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 differentView on Thursday March 16, 2017 @01:46PM (#13887127)

> Police are not asking for the entire search history of everyone in the town, then combing through it to see what they've searched for. Rather, police are asking Google who, in a narrow amount of time, searched for the name of a relatively unknown person who had $28K stolen from him.

Where would you draw the line?

Suppose they don't find what they're looking for in that request. Would you be okay with them expanding the time little by little? Perhaps adding other search terms? What about for other crimes? Other services (Facebook, Bing, Yahoo!, etc...)?

Wouldn't capable prosecutors for future cases simply use this as precedent and expand the parameters little by little?

There is no clear line to draw after you cross this line.

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Re:Police ask for whole city's Google searches, and a judge ... by bigbugbag on Friday March 17, 2017 @04:46AM (#13892489)

> Other services (Facebook, Bing, Yahoo!, etc...)?

Actually when you read the actual news[1] and not the clickbait rehashed version that has been posted to HN you'll learn why it only targets google:

  The Edina Police Department figured out that while
  searching Google Images for the victim’s name, they
  found the photo used on the fake passport, and 
  investigators couldn’t find it on Yahoo or Bing. 
  So, they theorized the suspect must have searched 
  Google for the victim’s name while making the fake 
  passport.

[1]: https://tonywebster.com/2017/03/minnesota-search-warrant-any...

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Re:Police ask for whole city's Google searches, and a judge ... by jdmichal on Thursday March 16, 2017 @04:07PM (#13888680)

The judge is who would be responsible for drawing this line. I would think they would get pretty tired of signing warrant after warrant that was slightly broader than the last.

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