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 seangrogg on Thursday March 16, 2017 @01:26PM (#13886921)

Have you? The concept was "pre-crime" which is stopping crimes before they happened - not investigating crimes that have already conclusively been committed. Additionally, upon finding the system in use was faulty it was dismantled and everyone affected by it given a pardon.

Not saying the slippery slope argument is invalid, but the use of Minority Report is better kept to arguments where the intent is to use "big data" to predict and prevent crimes - not for when crimes have been committed and the intent is to figure out who did it.

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Re:Police ask for whole city's Google searches, and a judge ... by tyingq on Thursday March 16, 2017 @02:14PM (#13887407)

I mentioned it because it is the bottom of the slippery slope.

Once search data is open game for any law enforcement purpose, why not preemptively tag searches that are common before a crime takes place?

That said, I'm a bit confused as to how a "happy ending" would invalidate moral concerns raised by an illustrative story.

Also FWIW, leading with "Have you?" reduces the chance I might read what you had to say with an open mind.

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