Police ask for whole city's Google searches, and a judge says yes

Re:Police ask for whole city's Google searches, and a judge ... by ptaipale on Thursday March 16, 2017 @01:18PM (#13886839)

Depends on jurisdiction, but I think over here, the store owners give it routinely, firstly because it is in their best interests (to catch criminals in the area) and secondly, because if they wouldn't, a judge would anyway give the order.

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Re:Police ask for whole city's Google searches, and a judge ... by _archon_ on Thursday March 16, 2017 @01:43PM (#13887089)

The judge would give the order after ascertaining that the video was relevant to catching the criminal, and specific enough that it only included the time period when the criminal would have been likely to be captured and no longer, and that no unnecessary camera angles or other information be included in the order.

There is a difference between shop owners volunteering camera information and this case. This is closer to all shop owners in town being ordered to turn over the personal information of everyone who bought a shovel, because they found a body that had been buried.

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Re:Police ask for whole city's Google searches, and a judge ... by BoysenberryPi on Thursday March 16, 2017 @03:17PM (#13888170)

>The judge would give the order after ascertaining that the video was relevant to catching the criminal, and specific enough that it only included the time period when the criminal would have been likely to be captured

Isn't that literally what is happening here? The police are asking Google who looked for this very specific thing in this very specific area at this very specific time period.

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