> [...] Given it's common sense to never talk to the police without a lawyer [...]

Don't generalize and don't conclude from your point-of-view to the whole world. There are enough places where you can talk to the police without even thinking about a lawyer (and never ever even require one, even in such situations). Not everyone's country is the USA (I assume).

If my interaction with the police is anything more than inconsequential small talk, I'm getting a lawyer. I would apply this common sense even to Japanese police, among the most respected of police forces in the world.

Obligatory IANAL.

I think, having done this a few times, the line should be "minor traffic ticket," not "small talk." You can get out of a ticket (or get it downgraded to a warning) by being nice to the officer, and that is a much better outcome than you can get by attempting to bring in a lawyer or behave as though you are going to fight legally.

Many of these kinds of warrants are closer to the "minor traffic ticket" side than anything else. The trouble is that you may want a lawyer to tell you that.

Isn't the reason you might want a lawyer in this case that you might not have to turn over the footage, and doing so when you don't have to could be used against you?

So wouldn't the alternative where they get the footage from someone else be just as bad as you turning it over without checking, and therefore something you should prevent if consulting a lawyer first is to your advantage?

>Isn't the reason you might want a lawyer in this case that you might not have to turn over the footage, and doing so when you don't have to could be used against you?

That's one of many reasons.

You're still not getting yourself out of the thing where turning over the footage to the government could be bad for you, so having it happen unconditionally without your consent could be bad for you.

Whether it's bad for you is irrelevant, if you're responding to a court order you absolutely want someone who has a thorough understanding of the law to guide you through it (unless you're thoroughly familiar yourself, but most people are not).

Even if we aren't talking about court orders, any interactions with the police beyond small talk should be guided by a lawyer for the same reason. Arrogance has no place when interacting with the law, the complexity of which is far beyond the understanding of common men.

You keep talking about the side of it where you have the opportunity to contest a court order.

The problem is the side of it where you abandon in advance your ability do to that by giving a third party custody of your data and then suffer whatever consequences a lawyer might have advised you to avoid when the third party hands your data over to the government.

I'm not sure how much clearer I can state this: You need a lawyer so you don't step on toes and fuck yourself over.

It doesn't matter if you're going to abide or contest court orders or whatever the hell else. I'm not talking about that.

You. Need. A. Lawyer.

Mere mortals cannot and will not understand the complexity and intricacy of law.

You. Need. A. Lawyer.

I think you might be missing the point of this comment: OP was saying that this is an additional expense involved in owning your own data. In reality, the people who would otherwise store your data aren't getting a lawyer for a warrant response, beyond validation that the warrant is legitimate. The "economy of scale" that 3rd party services have here is that they don't care if you go to prison.

Having a lawyer do the basics is really cheap. Having a lawyer fight the warrant or craft a minimally-revealing response is expensive. You don't have to break the bank if you end up getting served a warrant.