboxes google services or microG and then have full functionality.
On grapheneOS you can choose which apps have access to internet/data much more fine-grained that what google allows you.
Sounds like you're on Android but there are still options. I am no subject matter expert but there are many who are and they are just a quick duckduckgo search away. Good luck!
So, I have a few solutions for this.
First, I use GrapheneOS, so I can continue using Gboard and a few other Google products that do not warrant or require an internet connection, with network access disabled.
Alternatively, the next best keyboard is grammarly (also with network access dsiabled) and you can also use https://voiceinput.futo.org with that one.
Is there a good alternative, maybe locally hosted, for location history?
While I've recently disabled it for Google, it actually was helpful for going back in time and remembering where I was on X day, on numerous occasions. Would be cool if there was a locally hosted, open source alternative.
Stop using Google products, people. There are alternatives for every service they offer.
Unfortunately many of the products they offer are a requirement for daily life.
It's been my experience that for most people, Google services are not a requirement, but a luxury... especially for daily life. Now, most Google-esque services are a requirement for daily life, but as they said, there are alternatives that you can use that work.
If we aren’t committing any crimes, why should we care?
Good thing that laws are perfect, huh?
If you didn't commit a crime, why should be part of the line up of suspects?
"If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear."
Privacy, freedom, and corruption? Like Trump banned international travel from how many Muslim countries? The fact that that happened at all is insane. You don't think these tools will be abused? Like the UK banned fetish porn (which has been thankfully overturned). You would be fine if say.. these tools were used to monitor your sexual habits?
if you're not doing any weird shit at home, why have blinds in your windows?
the police acted in good faith, meaning the evidence will be allowed in court despite the warrant being legally flawed
I have no knowledge (or particular interest) in USA laws, but I guess that judges making this decision is a statement of future intent. I guess if you don't want to be tracked then don't use services which track you!
this just means the cops can do anything??
i mean shit i guess they can here anyway, but it's stunning to see that written down. oh they thought they were doing the right thing? oh that's fine then
Even worse, the court said what they did was wrong but they get to use the result anyway.
Over a decade ago they had devices called "sting ray" that act like antenna. It captures all text messages in the area.
It's called qualified immunity.
The idea is that if a police officer accidentally violates someone's rights while trying to do their job and wasn't aware they are not at fault.
It's not a law but the result of a court case. Many of us want a law passed to remove it.
In Colorado, until a new law overides the ruling, google must reveal your search history when subpoenaed. This doesn’t affect surrounding states or federal law until their own judges make a ruling or politicians make a law.
The issue here is not that they are required to reveal search history of suspects, the issue is that the police is browsing the search history of everyone in order to find a suspect. That's not what warrants are for and violates the constitutional rights of nearly everyone they searched.
Opposite actually. The court decision says that all future reverse keyword search warrants in Colorado will have their evidence thrown out. This one, however, didn't have precedent so the police acted in good faith.
Never ask Google a question you wouldn't also ask the feds!
Never ask Google a question.
you wouldn't also ask the feds!FTFY
I am conflicted on how I feel about that. Obviously information dragonets are bad because they're specifically designed to produce false positives. In this case, however, they produced a definite positive that wouldn't have been achieved otherwise.
Edit:
The good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule provides that “evidence
obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment should not be suppressed in
circumstances where the evidence was obtained by officers acting in objectively
reasonable reliance on a warrant issued by a detached and neutral magistrate, even
if that warrant was later determined to be invalid.” Gutierrez, 222 P.3d at 941; see
also Leftwich, 869 P.2d at 1272 (holding that Colorado’s good-faith exception,
35
codified in section 16-3-308, C.R.S. (2023), is “substantially similar” to the Supreme
Court’s rule). The exception exists because there is little chance suppression will
deter police misconduct in cases where the police didn’t know their conduct was
illegal in the first place. Leon, 468 U.S. at 918–19. In such cases, “the social costs of
suppression would outweigh any possible deterrent effect.But the good-faith analysis in Gutierrez is distinguishable. True, we held
there that the good-faith exception did not apply, but we had already recognized
that individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their financial records
when Gutierrez was decided. Id. at 933 (citing numerous cases and statutes
establishing that an individual’s financial records are protected under Colorado
law). So, the police were on notice that a nexus was required between a crime and
Gutierrez’s individual tax records. See id.38
¶70 By contrast, until today, no court had established that individuals have a
constitutionally protected privacy interest in their Google search history. Cf.
Commonwealth v. Kurtz, 294 A.3d 509, 522 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2023) (holding that, under
the third-party doctrine, the defendant did not have a reasonable expectation of
privacy in his search history). In the absence of precedent explicitly establishing
that an individual’s Google search history is constitutionally protected, DPD had
no reason to know that it might have needed to demonstrate a connection between
the alleged crime and Seymour’s individual Google account.In essence, the court is saying that this is the one and only time this will be allowed in Colorado.
https://www.courts.state.co.us/userfiles/file/Court_Probation/Supreme_Court/Opinions/2023/23SA12.pdf
The obvious potential harm in general outweighs the positive outcome in a specific case. Justifying broad surveillance because it works occasionally is the road to a police state.
Thus why it’s prohibited in the future.
The entire exeption, and the broader exclusionary rule, is based around the self-evidently incorrect assumption that what happens in court will effect behaviour of investigators.
search warrant that required Google to provide the IP addresses of anyone who had searched for the address of a home within the previous 15 days of it being set on fire
I’m fine with this. It’s specific to an actual crime that happened, and not targeting a known individual or preventing something that hasn’t happened yet, “for the children” or some nonsense like that.
It wasn't specific to an individual criminal, though. Police aren't allowed to get warrants for fishing expeditions, they're supposed to find leads themselves and then get a concise warrant to evidence to confirm that. They searched people they had no right to search, and violated their constitutional rights.
You're fine with not targeting an individual and using blanket warrants instead? Even a judge said it was unconstitutional due to it not being individualized, and the EFF says it can implicate innocents. Even Google, who tracks and collects most everything, was reluctant to hand it over.
Sure, this reinvigorated the case, but it has an "ends justify the means" feel to it, which is a slippery slope. But you're actively endorsing a less privacy friendly stance than Google, of all things. That blows my mind.
Everything must blow your mind. This is like going to a hotel and asking to see a list of people who stayed in the hotel last week because the suspect is probably staying nearby. Sounds like a pretty good way to get leads without asking for too much info.
Figuring out who searched for the address where the crime happened actually just sounds like good police work
Yeah, it's a specific enough request that I don't see any problem here.
Although, why the IP address? I would imagine most people using Google products would be logged into Google accounts. They'd probably know the exact account who made the search, rather than a vague IP that could belong to multiple people in.
Another reason to use VPN/Tor.
Google also hands over location data to police
I always use Google anonymously as I always find alternative search engines to be lacking. Even without personalized search results, Google always works better for me.
Not even true anymore...
But if SEO trash is good enough for you, that is a nice cope
I've been using duck duck go for a while, and I've got a fresh Linux install on another machine I'm using as a server and I went to look something up. I was 2 pages in, thinking "ddg isn't great, but this is ridiculous", and I remembered i was on Google
Google has seriously fallen off lately