Government secretly orders Google to track anyone searching certain names, addresses, and phone numb

[mountaineer]

Government secretly orders Google to track anyone searching certain names, addresses, and phone numbers
 by Nihal Krishan, Technology Reporter |
 | October 05, 2021 11:10 AM
Washington Examiner

The U.S. government is reportedly secretly issuing warrants for Google to provide user data on anyone typing in certain search terms, raising fears that innocent online users could get caught up in serious crime investigations at a greater frequency than previously thought.

In an attempt to track down criminals, federal investigators have started using new "keyword warrants" and used them to ask Google to provide them information on anyone who searched a victim's name or their address during a particular year, an accidentally unsealed court document that Forbes found shows. ...

The government said that the scope of the warrants is limited to avoid implicating innocent people who happen to search for certain terms, but it's not publicly disclosed how many users' data are sent to the government and what the extent of the warrant requests are.

Google has defended its decision to respond to the warrants and said it protects users when doing so. ...

Read entire article
What are the verboten terms? Constitution? Freedom?

[Kamaji]

Interesting article.  Here's a link to the original Forbes article:  https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2021/10/04/google-keyword-warrants-give-us-government-data-on-search-users/?sh=18357ad47c97


Unfortunately, Forbes chose to not publish the warrant itself, so we don't know anything else beyond what Forbes chose to disclose.

One thing it does make clear, though, is that your search history is very much not currently being protected from disclosure to the government.

Given the shenanigans the government plays in the FISA court, where it also gets away with one-sided games, I would not trust these Google warrants to be completely above board.

[PeteS in CA]

Expanding on @Kamaji's post:

Exclusive: Government Secretly Orders Google To Identify Anyone Who Searched A Sexual Assault Victim’s Name, Address And Telephone Number

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2021/10/04/google-keyword-warrants-give-us-government-data-on-search-users/?sh=1eeb9bfa7c97

In 2019, federal investigators in Wisconsin were hunting men they believed had participated in the trafficking and sexual abuse of a minor. She had gone missing that year but had emerged claiming to have been kidnapped and sexually assaulted, according to a search warrant reviewed by Forbes. In an attempt to chase down the perpetrators, investigators turned to Google, asking the tech giant to provide information on anyone who had searched for the victim’s name, two spellings of her mother’s name and her address over 16 days across the year. After being asked to provide all relevant Google accounts and IP addresses of those who made the searches, Google responded with data in mid-2020, though the court documents do not reveal how many users had their data sent to the government.

It’s a rare example of a so-called keyword warrant and, with the number of search terms included, the broadest on record. (See the update below for other, potentially even broader warrants.) Before this latest case, only two keyword warrants had been made public. One revealed in 2020 asked for anyone who had searched for the address of an arson victim who was a witness in the government’s racketeering case against singer R Kelly. Another, detailed in 2017, revealed that a Minnesota judge signed off on a warrant asking Google to provide information on anyone who searched a fraud victim’s name from within the city of Edina, where the crime took place.
...
The latest case shows Google is continuing to comply with such controversial requests, despite concerns over their legality and the potential to implicate innocent people who happened to search for the relevant terms. From the government’s perspective in Wisconsin, the scope of the warrant should have been limited enough to avoid the latter: the number of people searching for the specific names, address and phone number in the given time frame was likely to be low. But privacy experts are concerned about the precedent set by such warrants and the potential for any such order to be a breach of Fourth Amendment protections from unreasonable searches. There are also concerns about First Amendment freedom of speech issues, given the potential to cause anxiety amongst Google users that their identities could be handed to the government because of what they searched for.

So, these were search warrants, which means court oversight. The specifics of the known warrants show they are crafted very narrowly - very crime-specific details, location, and time frame.

But like any authority/power or technology, search warrants can be abused, because they are requested, issued, and carried out by human beings.

[Kamaji]

Expanding on @Kamaji's post:

Exclusive: Government Secretly Orders Google To Identify Anyone Who Searched A Sexual Assault Victim’s Name, Address And Telephone Number

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2021/10/04/google-keyword-warrants-give-us-government-data-on-search-users/?sh=1eeb9bfa7c97

So, these were search warrants, which means court oversight. The specifics of the known warrants show they are crafted very narrowly - very crime-specific details, location, and time frame.

But like any authority/power or technology, search warrants can be abused, because they are requested, issued, and carried out by human beings.

Court oversight, yes, in the technical sense, but that oversight may not mean much if a lot of data is swept up under any one given warrant, and there is no meaningful disclosure to those people whose information was swept up, but who weren't ultimately charged as a result.  Who knows what the government does with the "excess" information.

[GtHawk]

Expanding on @Kamaji's post:

Exclusive: Government Secretly Orders Google To Identify Anyone Who Searched A Sexual Assault Victim’s Name, Address And Telephone Number

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2021/10/04/google-keyword-warrants-give-us-government-data-on-search-users/?sh=1eeb9bfa7c97

So, these were search warrants, which means court oversight. The specifics of the known warrants show they are crafted very narrowly - very crime-specific details, location, and time frame.

But like any authority/power or technology, search warrants can be abused, because they are requested, issued, and carried out by human beings.

Hmmm, so say I read an article about oh say a pedophile attacking a child and it sounds like too close to where I live, so I do a search to see if maybe my children are at risk I have now made myself a target of our citizen abusive government? How........special!

[Kamaji]

Hmmm, so say I read an article about oh say a pedophile attacking a child and it sounds like too close to where I live, so I do a search to see if maybe my children are at risk I have now made myself a target of our citizen abusive government? How........special!

Potentially, yes.

[Slide Rule]

Fire google.

Purge if from your memory and your electronics.

Unless you want your name known by everyone who is important.
Perhaps 80 million enter the proper names to get on the big list.

The google has been off my machines for years.