[HN Gopher] Feds order Google to track people searching certain ... ___________________________________________________________________ Feds order Google to track people searching certain names or details Author : ColinWright Score : 434 points Date : 2021-10-25 14:28 UTC (8 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.dailymail.co.uk) (TXT) w3m dump (www.dailymail.co.uk) | NN88 wrote: | Anyone get the sense we're in a post-Wikileaks era? | | These leaks seem... like they would get someone indicted... | colbyhub wrote: | I made the switch from DDG to Startpage.com the day when Bing/DDG | censored "tank man" results on the anniversary of Tiananmen | Square, haven't looked back. | | I do miss the !bangs, so I have a browser shortcut to access | those when I need them. | elwell wrote: | Too privacy-conscious for DuckDuckGo? That's next level trend | setting. | zic wrote: | I find it interesting that to this day, a search for the phrase | "Bing/DDG censored 'tank man' results on the anniversary of | Tiananmen Square" returns very few results in DDG, but several | pages in Google. | | I would not cite this as an example of why to use one search | engine over another. It's a good example of why to use more | than one search engine. | hyproxia wrote: | You're talking about the "tank man" that was safely escorted | out of the scene without getting harmed? What about him? | | https://youtu.be/qq8zFLIftGk | J5892 wrote: | The point is that the photo was censored by a significant US | search engine. | | Also, let's not ignore that the CCP murdered somewhere | between 300 and 10,000 Chinese citizens the day before he | stood in front of the tank. | emayljames wrote: | The only people killed where unarmed soldiers, that where | burned alive by protesters. | J5892 wrote: | Even the official CCP numbers disagree with you. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protest | s... | | > On June 19, Beijing Party Secretary Li Ximing reported to | the Politburo that the government's confirmed death toll | was 241, including 218 civilians (of which 36 were | students), 10 PLA soldiers, and 13 People's Armed Police, | along with 7,000 wounded. | | But the actual number of deaths is likely much higher. | falcolas wrote: | Sounds like those numbers have been "fixed" as the | narrative has evolved over the intervening years. | J5892 wrote: | I'm not up to date with the current official narrative, | but I can only assume it's that there was a large picnic | that day and someone accidentally spilled a giant jar of | raspberry jam. | | But it was an otherwise pleasant day with exactly zero | humans crushed by tanks or otherwise killed. | JaimeThompson wrote: | That appears to be a someone counterfactual description of | what happened. Supporting evidence would be of great help. | lostlogin wrote: | It's just feeding the troll to reply to that account. | "Taiwan is China" etc in comment history. | PostOnce wrote: | He risked death to protest the oppression of Chinese people | by the Communist government, brutal oppression the Communist | government has spent decades trying to cover up. The brutal | actions at Tiananmen Square and the surrounding areas--and | the consequent coverup--are something we all disapprove of | and abhor. | | He may have survived, but many others did not. You can find | the photos of their corpses online if you're outside the | Communist regime's censored, dishonest, pseudo-internet. | | Only commenting so younger people don't think your comment | has any merit or honesty. | freeflight wrote: | Startpage.com uses Google results, which besides having become | kinda useless, have their own issue with censorship [0] | | [0] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/11/04/goog-n04.html | Djrhfbfnsks wrote: | Google is also censoring a large list of search terms when | used in combination with reddit. For example, you'll get zero | results for "site:reddit.com underage". | _trampeltier wrote: | Any idea about, what the blacked words would be? | Jolter wrote: | Names, phone numbers, addresses. | nathias wrote: | Of course they do, I'm more interested in why all other nation | states are okay with having the US spy on their citizens. Does | that make Google noncompliant with EU law or is there a | convenient privacy policy exception for the 'good guys'? | tyingq wrote: | I'm confused how anyone would think a keyword warrant was | constitutionally ok. Curious what the argument looks like. I | don't see how it passes tests for "unreasonable" or "broad". | Lendal wrote: | The article does say "specific addresses and phone numbers." So | if a legal warrant can be issued for police to stake out a | specific address, or wiretap a specific phone number, why would | it be worse to have another legal warrant for asking Google for | information about searches for that same address or phone | number? | tyingq wrote: | I suppose because searches sometimes feel partially like | thoughts and partially like actions. They also mentioned | "names" and not just phone numbers. In any case, names/phone | numbers/addresses are often ambiguous, so it's trawling in | things that don't feel like probable cause. | | There's also a screenshot of one warranted search in the | article that had no names/addresses/phone numbers. They | wanted everyone that searched for combinations of | "cardboard", "bomb", etc: https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/1 | 0/06/15/48837793-10063665... That's very "thought crime" to | me. | | Pre-internet, it feels like a warrant for anyone that ran | their finger down page xyz of the phone book. | mywittyname wrote: | > Pre-internet, it feels like a warrant for anyone that ran | their finger down page xyz of the phone book. | | More like inquiring for / looking at certain books in the | library. Which is something I'm sure happened all the time, | historically. | tyingq wrote: | >in the library | | Maybe, if "in the library" means "in almost every library | in the nation for each warrant". | t-writescode wrote: | People who do these things don't think about the | constitutionality and are decidedly "ends justify the means". | tyingq wrote: | They do have have to get a judge to sign it though. So | presumably the judge at least thinks about the implications. | [deleted] | ectopod wrote: | I imagine that a randomly chosen judge would, but I don't | imagine that the FBI gets their dodgy warrants signed by a | randomly chosen judge. | intunderflow wrote: | Some of these keyword orders seem obscene in terms of how many | people they target: | | > ("fragmentation") AND ("bomb" OR "explosive" OR "ied" OR | "explosion" OR "pipebomb" OR "pipe bomb" OR "PVC bomb") | hellojesus wrote: | I think that's the point. It gives the government an easy in to | collect more data on any and all of these users, regardless of | whether it is pertinent to a specific case. | throwaway0a5e wrote: | Exactly. Gotta start collecting danger on every teenager who | downloads the anarchist cookbook on the off chance they | become a far right truck bomber in the next 20yr. | | Yet every time something happens it seems like the suspect | was on law enforcement's radar and they did nothing. Odd. Oh | well, I'm sure a bigger data haystack to find needles in will | solve that. /s | Mountain_Skies wrote: | Or more likely, any teenager who grows up to be an | inconvenient political figure that the establishment at the | time (which might or might not be ideologically different | than the current establishment) wants to get rid of. | boibombeiro wrote: | you misspeled communist | cogman10 wrote: | You can look up terrorism incidents in the US [1]. | | Far right extremism is far more likely the reason for | terrorism in the US vs far left extremism. In recent | years, 115 far right attacks vs 19 far left (from 2008 -> | 2016). And that's with adding another category for | Islamic terrorism (63) (which, in and of itself would be | far right terrorism.) | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United | _States | foobiekr wrote: | this is true today, but the right has never come close to | the left in 1970. | | [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22571602-days-of- | rage | 1cvmask wrote: | The FBI has a great track record of successfully | thwarting Islamic terrorist plots that it creates: | | https://www.salon.com/2010/11/28/fbi_8/ | | https://theintercept.com/2015/02/26/fbi-manufacture- | plots-te... | | https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/16/fbi- | entrapment... | | https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/15/magazine/fbi- | internationa... | bryanrasmussen wrote: | well I mean generally far right terrorism isn't described | or charged as terrorism is it? So it seems unlikely that | they would track a white kid in case they turned in to a | far right terrorist, because the narrative is that's not | a problem. | | Incompatible narratives should be resolved in one | direction or another. | 0des wrote: | Didn't the mostly white population of protestors at the | capitol get threatened with terrorism charges or | something of that nature? | flatt wrote: | >19 far left (from 2008 -> 2016) And after the summer of | 2020, the number for the far left should easily be in the | thousands. We'll have to wait to see how that gets | recorded. | phkahler wrote: | >> It gives the government an easy in to collect more data on | any and all of these users, regardless of whether it is | pertinent to a specific case. | | That seems a little tinfoil hat to me. Like there are | government people with lots of time on their hands to chase | leads on things that are _not_ related to a case. OTOH there | seems to be a lot of pre-emptive searching going on, | particularly in the area of terrorism related activity. On | the other other hand, in that case I think we want them to | foil plots before they are enacted right? It seems to be a | hard set of concerns to balance. We could opt for the most | privacy oriented approach, but I don 't think there's much | public data on what the consequences of that would be in | terms of bad things happening. | mikeyouse wrote: | Right - the warrant indicates they're only interested in | people from Texas searching for those terms in a two month | period immediately before the active bombings. Feels a lot | like a warrant to a hardware store for people buying a | specific component they've found at crime scenes. | | Of course Daily Mail stripped that context. | | > _The information requested in this Application is being | sought by the FBI, in part, to establish who searched for | the Google Search Terms between January 1, 2018 to March 2, | 2018._ | | > _While I believe that a pool of individuals searching for | these bomb components or methods during the time frame | prior to the explosions at the victim addresses will be | limited, the pool of individuals will be minimal if limited | to searches originating from Texas. By identifying the | users of the Google accounts or IP addresses of the devices | that searched Google for these terms and cross-referencing | that data with other investigatory steps such as cellular | telephone records, a suspect(s) or witness(es) may be | identified._ | | https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21077351/google- | keywo... | dvogel wrote: | If the image is accurate I think "motion led" would also be in | scope for initial collection. There is a filtering process | after the search term net that determines whether it is in | scope for the warrant. Given the dubious framing of these | search terms and past examples like the NSA watching every | Linux Journal visitor I'm disinclined to trust such a process. | RIP to work schedule of the poor intern who has to weed out all | the results for suburban parents setting up Halloween | decorations with glowing eyes. | Beaver117 wrote: | It's motion ied not LED | Ekaros wrote: | I wonder what is the minimal set of English words covering all | search engine users... | reuben364 wrote: | I would guess {"google"} would cover almost all users. | tata71 wrote: | . | reuben364 wrote: | By my interpretation, the empty set would cover no users, | not all of them. | cronix wrote: | For the bottom of your email, website's hidden text, etc. | | DISCLAIMER: We do not endorse bombs, explosives, (insert other | key words). | waterhouse wrote: | Emacs has you covered with M-x spook. FMD MI5 | Pork AMTRAK New Federation Erosion Ansar al-Islam Suicide | attack Avian Hazmat MSCJ Chemical weapon ATF SABC Collapse | AlbertCory wrote: | I'm not a Constitutional scholar, but I would bet SCOTUS rules | this kind of warrant illegal. Google certainly has the resources | to take the case that far. | | AFAIK a warrant usually is tied to a specific person or a | specific crime. In other words, if an explosion killed Harry | McHarryface, then it would be constitutional to ask for names of | people who searched for Harry. | | Or if the fertilizer used in the bomb was shown to have been | purchased on March 10, then _maybe_ a search for "fertilizer" in | the weeks before March 10 would be allowed. | | But not a generic search. | | Just my opinion that's not legal advice. | gowld wrote: | Your first paragraph contradicts the next two paragraphs. | UIUC_06 wrote: | Would you care to explain that? | [deleted] | LatteLazy wrote: | You'd think so. But for 20 years plus justices at all levels | have been very happy signing off secret warrants, ultra wide | warrants, back dates warrants and other bs. It seems the | judiciary don't (want to) understand computers well enough. | They just accept government claims of necessity. | 28uwedj wrote: | Hey got a sec? check our this cute dog | https://google.com/search?q=bomb | iammisc wrote: | Does the current administration follow SCOTUS rulings? | | Edit: why am I being downvotes? The president explicitly stated | his plan to ignore another SCOTUS ruling | stjohnswarts wrote: | The President is basically the head of law enforcement in the | federal government. Police organizations in the USA have a | long history of pushing the limits of what is Constitutional. | After all, they just want to get their job done and leave it | up to the judiciary to decide what is Constitutional. | gowld wrote: | Can you link to info about that? | iammisc wrote: | https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-08-04/biden | -... | | > The president knows this. He told the press that his | administration had surveyed the opinions of constitutional | scholars, and that most thought an extension would be | unlawful. Yet under political pressure from the left, Biden | nevertheless ultimately decided to issue the extension. | | In other words: SCOTUS wrote words clearly indicating a ban | would be illegal. By a technicality (expiration date), they | didn't issue an explicit ruling. Biden did it anyway, while | admitting he knew it was illegal. | Spivak wrote: | Seems like a good political move though, now the courts | actually have to make the administration stop and get all | the negative heat from putting people on the street. I | mean the supreme law of the land let an order they | believed was unconstitutional stand because of their | personal moral imperatives and empathy toward renters. Is | it really that crazy to shoot your shot and see if they | do it again? Like the whole situation is nuts -- "I think | this is unconstitutional but I'm not going to say so | because the law is gonna expire soon." If that's really | the case then you could rule the other way with a clear | conscience since it's only a few days. Taking a bet that | it was a bluff with little downsides if your wrong seems | like a no brainer. | | And the administration gets to say they did all they | could and it's up to congress now. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _let a law they believed was unconstitutional_ | | Nobody alleged anything was unconstitutional. The | question was whether the CDC exceeded the authority | Congress gave it. The Court declined to answer that | question when it was first raised. It answered it, | definitively, the second time, striking down the | moratorium extension. | Spivak wrote: | Right, my only point was that it essentially cost the | administration nothing to extend it on the chance that | they would decline again or vote differently when it | actually mattered. | RattleyCooper wrote: | At least with the eviction moratorium, it was ruled | unconstitutional by scotus and biden doubled down and | enacted a new illegal eviction moratorium. | | Seems like they are kind of picking and choosing what rules | they'll follow, and which rights they think people deserve | mattkrause wrote: | No, it wasn't. | | The Court originally declined to vacate the stay in a 5-4 | decision. The fifth vote was from Kavanaugh, who wrote | that he _thought_ the stay should be vacated, but wasn 't | voting to do so because the moratorium was about to | expire anyway. That concurrence is certainly informative, | but doesn't override his _actual vote_ to maintain the | stay. | | The second moratorium was quickly overturned, with | Kavanaugh voting this time in accordance with his | opinion. In any case, the administration did actually | follow that ruling. | | This is taken directly from the actual decision (the | first round is discussed on page 4): https://www.supremec | ourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/21a23_ap6c.pdf | [deleted] | wayoutthere wrote: | Yeah the SCOTUS has basically no legitimacy left at both the | federal and state level. States are routinely ignoring | Supreme Court rulings and have for years, and federal | agencies don't listen to them either anymore. | | The rule of law in the US is on life support right now. | Another Trump presidency will kick the patient out the | window. | stjohnswarts wrote: | Another Trump presidency will be the end of democracy in | the USA. He will install cronies at the top of the military | leadership and do exactly what Erdogan did in Turkey. It's | as sure a thing as the sun rising. He will not depend on a | bunch of untrained rabble to take over the Capitol next | time. | vimacs2 wrote: | The only objection I have to this post that I have is the | notion that there was a democracy there to begin with. | Before Julius Caesar attempted (unsuccessfully) to | monopolise power in the Old Republic, there was already a | ever widening chasm between the farmers that made up the | bulk of Roman citizenry and the people in the Senate. | | All Caesar had to do was harness this growing discontent | of the masses through his fake populism and having | undying loyalty in much of the army helped as well. | | It took just one generation after Ceasars assassination | for the establishment of the Imperium and the dissolution | of the Republic. | | Trump might or might not be reinstated but the beginning | of the end of the American experiment has already been | set in motion. | | The only way to save it is through a radical | reorganisation of power to counter the one to come but | the establishment want to keep returning to the supposed | Utopia that was in place before Trump - missing the | obvious fact that it was their "utopia" that lead to | Trump in the first place. | edmundsauto wrote: | Wasn't there a history of political violence and rabble | rousing in Rome for a century or two before Rome? I | thought the Imperium cleaned up a lot of the problems | that Rome had for a while, at the cost of the democracy | (which was really a plutocracy, until populism become | more effective). | | I could be wrong, since it's been some years. | brobdingnagians wrote: | We are in another Trump presidency for all practical | purposes. Increasing surveillance, rule by executive order, | no respect for the press, no transparency, business as | usual, threatening other countries. Not much has changed. | stjohnswarts wrote: | Not even close. Another Trump regime will spell the end | of any democracy at all in the USA. He will finish the | fascist insurrection that he started. | themitigating wrote: | Can you provide a source? | iammisc wrote: | https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-08-04/biden | -... | | > The president knows this. He told the press that his | administration had surveyed the opinions of constitutional | scholars, and that most thought an extension would be | unlawful. Yet under political pressure from the left, Biden | nevertheless ultimately decided to issue the extension. | | In other words: SCOTUS wrote words clearly indicating a ban | would be illegal. By a technicality (expiration date), they | didn't issue an explicit ruling. Biden did it anyway, while | admitting he knew it was illegal. | root_axis wrote: | So in your own words the court did not issue a ruling, | yet your original comment explicitly mentions a ruling | without further elaboration. That seems disingenuous | because without knowing what actually happened a reader | could be easily mislead to believe that a ruling was | actually issued, which is the only thing that matters | with respect to the legal authority of the POTUS/SCOTUS. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _SCOTUS wrote words clearly indicating a ban would be | illegal. By a technicality (expiration date), they didn | 't issue an explicit ruling. Biden did it anyway, while | admitting he knew it was illegal._ | | SCOTUS said the moratorium exceeded the CDC's legal | authority, but declined to strike it down given it was | soon expiring [1]. (They also strongly suggested that if | POTUS tried renewing, they _would_ strike it down.) POTUS | tried renewing. SCOTUS struck it down. | | None of this is properly construed as POTUS ignoring | SCOTUS. When SCOTUS struck down the law, POTUS obliged. | | [1] https://www.scotusblog.com/2021/06/divided-court- | leaves-evic... | iammisc wrote: | This is next level rationalizing. For a president to say | in no clear terms that he is going to make a rule he | knows is illegal is something else. | | At least other administrations justify their attempts to | break the law and mount some defense. | jahewson wrote: | No this is Kavanaugh trying to have his cake and eat it | by saying one thing and doing another. He ducked out of | making a ruling and Biden forced him to do so. | | The court doesn't get to make law by threatening to make | law. They have to actually do it. | rpmisms wrote: | The court doesn't, or at least shouldn't, make law. | jonas21 wrote: | What are you talking about? The court ruled in favor of | the administration in the first case, and against it in | the second one. The administration complied after the | second decision. This is how checks and balances work. | Talanes wrote: | It's not an illegal rule until the Supreme Court actually | makes a ruling. The Supreme Court does not determine Law | merely by speaking. | mywittyname wrote: | This kind of thing happens all the time though. The most | salient instances being when states enact abortion | restrictions that are known to be unconstitutional and | were historically subject to injunctions and ruled | against. | | There isn't a mechanism to stop unconstitutional laws | from being passed or left on the books. | [deleted] | [deleted] | cronix wrote: | SCOTUS also said the eviction ban needed to be an act of | congress. Congress debated it since then and couldn't | come up with something they agreed on, so nothing was | passed. So then, on the 2nd go around, Biden is using the | CDC to come up with it, again, bypassing the congress | which SCOTUS said was the only legal path forward. | Congress could grant the CDC the authority to do so, but | it hasn't. I think bypassing SCOTUS can only be argued to | be intentional on the 2nd round. | | https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-supreme- | court-st... | mattkrause wrote: | Is doing something that the Supreme Court _may_ later | overturn--and bear in mind it was a close decision-- | actually "illegal"? | | I could certainly see the argument that it's ill-advised, | and indeed, it was struck down a few weeks later. | However, I don't think concurring opinions are binding | and you could imagine certain fact patterns that might | have changed Kavanaugh's mind: Congress agrees on a | similar extension, but there's a short gap before it | comes into effect, the situation worsens dramatically, | the extension is much more narrowly tailored, etc. | chmod775 wrote: | > Is doing something that the Supreme Court may later | overturn--and bear in mind it was a close decision-- | actually "illegal"? | | It's not illegal at all. Making it illegal would never | work in practice. | | It is however supposed to be politically embarrassing and | should in theory hurt your party. | | However right now, in practice, due to the polarized two- | party shit show that is US politics at the top level, it | doesn't matter. The constituents haven proven to lack | both will and tools to hold their elected representatives | accountable, who in turn have learned they can get away | with pretty much anything. | | What could they have done to avoid a president who would | behave that way? Elect Trump? Hah. | [deleted] | dahfizz wrote: | >why am I being downvotes? The president explicitly stated | his plan to ignore another SCOTUS ruling | | People only think executive overreach is cool as long as they | can ignore the downsides. | adolph wrote: | %s/current/any/ | [deleted] | RattleyCooper wrote: | Look at it this way, if a car is involved in a drive-by | shooting the police can't get a warrant to search every single | home that has the same year/make/model of car registered to | with that address. For a legal warrant you have to have | probable cause that a specific person committed a crime. You | can't just search everybody and see what sticks, that's | blatantly unconstitutional. | 6510 wrote: | If the car was used multiple shootings, the same phone was in | that area and the phone was used to search for the victims | name every time then we have everything we need but are | unwilling to use it? | | We can probably figure out how to extract such data and cross | reference it without making any of it available to random | government employees. | | Say you take pictures of license plates, store the data some | place safe and allow a query of 5 recent armed robbery | locations. If the result contains multiple cars matching 2 | locations no results are returned. The moment a 6th robbery | happens and a single car matches 3 out of 5 law enforcement | can start looking for it immediately. | | Sure, you'd get pretty mad if every time you get robbed the | police searches your vehicle but they don't need to break | anything and you will get over it. | Talanes wrote: | >Sure, you'd get pretty mad if every time you get robbed | the police searches your vehicle but they don't need to | break anything and you will get over it. | | Or I'll stop calling the police, especially if that first | invasive experience doesn't end with my belongings | returned. | 6510 wrote: | Right, that seems a whole different problem that should | really be addressed. In the Netherlands the police are | the politest people one could ever meet. It takes very | few complaints about politeness or excess force to lose | the job. Ofc on the flip side they are also highly | incompetent, have no tools, get to see just about ever | crook released, are under paid and are very | unprofessional. But polite, woah! | vimacs2 wrote: | Cute attempt at establishing a completely made up | dichotomy but generally the politeness of a police force | is correlated with how effective it is, not inversely. | AlbertCory wrote: | There's a pretty broad statement. Evidence? | NullPrefix wrote: | >Or I'll stop calling the police, especially if that | first invasive experience doesn't end with my belongings | returned. | | Oh my sweet summer child. Calling the police is never | about getting the belongings back. Calling the police is | only about striking the perpetrator with violence, hoping | that it would equalize the karma levels. | 6510 wrote: | I'm beginning to see that now. Its just like the | aggressive down voting shootin from the hip. People here | cant even entertain the technical challenge of it - | eventho the problem is [apparently] assumed to be | impossible. I knew US police had a bad rep but I never | imagined the service to be this worthless. | | I often think we need to bring back something like monks | who selflessly deliver a service in exchange for an | isolated life of study and meditation. | | We have way to many shit people who cant be trusted with | anything and make poor company. | s5300 wrote: | The police in my hometown consist of: | | * A dude who managed solid D grades throughout | _elementary and middle school_ despite a good & | supportive family life & voluntarily chose to hold | himself back a grade (8th grade) to "have a better chance | of a football career to get into the NFL" | | * A dude who, for as long as I can literally remember, | talked about how he was going to be some kickass marine. | Talked about it all the time, for years. He was also a | solid D (even in shop class) student & football player. | Not only did he fail, to my knowledge, in every metric | required to be a marine - he managed to fail, which I | truly didn't know was possible, every metric required to | be an _army grunt_ - except presumably the physical | requirements. It wouldn 't be hard for me to imagine him | failing a cardio requirement tho. | | This dude couldn't get in the lowest levels of our | fucking army. I really only thought you could be | disqualified for things like admitting to drugs or having | felonies, but he managed to fuck up some test of | intelligence they require. | | * & several generations of people who are similar fuckups | like these two. | | Now, what do people like this on a police force manage to | get up to? | | Last month, there was a domestic violence call somewhere | in the town. By the time the cops got there, dude was out | on the curb, in his car, with his kid (wife had said he | had a gun and threatened her with it, he did not have a | gun) | | Police haphazardly blocked him into the curb with their | cruisers, and surrounded him with their guns out, in a | crossfire with themselves. Proceeded to scream absolutely | incoherent shit at the dude, while he's in the turned off | & parked car with his hands clearly visible on the wheel | - kid in the back seat, for about 10 minutes. Dude | finally decides nothing good is going to come out of this | & decides to attempt to leave. Turns car on, very slowly | tries to turn out of how they'd blocked him in, and | _very_ slightly bumps a cruisers bumper (nobody was in | the cruiser) | | One cop then randomly decides to shoot. Keep in mind, I | earlier mentioned the cops put themselves in their own | crossfire. I have _absolutely_ no fucking idea how, but | one cop shot the other cop in the shoulder. This was the | very first bullet fired by anybody, and as stated, the | perp didn 't even have a gun. | | Cop yells out he's hit, and then all cops present go fish | in a fucking barrel on the car, with the child in it, to | the tune of 67 bullets IIRC. | | The local news &, as you can assume, all Facebook groups, | report that the man opened fire on police, and that the | cops had then killed him. All comment sections swarmed | with the local painkiller addicted retirement community | saying "good, he should be dead" - and that reporting is | now unchallengeable canon in their dementia ridden but | still able to vote minds. | | There's still an ongoing investigation by the state as to | how the chucklefuck cop managed to go full retard enough | to blast his buddy, but having gone on so long I'm sure | it's going to end up as another "we've investigated | ourselves and found no wrong doing" | | The service isn't "worthless" | | It's downright fucking dangerous to anything and | everything around it, like the person legally in the | crosswalk, who was hit at 120mph+ by a cop SUV and turned | into mostly red mist, no significant body parts to be | found, by one of the squadrons of cops responding to the | aforementioned call. | Zababa wrote: | > Calling the police is only about striking the | perpetrator with violence, hoping that it would equalize | the karma levels. | | Or, you know, prevent them from doing crimes again. | blacksmith_tb wrote: | Well, generally you need to file a police report to file | an insurance claim, so whether or not they do you any | good (or even harm), you don't have a lot of alternatives | (unless you don't have insurance, in which case you also | don't have a lot of alternatives, likely). | jonas21 wrote: | On the other hand, if a specific type of nail is used as | shrapnel in a homemade bomb, investigators _can_ go around to | all hardware stores in the area and ask for security camera | footage of customers who recently bought large quantities of | that type of nail. | | This isn't a hypothetical situation - according to the LA | Times, it's how they cracked the Austin bombing case that | involved the Google warrant [1]: | | > _Trying to find the buyer of the nails, officials "went to | every hardware store" in the area to find customers who had | made large purchases, and they struck gold with a Home Depot | store in the Austin suburb of Round Rock, McCaul said in an | interview with the Los Angeles Times._ | | > _"The fatal mistake that led law enforcement to him -- | because he was pretty good at evading surveillance cameras -- | was when he walked into Home Depot," McCaul said. | Investigators obtained surveillance video of Conditt walking | into the store in a wig and walking back out to a vehicle | with a license plate connected to his name._ | | So I think there's a little more nuance here. Certainly | matching just on a list of fairly generic terms seems too | broad. But a warrant for specific keywords that was limited | to a specific city and time frame might be analogous to going | to all the hardware stores in the city and pulling security | footage? | | [1] https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-austin-bombings- | suspect... | thaumasiotes wrote: | The police can ask for anything. It's not the same thing as | ordering something. | jonas21 wrote: | Indeed! It seems the reason they had to get a warrant for | Google is that Google cares about user privacy and | doesn't just hand over the requested data unless they're | compelled to do so. It's unclear whether they got a | warrant for any of the hardware stores of if they stores | simply gave up the data when asked. | zamfi wrote: | > For a legal warrant you have to have probable cause that a | specific person committed a crime. You can't just search | everybody and see what sticks, that's blatantly | unconstitutional. | | Sure, though it's worth noting that nothing prohibits the | police from walking down the street and _asking_ people. | Those people don't have to talk to the police, but... | | Google will fight warrants like this. AT&T doesn't. Other | companies have varying policies on this. | | Obviously, one can't assume data is not available to law | enforcement merely because the police would need a warrant to | get it over a possessor's objections. | CoastalCoder wrote: | Neither am I a constitutional scholar, but I'm less optimistic | about this being ruled illegal. | | But it's for a somewhat meta-reason: there have been numerous | cases where something strikes me as blatantly unconstitutional, | but the SCOTUS has allowed it anyway. | Maximus9000 wrote: | Is there a better source on this? Daily Mail is terrible: | | https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/daily-mail/ | bduerst wrote: | It's blog-/reprint-spam of the original Forbes Article: | | https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2021/10/04/googl... | jdgoesmarching wrote: | The Daily Mail is terrible, but so is Media Bias fact check. | Their methodology is a joke regardless of your politics. | alexpw wrote: | Which alternative to MBFC is preferred? AllSides or | AdFontesMedia or? | exhilaration wrote: | Forbes appears to be the original source and is linked in the | article: | https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2021/10/04/googl... | myfavoritedog wrote: | mediabiasfactcheck looks pretty terrible too. A quick spot | survey of who they think is left, right, and accurate is | obviously off. Then when you look at the biased organizations | they leverage for they're "fact checking", you can't have much | hope for the end results. | | How can you trust an information source analysis site built | upon untrustworthy information sources? | | "fact checking" is just another power center that is easily | taken over by those seeking political power. | verisimi wrote: | "Accidental leak reveals US government _has_ secretly hit Google | with 'keyword warrants' to identify ANYONE searching certain | names, addresses, and phone numbers" | | This is historical - it is disclosure. | | Talk about the constitution all you like, but was anyone in any | doubt that they were already doing this? That they suck up all | the data from media companies to have a mega-graph? That they are | running accurate simulations of us (Sentient World Simulation), | in order to better manage us? | | And don't expect anything to change - Google et al could change | this is a minute - they have the lobbyists to get whatever they | want. They don't want. This is good for the government and the | corporations. In fact, what's the difference? We are living in | technocratic fascism. | greenail wrote: | It would suck if you were interested in the Polish efforts to | decrypt enigma and you searched for 'bombe' but you get | redirected via the spelling correction feature into government | surveillance. How likely would a spelling correction get you | swept up in this? | JumpCrisscross wrote: | Are these keyword warrants signed off on by a judge? | gowld wrote: | Yes. | literallyaduck wrote: | The only sensible solution is to name JS and CSS frameworks using | the keyword list. | baud147258 wrote: | I'm not really sure it's a idea that's usable, I mean the | results of the framework would end up below results on actual | explosions, so it'd be a PITA to search for information... I | remember one tool called Beaver that was part of a deployement, | really annoying to track down the documentation and existing | issues | hwers wrote: | This is a wonderful civil disobedience type idea. If our | industry had any guts we'd actually do this. | bellyfullofbac wrote: | It would have to be popular for the keyword poisoning to | work, but it probably won't get popular with a weird name.. | | "Yeah in my last project I developed a web app based on | BinLaden Framework and IsisDB".. | hwers wrote: | I'm sure we can figure out something cleverer. Maybe use | one of the more obscure names or a tagged phone number in | some clever way. | beermonster wrote: | Reminds me when the trigger keywords for Echelon[1] leaked on | the internet [2] | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON | | [2] | https://www.theregister.com/2001/05/31/what_are_those_words/ | pcrh wrote: | How useful is that list if it includes words like fish, | cards, redhead, Texas, and so forth? | rpmisms wrote: | > Glock 26 - a ceramic handgun that can't be detected by | airport scanners (a reader informs us that the Glock 26 is | only partly ceramic, the bullets are metal and is can be | detected at airports - so we should really shift this one | into the X-file list) | | They pulled this directly from "Die Hard", the Glock 26 is | just a cut-down Glock 19, with a big fat metal slide being | integral to the gun's functionality. | _fat_santa wrote: | Federal agents raided the home of John Doe this morning, | accused of searching for terms such a "PipeBombJS" and "IED | components for React". The suspect was making pour over coffee | when he was apprehended. | gnurqdio wrote: | Real case: the default installer for GNUradio is called | "pybombs". Last time I searched for it, google tried to auto- | correct to one of those bad terms: | | https://github.com/gnuradio/pybombs | coolspot wrote: | Correction: the suspect was holding an object resembling an | improvised explosive device when he was fatally shot. | jaclaz wrote: | Correction: the police forces that intervened reported how | the suspect was holding an object resembling an improvised | explosive device when he was fatally shot. | adolph wrote: | Real life: | | _This bullet killed Vicki Weaver, who was standing | behind the door in the cabin where Harris entered.[108] | Vicki was holding the Weavers ' 10-month-old baby | Elisheba._ | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Ridge | baud147258 wrote: | I've seen the same terms ("the bullet killed") used to | describe the recent death of Halyna Hutchins on set of | Alec Baldwin's film | haroldp wrote: | https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- | watch/wp/2014/07/14/... | coolspot wrote: | OP's quote misses context. | | Vicky Weaver was killed through a door by a sniper firing | at someone else. | | A sentence before the quoted one attributes the bullet to | the sniper. | angst_ridden wrote: | Correction: there was an officer-involved explosion when | security forces investigated a suspected terrorist's | kitchen / chemistry lab. | [deleted] | ajmurmann wrote: | Don't the results already get ruined by people needing help | with video games? | mvdwoord wrote: | This is genius. | etblg wrote: | There was a free to play FPS game called "Dirty Bomb" (made by | Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory's Splash Damage). Always felt a | little weird googling that name. | thegabez wrote: | Brave and Brave search have been great. | bduerst wrote: | IIRC, _Brave Search_ is a skin for Bing and Google search | engines. These fed orders went out to Google, Microsoft, and | Yahoo. | wolverine876 wrote: | How does Brave search compare to DuckDuckGo, Startpage, and | Qwant? | nbzso wrote: | Hardened Firefox and https://searx.me/ are great to.:) | beebeepka wrote: | How does one harden Firefox? What's there beyond Tor browser | and/or noscript? | AzzieElbab wrote: | it is like regular Firefox but really hard to install. It | will also kill you if it crashes | circularfoyers wrote: | https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js There are hundreds of | settings that can be configured to harden Firefox. A lot | were upstreamed from the Tor Browser via the Tor Uplift | project. The afforementioned user.js is well documented and | the most well maintained that I'm aware of. | | This is one of the leading reasons why I think Firefox is a | better browser than competitors because they don't allow | this level of customization without hacking on the source | code, like say Brave does. However not even Brave or | Ungoogled Chromium is hardened as much as Firefox is with | this user.js. | akomtu wrote: | You shouldn't think it's just the Search. Google also owns Chrome | and Android. | hdjjhhvvhga wrote: | It may be an unpopular opinion, but I'm kind of fine with that. I | mean, Google tracks everybody anyway, but there is no benefit to | the society at large. But if in this way you can somehow help | preventing mass murder, at least for once this tracking is put to | good use. I imagine they must have a lot of false positives so | probably concentrate on the worst offenders. If someone is | searching for a lot of sick stuff on ways to kill people, maybe a | friendly visit with a psychologist could help prevent a tragedy. | neonate wrote: | https://archive.md/r5jBp | dhosek wrote: | Anyone else finding themselves wanting to go to Google and try | all these searches? | djKianoosh wrote: | just make a google search link go viral "you won't believe what | the government doesn't want you to know!!" and every boomer and | their mother is now a person of interest | CptFribble wrote: | Various leaks over the years have showed us how when programs | doing icky stuff are revealed, they are "shut down" only to be | recycled as new secret programs with "new" mandates doing exactly | the same thing. | | After Snowden, it'd be naive to assume that the US government | isn't still vacuuming up every possible source of data that it | can. | | It is also naive to assume that the various data brokers doing | the same thing for commercial purposes aren't also open books to | the various 3-letter agencies. | Willish42 wrote: | While folks are right to point out this should be expected since | Snowden, I think it's worth acknowledging that the cozy | relationship between government and tech companies dates a bit | further back. Enabling this kind of trakcing was the stated goal | behind research grants from the same three-letter-agencies during | Google's foundational years. | | https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-ci... | t-writescode wrote: | I recall reading stories about librarians actively refusing to | give, effectively, exactly the same information back in the day. | | How we have fallen. | Mountain_Skies wrote: | Same with video rental information after Robert Bork's rental | history was leaked and all of Congress realized the same thing | could happen to any of them, regardless of party. If the | Patriot Act didn't kill it off, the wording of the law along | with the switch to streaming likely has rendered it mostly | ineffective. | WalterBright wrote: | I've always assumed that was the case. | | It's sort of like the license plate readers some communities have | installed at the entryways to their community. Not only does it | track people who aren't part of the community, it tracks all the | comings and goings of the members, too. Oops. | | If the information is there, it'll be used. | tootahe45 wrote: | They asked Microsoft also. So does anybody know whether Windows | would be logging searches at the OS level? ik about the windows | search menu being logged, but interesting whether they actually | intercept web searches. | web2sucks wrote: | Next headline "DuckDuckGo is used for terrorism" | mywittyname wrote: | DuckDuckBoom | ourmandave wrote: | DuckB4Boom | [deleted] | tehwebguy wrote: | Maybe the correct response to unconstitutional, secret warrants | is to refuse to comply, maybe even refuse to respond? | | It's not clear to me what would happen next but I can't imagine | Pichai would be arrested. Maybe a datacenter would be raided | (could FBI even guess where this data might be physically | located?) but at least then some public action would have to | happen and break the secrecy. | BitwiseFool wrote: | I would love for this to be viable. But I can't help but think | there are all sorts of ways for our intelligence agencies to | ruin a person's life for not complying. I'm not even suggesting | some kind of spy-novel intrigue, you can just tell them to | comply or they'll drag you and your company through the mud | until they get what they want. Imagine taking a principled | stand and then suddenly having your life examined under a | microscope by the FBI or the IRS. It would be a totally | unrelated audit, just how some people tend to be subject to | random additional screening at airports. | hwers wrote: | This is what I fear is going to happen once surveillance-type | robots start appearing in the streets. The narrative is that | we'd somehow destroy them on sight but the truth is that that | would be criminally persecuted. | adventured wrote: | Both things will happen. In some locations they will be | destroyed despite the potential consequences, in other | locations the population will rationalize their presence as | being a good thing. It'll vary by affluence, culture. Poor | people will tolerate them a lot less than rich people (rich | people will believe that they make the area safer and will | accept the trade-off). | Teknoman117 wrote: | Just remember Qwest and Joseph Nacchio. | | It's entirely plausible he was crooked, but he also claimed | the NSA backed out of a deal with Qwest and then the insider | trading charges showed up after he refused to comply with | their (illegal) requests to spy on their customers. | dukeofdoom wrote: | "Show me the man and I'll show you the crime" was Beria's | infamous boast. He served as deputy premier from 1941 until | Stalin's death in 1953 ... | soperj wrote: | Ironic considering, soon after he was arrested, tried for | treason and other offenses, sentenced to death, and | executed on 23 December 1953. | ComputerGuru wrote: | I don't think ironic is the right word. Just fitting - he | knew the system and the system lived up to his promise. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _It 's entirely plausible he was crooked, but he also | claimed the NSA backed out of a deal with Qwest and then | the insider trading charges showed up after he refused to | comply with their (illegal) requests to spy on their | customers_ | | Read the charge sheet [1]. Is it possible that the NSA | walked over to the SEC and asked them to prioritise this? | Sure, why not. Is it also pretty clear cut that he insider | traded? Yes. | | [1] https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2005-36.htm | toolz wrote: | It's difficult to win in an SEC governed market that is | corrupt by design. You'd need a competitive advantage | large enough to bridge the SECs designed corruption in | the market. | tyre wrote: | What does this even mean? That it's difficult to make | your stock go up because the SEC has rigged the market? | | Read through Tesla's history with the SEC, specifically | Musk being immature and committing securities fraud on | Twitter. They've fined him and the company, and there is | no love lost between the two, but TSLA is still going up. | ampdepolymerase wrote: | You forget the other company he manages. | toolz wrote: | Spend even just a couple hours researching dark pools and | naked shorts and it becomes blindingly obvious the SEC | exists to do anything but protect consumers. | | The twitter outrage over elon's comments are nothing more | than a woefully uninformed public hoping to remove the | tip without addressing the iceburg underneath. | | If every one of your competition doesn't have to play by | the rules, you'll find it hard to beat them playing | honestly and you'll find that over time the only winners | left are the cheaters. | NovemberWhiskey wrote: | I know all about dark pools and naked shorts and I have | no idea what you're talking about. Be specific. Give | details. | unethical_ban wrote: | One could argue that's the problem: They got a slap on | the wrist instead of crippling punishment for illegal | behavior, and there are companies that may be farther in | the electric vehicle game than they are today, because | they _didn 't_ employ a grandiose, law-flouting CEO to | prop up their stock. | shkkmo wrote: | I still see significant issues with using the threat of | finicial repercussions and criminal charges to force | dirty executives to comply with illegal efforts to spy on | their customers. | | This is problematic not just because of the violations of | those customers' rights, but also because it creates | perverse incentives for the government to encourage the | success of dirty tech companies as means to circumvent | constitutional protections. | | Thus while I don't doubt Nacchio's guilt, I absolutely | think that he should have atleast been allowed to use | that argument as a defense in his court case so that the | Government is somewhat discouraged from using such | tactics by the knowledge that it can come to light in | court. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _still see significant issues with using the threat of | finicial repercussions and criminal charges to force | dirty executives to comply with illegal efforts to spy on | their customers_ | | I do too. We just have no evidence this happened. | shkkmo wrote: | > We just have no evidence this happened. | | Any evidence regarding that was suppressed by the judge | due to the possible revealing of classified information. | This sort of suppression is precisely my objection as it | effectively allows the government to operate with | impunity. | | I don't claim to know if the claims were true, I just | think they should have been assessed in court. | onetimemanytime wrote: | >> _Maybe the correct response to unconstitutional, secret | warrants is to refuse to comply, maybe even refuse to respond?_ | | Ummmm, no. Correct response is courts and then comply. Pichai | would lose his job in a minute. | UIUC_06 wrote: | You are ignoring the fact that Tim Cook fought the government | on the San Bernardino shooter, and still has his job. | | The Board is not going to fire Pichai over this, provided he | appears to be fighting through the courts rather than | practicing outright defiance. | onetimemanytime wrote: | you can fight until the case is still in the courts. Then, | it is over. That's what I meant. | pyrale wrote: | The recent documents made public have shown that google doesn't | give a shit about moral integrity. What makes you think that | they would put themselves at risk for some kind of non-monetary | public good? | bduerst wrote: | According to Forbes (who published the unsealed the docs), | nothing is known about whether or not Google, Microsoft, and | Yahoo are even complying with the requests, or to what extent | if they are. | tehjoker wrote: | I know a guy that was working for a defense contractor in the | 2000s that searched his military ranked boss's name on Google | and told me he was told the next day not to do that anymore. | hwers wrote: | I'm not disputing the idea that he was told this but that's a | weird thing to be told just for googling someones name. Maybe | he was just curious about his background and wanted to read | his wikipedia page. | dmoy wrote: | I mean yea, everything you do at work in a defense contractor | is keylogged. They don't need to ask Google, they know what | you're doing on their network. | tehjoker wrote: | He said he did it from home though. I always wondered if he | was making it up or not, but this was the Bush era (not | that that much has changed). | lostlogin wrote: | VPN or company managed device? Seems like something a | vaguely savvy user would keep in mind though. | tehjoker wrote: | I think it was a home device, I don't think this guy was | super savvy though. | tyingq wrote: | I'm assuming he landed somewhere after the search that | his bosses had logs for, like maybe a bio page on some | .mil domain. Back in the 2000's, you still got a referrer | header that included not just "google.com", but also the | search query parameters. | | So if you followed https://www.google.com/search?q=my+ass | hole+boss+joe+schmoe to get to the .mil hosted bio page, | they got to see that. | tehjoker wrote: | That seems plausible, but as this story was related to me | over a decade ago, I can't remember if he said he clicked | on anything in particular. | kevin_thibedeau wrote: | It's not made up. They monitor key sites including social | media and those peddling in sensitive information. | EO12333 makes warrantless searches legal for anyone with | a clearance. It's also a convenient cover for why they | need this extra-judicial domestic surveillance apparatus. | drcoopster wrote: | I'll be the part of the story he didn't tell you is more | interesting. | AlbertCory wrote: | If Sundar decided to fight this (I'm not saying he would), then | Google would probably file for an injunction to quash the | request. No arrests, no raids. | mindslight wrote: | The government and Google are symbiotic entities. Why would | this ever happen? | xxpor wrote: | Not even close. This sort of rhetoric just numbs people to | actual abuses when they happen. | | If you want to see actual symbiotic entities, go look at | social media in China or American defense contractors. | beebeepka wrote: | What's the difference? Sam must have invested in Google | before 2005. At least that was the time it became somewhat | apparent | mindslight wrote: | Without backing up your assertion, we're just talking past | one another. Google the entity relies upon USG's system of | laws for what it can and cannot do. Without Google (et al), | USG would have a much harder time gathering information on | citizens. That's symbiosis. | | There is real downside to Google if it decided to go | against USG's de facto interests, even if it technically | has the de jure ability to do so. What is the upside? The | only large company that has made an attempt to rebuke the | general desires of USG is Apple, which has since | backpedaled with its on device spyware. | | Could this relationship be reformed through the little bit | of leverage that US citizens have over USG? Perhaps. If | you've got another concrete proposal aimed at doing do, | then bring it up. But unless we're discussing a specific | proposal, it's prudent for individual citizens to model the | two as cooperating attackers rather than getting distracted | with hopeful dichotomies such as "government" vs "private | company". | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _Google the entity relies upon USG 's system of laws | for what it can and cannot do_ | | You've defined symbiosis in a way that incorporates every | person, company--and hell protected species--that touches | American law. That makes the term useless for purposes of | discussion. | mindslight wrote: | Eh, kind of. I agree I could have done a better job. I | was trying to quickly summarize this distinction - | | A corporation literally cannot exist without a government | charter. | | Google is able to collect all this surveillance data with | impunity due to the state. Google is able to wash its | hands of responsibility for the results of its actions | due to the state. Google is able to force its workers to | be loyal (eg not embezzle for themselves or competitors) | due to the state. Google wouldn't have such outsized | financial resources without the state printing reams of | fiat money. | | Heading off the common retort that a private person can | do whatever a corporation can do - the relevant issue is | scale. It's simply impractical for an individual or a | simple group of individuals to scale up to the level of a | large corporation. | | And yes, this definition does end up catching any | corporation as an intrinsic organ of the state. While | jarring (because in the US power flows both ways), this | is still a fundamental truth. For example if you attempt | to set up an LLC or corporation that operates at odds | with government policy (eg selling drugs), you'll find | out how quickly a corporate veil will be discarded. | Actions that are at odds with government policy are | defined criminally, and thus all corporate activity is | inherently government chartered. | | Of course all of this is only useful as a lemma to reach | another conclusion. But that's what I was doing - why | would Google ever choose to rock the boat? It's not | impossible (cf Apple), it's just that there would need to | be some explicit incentive for Google beyond mere | citizens' hope. | iammisc wrote: | Honestly this forced choice (either google is in bed with | government or Raytheon et Al are) is just needless | politicization. | | Why don't we just condemn both? I mean... Google is going | down the same path as the defense contractors and instead | of stopping it from evolving into something like them, | you're essentially arguing to look the other way | 1123581321 wrote: | Pichai certainly could be arrested for refusing to comply with | warrants and court orders. | tsimionescu wrote: | In principle, by the letter and spirit of the law (bad as it | is in this case), sure. In practice, I very much doubt anyone | would dare arrest someone with Sundar Pichai's money and | social standing for anything less than murder or insider | trading basically. | karmasimida wrote: | I don't think so. | amelius wrote: | How does that work for EU residents? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-10-25 23:00 UTC)