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 darpa_escapee on Thursday March 16, 2017 @01:59PM (#13887268)

This is the same problem encountered with genetic databases, government run or run by businesses like 23&Me[0].

> “Your relative’s DNA could turn you into a suspect,” warns Wired, writing about a case from earlier this year, in which New Orleans filmmaker Michael Usry became a suspect in an unsolved murder case after cops did a familial genetic search using semen collected in 1996. The cops searched an Ancestry.com database and got a familial match to a saliva sample Usry’s father had given years earlier. Usry was ultimately determined to be innocent and the Electronic Frontier Foundation called it a “wild goose chase” that demonstrated “the very real threats to privacy and civil liberties posed by law enforcement access to private genetic databases.”

[0] http://fusion.net/story/215204/law-enforcement-agencies-are-...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Police ask for whole city's Google searches, and a judge ... by jacquesm on Thursday March 16, 2017 @02:01PM (#13887299)

I wrote about that five year ago.

https://jacquesmattheij.com/your-genetic-information-is-not-...

This problem will get larger and larger.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Police ask for whole city's Google searches, and a judge ... by FilterSweep on Thursday March 16, 2017 @03:25PM (#13888262)

Good blog. it's not just law enforcement either.

Genetic testing reveals your father's line has the genes for severe alcoholism. You are now a "warm client" for advertisers.

And don't underestimate the social influence of targeted facebook/twitter ads.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Police ask for whole city's Google searches, and a judge ... by manarth on Thursday March 16, 2017 @05:57PM (#13889579)

  "Detectives persuaded a magistrate judge to sign a search warrant ordering Usry to provide his DNA for comparison"
  "His DNA, Hoffman wrote, did not match the semen from the scene of Dodge’s murder."

This sounds a lot like he was forced to prove his innocence, rather than the judiciary being forced to prove his guilt.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Police ask for whole city's Google searches, and a judge ... by rayiner on Thursday March 16, 2017 @07:58PM (#13890240)

The judiciary cannot force you to prove your innocence. But it can force you to provide evidence, which the state may then be able to use to prove your guilt.

Everybody has a duty to cooperate with litigation. Even third party witnesses who are not "on trial" can be compelled to take testify about what they saw or heard.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Police ask for whole city's Google searches, and a judge ... by manarth on Thursday March 16, 2017 @08:34PM (#13890393)

  [The judiciary] can force you to provide evidence.
  Everybody has a duty to cooperate with litigation.

The 5th Amendment appears to explicitly contradict those examples.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Police ask for whole city's Google searches, and a judge ... by rayiner on Thursday March 16, 2017 @10:14PM (#13890827)

Writs subpoena (court orders to testify or produce documents) had been part of the English legal system for almost 400 years at the time the Constitution was written. So when the Framers wrote that no one "shall be compelled in any [1] criminal case [2] to be a witness [3] against himself," that's what they meant. Had they intended to limit courts' subpoena power in civil cases, as to non-testimonial conduct, or as to testimony against other people, they would have said so.

[ Parent | on HN ]