Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/criminal-justice/ct-jussie-smollett-special-prosecutor-investigation-20200108-j3j3p2dypvf5vbbo5jpxrvcjsq-story.html

by nkurz • 7 years ago

353 393 7 years ago

chicagotribune.com

milesward• 7 years ago

That dude better get another garage for the tape library they're gonna have to send...

0xADADA• 7 years ago

I (and we should all) act as if this could happen to anyone. Essentially that the state can deputize any company to snitch on the digital ephemera that constitutes our daily lives, but especially those that we are deeply engaged: Google, Facebook, Lyft, Amazon.

As such, we should not self-censor, but instead disengage from these proxy-cops and move to more distributed spaces.

kryogen1c• 7 years ago

the state can deputize any company to snitch on the digital ephemera that constitutes our daily lives

this is not true, but in the way that makes your point much, much worse.

In the US, case precedent is already set that digital data that you don't physically own is not yours. IANAL, but my understanding is that the standards for digital search-and-seizure are lower for cloud services, not equivalent or (god-forbid) higher.

abbadadda2• 7 years ago

Right. But I suppose the thing is under it is conveniently (for the prosecution) consolidated under one company's umbrella, so I don't think it totally invalidates OP's point. What about companies such as Proton Mail? Would they just hand over all their data? I don't know. Honestly asking.

abbadadda2• 7 years ago

Queue the Google alternative posts. This is some terrifying stuff.

not just emails but also drafted and deleted messages; any files in their Google Drive cloud storage services; any Google Voice texts, calls and contacts; search and web browsing history; and location data.

paxys2• 7 years ago

The scariest part is that this amount of data access can be very effectively weaponized to build a strong case against anyone. All of us are inadvertently breaking some law or the other all the time. If the government doesn't like you for any reason they are one court order away from blackmailing you or putting you away.

ars3• 7 years ago

Queue the Google alternative posts.

How would that help? They'll just get a warrant for those.

This is some terrifying stuff.

You have a strange definition of terrifying. This is how the law is supposed to work.

You do realize they can also go in his house and search through his things? Or order his friends to talk? That's what search warrants are.

Spooky235• 7 years ago

It should be queue the reduce use of electronic communications posts.

This isn’t a phenomenon unique to Google. Google just attracts attention because of the broad scope of what they do.

perl4ever10• 7 years ago

Keep in mind that instant messages and voicemails, for instance, get produced in court all the time, and that has nothing in particular to do with Google. Calls made from jail are another thing that comes to mind.

(I am not a lawyer but) AFAIK there's no particular form of communication that's immune to discovery but for Google.

nwallin• 7 years ago

What's the difference between this and a normal warrant, where they take every scrap of paper and electronic equipment in your house?

If your objection is that it's weird Google has kept that data, sure. I get it, I use DuckDuckGo, Firefox, and I host my own email server on a VPN. I'm struggling to understand why this particular aspect is weird though. It seems totally normal that the government would seek this information as part of a criminal probe.

drevil-v27• 7 years ago

State has a duty to prosecute law breakers. This is a load bearing wall of civil society. Everywhere.

Making sweeping general statements is good for riling up the mobs but I would implore HN readers to be more pragmatic about these things.

Look at the context. This person sought to ignite racial tensions for personal gain. He was given a sweetheart deal. The State is going after him and those protected him. They (the State prosecutors) have every right to collect and gather evidence to build the case.

avs7332• 7 years ago

yes we have seen you know how to make this comment.

Another way to look at that 'duty' is to say [The] state has a responsibility to ensure justice for all. That may seem like the same thing but vagueness is at times valuable given that life rarely satisfies the black and white dichotomies many of us would prefer.

hnuser123456• 7 years ago

The media seeks to ignite racial tensions for personal gains all the time, shouldn't we prosecute them too?

nilkn• 7 years ago

He allegedly did something quite bad, and if guilty I’d like him to face justice. But if the cost of convicting him is setting a precedent that effectively strips hundreds of millions of people of their privacy and subjects us all to an unofficial form of state surveillance, then let him walk.

Mirioron4• 7 years ago

I would agree with you if our legal systems were built for that, but our legal systems are built to deal with a society that has privacy. People unknowingly commit crimes, or implicate themselves in crimes, all the time, because there are too many ways to do that. No reasonable person can be expected to avoid committing crimes when the government itself can't even keep track of the number of criminal laws there are.[0] You're supposed to follow rules that the government itself can't even keep count of. This works reasonably well as long as the government doesn't have evidence about everything you've done, but the moment that they can track a large chunk of your life is when this system stops working.

With data from Google they can prosecute you for all the things you've done wrong or seem to have done wrong. It just takes an ambitious prosecutor to do it. This pretty much destroys the point of the fifth amendment. The "Don't Talk to the Police" lecture [1] is still relevant today, but if the state has this much evidence of what you do, then I'm not sure that will protect people. It is a nightmare scenario if this sets a precedent on law enforcement being able to vacuum up all of your data about your life.

I agree that Smollett seemingly getting a slap on the wrist was outrageous, but I think that this is Pandora's Box that they're playing with.

[0] https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2013/03/frequent-reference-questio...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE

Dylan168072• 7 years ago

State has a duty to prosecute law breakers. This is a load bearing wall of civil society. Everywhere.

That doesn't mean there should be enormous databases of everything people do for the state to access at will.

keanzu8• 7 years ago

I don't see how the context of his alleged crime (he's not been found guilty of anything) is relevant. Beyond a felony/misdemeanor the means available to the state to build a case/prosecute should be identical regardless of the specific crime alleged.

jcims• 7 years ago

Doesn’t seem like the issue is with the state, it’s that we’re entrusting third parties with enough information to paint an incredibly intimate portrait of our personalities and proclivities. This in turn is available to the state at essentially zero cost, which may then be leveraged heavily to ensure compliance.

bitexploder2• 7 years ago

This is all fine in theory. But why this guy? With limited prosecutorial resources, why are they doubling down on this guy? That is what I am always suspicious of.

JumpCrisscross• 7 years ago

They (the State prosecutors)

With a warrant they convinced a court to issue. This is totally different from e.g. dragnet surveillance.

dreamcompiler• 7 years ago

You're completely missing the point. Whatever Smollett did or didn't do is immaterial. What is material is that Google, Facebook, etc are now single points of privacy failure that make abuse by law enforcement much easier than it used to be. This case may or may not be an example of said abuse, but the potential is clearly there. The solution is to retake control of our digital lives from these companies.

In a democracy the job of the police must be difficult.

russler235• 7 years ago

“Ignite racial tensions”? There was no chance of that happening. Smollett was a laughingstock the day the story hit the news. Foxx declined to prosecute because she correctly saw it as a ridiculous and embarrassing stunt.

Another thing to keep in mind: “igniting racial tensions” as an investigatory justification was how MLK got labeled the gravest domestic security threat to the United States. You’re advocating a categorical justification with a fraught and bloody history.

Better civilian oversight is overdue.

titzer2• 7 years ago

What a sweeping authoritarian view on human rights. I'm sorry but this really raises my hackles. The state absolute does not have every right to collect and gather evidence to build a case with such a sweeping dragnet. There is a reason that search warrants have to be specific and evidence of even obvious other crimes is not admissible.

There is nothing pragmatic about being totally ignorant of Fourth Amendment protections that have been eeked out, injustice after injustice, over two centuries.

matheusmoreira2• 7 years ago

They (the State prosecutors) have every right to collect and gather evidence to build the case.

They should have the right to do it. Actually doing it should be as difficult as humanly possible. It should not be as easy as sending a letter to Google and getting a suspect's entire life records in return.

guelo4• 7 years ago

Look at the context.

The context is extremely partisan twisting of the justice system on all sides. Normally DA's have complete discretion to drop charges as they see fit. Because of the partisan outrage a Republican special prosecutor has been appointed to overrule the prosecutor and now he's on a witch hunt going through a year of Google records trying to find everything incriminating, this is a farce and high level corruption

jacquesm2• 7 years ago

They do. But I'm not in your jurisdiction. And this could happen to me too. And my company.

stiray2• 7 years ago

Ok, lets look in context. In 1920 records were kept about beeing a jew. It was perfectly ok, no harm done, some record no one cared about. In 1942 those records became mortal, sponsored by state. Should we talk about anti-gay laws? One day it is fine, second day you can get prisoned.

No one should keep such records as society is changing and not always to best. This is one of the reasons, privacy is one of fundamental human rights. And is blatantly violated for the profit.

raxxorrax• 7 years ago

Even someone who has done wrong has a rights and I would think that a year of Google data would compromise too much information not relevant to the case. In my opinion this clearly qualifies as "unreasonable searches".

Even if you have been naive enough to voluntarily share data with Google.

tyingq2• 7 years ago

Is there some line you don't want it to cross? As tech progresses, there will be increasingly more about everything you do that gets logged.

crocodiletears4• 7 years ago

I disagree on your last point.

Whether it's Google, Microsoft, your ISP, a databroker, a webscraper, an unscrupulous app developer, or even your TV, I think it's safe to assume that one day or the next, every piece of content you produce, or topic you discuss will leak its way onto a major adcorp's servers.

I can hardly think of anyone I know that can't attest to the experience of discussing something as a non-sequitur, only to receive ads about it shortly thereafter. Even visiting an old friend with vastly different interests, never enabling location services, or connecting to their WiFi, I've noticed vast changes in my ad regime.

Decentralising your web activity can only make you less easily monetizable, but you'll never escape the panopticon, and Google can release data it got from third-parties just as easily as the data it collected itself.

If you want to say something you don't want Facebook, Amazon, MS, Google, or the state to hear about, do it in the woods or a private room away from anything digital.

cronix• 7 years ago

The other week I was out in a National Forest hiking. I was about 6 miles from the nearest Forest Service road. I took a break and sat there eating a sandwich and looked up to see a camera mounted on a tree about 4 feet from me. I imagine some hunter put it there. I'm just saying that even out in the middle of nowhere, not near any paved roads, there are still cameras watching and recording.

Mauricio_3• 7 years ago

I can hardly think of anyone I know that can't attest to the experience of discussing something as a non-sequitur, only to receive ads about it shortly thereafter.

No way in hell that's true. Things are bad enough, you don't need to make stuff up.

judge2020• 7 years ago

I imagine that being distributed makes it easier to obtain the data for a person. If a court can't get data on a user from the the main server's owner, they might go after more vulnerable server owners that happened to be federated with the main server (vulnerable, as in less disposable income for lawyers).

ryanmccullagh• 7 years ago

It’s clear you have no idea what this actor did. He staged a hate crime in Chicago and the main cook county attorney dropped the case after CPD proved it was fake. With your radical views, where do you draw the line? Will you vote to protect criminals, child abusers, rapist? All in an effort for “privacy”?

harry84• 7 years ago

It's clear you have made up your mind without the facts. Note the Tribune's reticence to come to that conclusion based on the actual evidence? I have zero opinion about it.

Separate to that this comment has absolutely nothing whatever to do with the parent comment, whether you agree with the parent or not. Rights should exist for everyone, not just everyone you happen to like. Whether this warrant has gone too far as the parent suggests and it is necessary to take countermeasures or not is the argument, not your feelings about someone accused of something which frankly have no baring on anything in such a discussion.

lonelappde4• 7 years ago

If you know this is true then you don't need to subpoena a year's worth of all his data.

Alexander Hamilton and James Madison also had "extreme" views

h0h0h0h0111• 7 years ago

Is this not a standard tactic for moving the bar of what's acceptable? Similar to the San Bernardino case (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93Apple_encryption_d...), it makes sense for LE/Government to cherry-pick cases with defendants who have committed terrible crimes to create precedent for their new methods, as it's harder politically to take a position "defending" them. Defence of holistic rights can be painted as defence of a terrorist/racist/paedophile etc to score points.

Simulacra• 7 years ago

It could but it's more than likely not. In this case a crime was committed and possibly covered up. As much as I agree with you to move to distributed spaces and increased privacy, I think Google has an obligation to comply here.

auiya• 7 years ago

the [US] state can deputize any [US-incorporated] company to snitch

FTFY. I don't believe they have the same legal authorities to compel companies incorporated outside of their country jurisdiction to do the same, correct me if I'm wrong. This isn't the same as a sharing agreement done as a diplomatic quid-pro-quo however, which I'm sure also happens.

vuln• 7 years ago

When convenience comes back to bite you in the ass. I’m interested to see if and what Google releases and if there would be any different if Apple was asked to release the same information.

Does the “Ad” company have more data on an individual versus the “privacy” company? Or does it actually depend on the user opting in to give this data to said company?

deadmutex• 7 years ago

From what I can tell in the news, Apple will share data if ordered to -- “WE GAVE THEM ALL OF THE DATA IN OUR POSSESSION,” SAYS APPLE from (https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/7/21054836/fbi-iphone-unlock...)

The iPhone unlocking for the mass shooter was slightly different -- FBI wanted them to create a new tool (that did not exist) to unlock an existing phone.

alexfromapex3• 7 years ago

Highly disturbing that the court is allowed to request that much data without any legal restrictions [on privacy].

munk-a4• 7 years ago

I don't know why you think there aren't any legal restrictions - this wasn't a random LEO going cowboy and trying to hack into google, a judge directly ordered this action and signed onto the warrants.

alexfromapex3• 7 years ago

I mean as far as privacy is concerned. They were able to request all text messages, documents, location data, voicemails without any stipulation that they were relevant to the case.

akiselev2• 7 years ago

The courts are the legal restriction. The way in which the evidence collected can be challenge in the appellate courts.

alexfromapex3• 7 years ago

I realize that didn’t expect to be taken so literally.

doodliego• 7 years ago

This is a court-authorized search warrant authorized by a aitting judge. It doesn't get any more legal than that, and it's Google or any other company's legal duty to comply.

greglindahl2• 7 years ago

It certainly can get more legal than that -- Google (or the target, if they somehow found out) could appeal against the warrant, which would result in another round in the courts.

munk-a4• 7 years ago

Things like this are why I think that as time goes on storing PII is going to be seen as a cost rather than a benefit to companies... It'll take several rounds of public outcry to shift the mindset though.

buboard11• 7 years ago

at what point does this projection of judicial power against individuals in the name of safety (whose safety? whats really at stake here even?) become terrorism?

AlohaFractal• 7 years ago

Right after taxes become theft but before abortion becomes murder.

guelo4• 7 years ago

A bit of an aside. Terrorism is a useless word now besides its propaganda value. The USA just declares whoever they don't like to be a terrorist, like how they just did to Iran's army, and now apparently they can legally assassinate any Iranian soldier. What's funny is Iran wants in on this propaganda game now, they designated the US army as terrorists.

perl4ever10• 7 years ago

I don't think it makes a whole lot of sense to talk about "assassinating" soldiers any more than "terrorist attacks" on them. Those are things done to civilians by definition. We certainly don't want to promote the idea that "collateral damage" is necessary for a military operation to be ethical.

I think terrorism has a perfectly good definition - political lobbying/influence "by other means" than conventional politics, i.e. attacking and terrorizing civilians. Doesn't matter who does it or how exactly.

Maybe the US government doesn't exactly use that definition, but that doesn't mean there is no such thing as terrorism.

Gigablah• 7 years ago

What's funny is Iran wants in on this propaganda game now

Now? You might be missing some context on the whole Middle East conflict.

ReptileMan• 7 years ago

They designated parts of the Revolutionary Guard terrorists, which is not Iran Army.

IfOnlyYouKnew• 7 years ago

At the time when libertarian lunatics figure out how to convince enough people to change the accepted meaning of the word "terrorism"?

I mean... you obviously don't like this, and many people agree, on very reasonable grounds. But it just is not terrorism.

It's sort of how boiled mushrooms are not "death", even though I have equal affinity to both concepts.

buboard11• 7 years ago

its not civil to call people lunatics because of their beliefs. and yeah, i said terrorism because it is a completely fickle, undefined term yet governments can use it to instill all kinds of violence. but when ordinary people use it they "have to define it". i can see the double standard.

keanzu8• 7 years ago

Are you trying to say: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." ?

Become terrorism? To answer that we'll first need to define "terrorism".

There are over 109 different definitions of terrorism. It is not only individual agencies within the same governmental apparatus that cannot agree on a single definition of terrorism. Experts and other long-established scholars in the field are equally incapable of reaching a consensus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism#Modern_definitions

throwno3• 7 years ago

What if it comes out that he was coordinating with the Harris campaign to help get her anti-lynching bill passed which had been dead before the incident due to extremely low rates of lynching in modern America? They attended protests together and were at least familiar if not friends.

buboard11• 7 years ago

Whose safety is threatened by that law?

zadokshi• 7 years ago

Is this different in any practical sense to an old fashioned request for physical paper documents?

The only difference I can think of is traditionally documents are destroyed after they are no longer needed. Now they can see “deleted” documents and document change history.

i.e. emails stored locally on a personal or company server can be permanently destroyed. Traditional email systems won’t have a change history of the email writing process)

(I imagine all sorts of games could be played by lawyers with access to this additional types of information.)

keanzu8• 7 years ago

Quality of the record keeping is vastly higher. Imagine a subpoena for every paper mail you sent in a year. You can't get that from the US Postal service.

Spooky235• 7 years ago

USPS has been storing images of all envelopes delivered for many years now.

Prior to that, it was possible to have that information manually logged. If you corresponded with people in a Warsaw Pact country in the 1960s, that mail was recorded and sometimes opened.

Spooky235• 7 years ago

No. The only difference is that you typically don’t put papers in the custody of a third party.

My dad at one point was an inspector general at a government agency. They would use records and “physical metadata” like building logs and receipts for the purposes of their work. The difference today is that your allowing many third parties to gather that data.

That’s the key thing. If you store data in the custody of a third party, it isn’t yours.

perl4ever10• 7 years ago

Well, people do typically put papers in the custody of a third party. Always have.

Pretty much every paper that is involved in discovery is classified by the "custodian". Also of course, all the digital information, but traditionally it's paper.

If you use and/or have a dispute with a lawyer, a doctor, a contractor, an accountant, whatever, they're going to have papers pertaining to you.

hn_throwaway_99• 7 years ago

Is this different in any practical sense to an old fashioned request for physical paper documents?

Just that the measure of recorded data is perhaps several orders of magnitude larger that it was merely ~20-30 years ago.

I think back to my life in the 90s, and what information was recorded about me as I went about my day-to-day life, and it was minuscule compared to today. You could track who I called, but not what I said. You could track some of my purchases, but I used electronic forms of payment much less then.

Now, I text or message much more than I voice call, so that is all recorded. Every now and then if I want to get really freaked out I go to myactivity.google.com (I've got an Android phone and am otherwise "all in" on Google services) and, say, playback my location history, search history, or everything I've said to Google assistant.

I think we are really just coming to terms with the fact that "ephemera" no longer really exists, and the deep impact this will have on society.

ip263• 7 years ago

Of course, all that stuff could still have been recorded with a warrant 20-30 years ago. Though it's true it would have required foresight & more effort.

raldi• 7 years ago

Google's actually really good at truly destroying deleted things within something like 35 days.

If it's sitting on a backup tape in a vault somewhere, they delete all copies of the corresponding one-time personal decryption key instead.

avionicsguy• 7 years ago

So is Microsoft, at least, on Linked-In. I tested it last year and deleted my profile. Had a friend check and everything was gone...Everything including public posts.

LinkedIn has a remorse period of something like 21 days. And I had plan to test recovery process also. Then got busy with a contract and was too late to recover. It's awesome!

I think any global IT company must deal with GDPR kind of like most automakers in U.S. follow California emission standards. It's easier to create a policy for all than create "one off" policies for a geopolitical region.

robocat• 7 years ago

On the flip side of the loss of privacy: location and similar data can be used as a solid alibi if you are accused incorrectly.

How many people have been silently tagged as innocent because of their data stored?

That said, ersonally I find the loss of privacy abhorrent, especially because I have fuck all rights in the US (not a citizen, so the US government and US corporations can abuse my personal information with very little recourse from me or my own government).

frandroid• 7 years ago

It should be up to the falsely-accused to allow their siphoned data to be release to create an alibi.

lonelappde4• 7 years ago

They could claim you faked your alibi data. If you innocently were near a crime you could be convicted by circumstantial evidence.

titzer2• 7 years ago

location and similar data can be used as a solid alibi if you are accused incorrectly.

Except you don't control them and could be faked and used to frame you. The power imbalance here is absolutely astonishing.

hiram112• 7 years ago

not just emails but also drafted and deleted messages; any files in their Google Drive cloud storage services; any Google Voice texts, calls and contacts; search and web browsing history; and location data.

I've always assumed my email, Drive, Voice info, calls, contact lists, etc would be obtainable by a warrant.

But I wonder if Google would turn over things like browsing and search history, even if you never browsed while logged in to Google or searched, and also had explicitly turned off storing of this data in your Google privacy settings.

There is no doubt in my mind that Google, through the use of 3rd party trackers from "partners", analytics, and correlation can easily match my non-logged in web history and searches with the same computer and IP used when I log into Gmail or Maps.

Supposedly they don't tie this global "advertising profile" to your real identifying Google account, at least for the data provided to advertisers, but I would think it'd be trivial for Google to collect it all - every web page visited and for how long, every search you've made - and turn over the vast majority of it to the government, upon request.

In other words, Google probably does know nearly everything you do online, logged in or not, at this point.

Johnny5552• 7 years ago

Suddenly the inconvenience of moving to an encrypted email provider like ProtonMail doesn't sound too bad. I don't particularly have anything to hide, but I'm sure a prosecutor could find something suspicious in my emails if he looked hard enough.

It wouldn't make my email completely inaccessible to the government (they could subpoena the sender), but would make it a lot less convenient to go on a fishing expedition.

collyw• 7 years ago

I was wondering about this. If I switch to Proton, but 90% of my outgoing emails go to gmail accounts, google still has 90% of my email data.

throwawaysea• 7 years ago

Although it is scary to have things like location data turned over, the one I worry about is 23andme.

foob4r• 7 years ago

degoogle as much as you can

gfody• 7 years ago

If Google complies would they deliver the data to the defendant so that he has the option to plead the 5th if there’s anything incriminating?

keiferski• 7 years ago

The deeper problem is that old laws are being used to deal with new behaviors. This inadequacy will continue to grow as human beings and computers slowly merge over the next century or two, where at some point, “your Google data” will be more-and-more equivalent to “all of your thoughts.”

Those who say that this is justified because warrants were obtained seem to miss the point that state’s ability and desire to gather information has grown exponentially over time. And that’s why we need data protection laws, alternatives to Google, and other privacy measures.

The philosophical concept of embodied cognition is a good place to start on this issue:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/embodied-cognition/

asdfasgasdgasdg2• 7 years ago

I'd say that very much depends on why you believe the warrant process exists in the first place. I honestly don't know that much about the historical context of search warrants. Do they exist because philosophers of old believed in a right to privacy as an end unto itself? Or do they exist for some more practical reason, like because they were used for extra legal retaliation against enemies of the state, or for intimidation, or to go on fishing expeditions.

Or, why does the protection from self-incrimination exist? Is it because we are concerned that the government might have access to your thoughts? Or is it because the government would torture people to get confessions, and the people wanted to remove the incentive to do so?

Depending on your belief about this, you might feel differently about what should be done about this Google situation. If you believe the latter view in the second paragraph, for example, you might have no problem with the breadth of the search. In fact, you might not even have a problem with involuntary brain scans, provided they were proven accurate. As long as the rule of law is strong and the materials were used only for a defined and limited purpose, you might think it would be better if the government could compel the true personal perspective of the accused.

So this really enters into questions about each individual's perspective on the purpose and value of privacy. I think it might not be accurate to say that people who say it is justified are missing the point. They might just think the point is different from what you think it is.

lrem3• 7 years ago

You have just changed my understanding of the world. Thank you.

ksdale• 7 years ago

I think you are spot on with your reasons for why these things actually do exist, but I think there is definitely an argument to be made for why they should actually protect privacy instead of merely inhibiting the government.

My version of the argument goes something like this: It's often said that drivers (in the US anyway) are constantly violating minor traffic laws, and that if the police want to pull someone over, all they have to do is follow them for long enough and they will find a legitimate reason to do so.

I believe that this extends far beyond the sphere of traffic. I think we all accidentally break minor laws way more often than we think we do. We all way overestimate how "good" we are.

If it was possible to automatically punish everyone for every violation of the law, we would quickly realize that many laws aren't actually that important, that they can be broken a little bit, constantly, by basically everyone, and society still functions just fine, and that privacy is more important than perfect enforcement of law.

Of course this might lead to a new equilibrium where we perfectly enforce a smaller set of laws.

All this is to say that I think people think they value law enforcement more than privacy, but if they had the full force of the law brought down on them for every minor violation, they would quickly change their mind. In that way, privacy (in the form of the government not having perfect information) is actually quite valuable.

jariel2• 7 years ago

It's far beyond the issue of the inherent purpose of warrants in the first place, because the material reality of the nature of information has changed dramatically.

Practical justifications have to come face to face with reality, and 'searching one's home for drugs' is a lot different than 'reading all of one's thoughts for the last year'.

We are where we are with warrants, so now we have to address the disproportionate issue that can arise with the online world.

sjcsjc2• 7 years ago

"Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries"

Does anyone have an alternative source for this story please?

mathemancer• 7 years ago

Archive link:

https://web.archive.org/web/20200109053829/https://www.chica...

jedilance• 7 years ago

Thank you.

sjcsjc2• 7 years ago

Thanks very much.

ComodoHacker2• 7 years ago

From linked article[0]:

— Cook County prosecutors drop all charges against Smollett, calling it an “appropriate resolution to this case.”
“After reviewing all of the facts and circumstances of the case, including Mr. Smollett’s volunteer service in the community and agreement to forfeit his bond to the City of Chicago, we believe this outcome is a just disposition and appropriate resolution to this case,” the statement said.

WTF? Since when bribe constitutes a ground for dropping charges?

0. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-met-cb-jussi...

stonogo• 7 years ago

Money has always been the only reliable way to stay out of jail. Usually you have to give it to lawyers, so it looks like they're just cutting out the middleman.

unishark6• 7 years ago

That was only 10k wasn't it. The story above says the city is suing him for 130k.

anon73044• 7 years ago

Forfeiting a bond usually means you have to pay the full amount. $100k in his case.

strathmeyer• 7 years ago

You aren't concerned the government can get all your data after you've pleaded guilty to something? Because I'm concerned people can't identify what a bribe is.

rkangel2• 7 years ago

German law also seems to allow for it under some circumstances. Bernie Ecclestone for example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28656050

jasonlotito• 7 years ago

WTF? Since when bribe constitutes a ground for dropping charges?

You mean fines? I mean, fines have been around forever, and everyone from the President down to the little guy has paid fines to have charges dropped. This is not a modern thing, nor is it rare.

It's more surprising that you are surprised by this.

ComodoHacker2• 7 years ago

I mean bail not returned.

guelo4• 7 years ago

Use duckduckgo people!

throwGuardian4• 7 years ago

I believe Smollette staged this, but the state should not be allowed to simply get a year's worth of his personal data without cause. This tantamounts to unlawful search and seizure and a gross violation of his right to privacy, both guaranteed by the Constitution.

As much as I disapprove of Smolette, we cannot let the state overstep it's boundaries and jurisdiction. They'll have to prove it while being compliant with the Constitution

onetimemanytime2• 7 years ago

if you were a witness or had a document that proved he was/wasn't at x place, you, as an individual, would be forced to testify. Maybe this is way overbroad but odds are that Google knows what happened, either by location data or via a search. I think Google should NOT be able to keep this data so such requests are mute by definition.

throwGuardian4• 7 years ago

I have no problems with search and seizure that is backed by irrefutable "probable cause". But one year?!! Why not his entire life? The courts are stretching common sense definitions of "cause", and simply fishing for anything to nail him

As for Google, while I agree with you, the reality is that their business model relies on personal data, and we're none the wiser continuing to use them despite this knowledge. How many, even within the HN community, will bother transitioning away from Google, after reading this?

nullc2• 7 years ago

The courts and law enforcement aren't the issue here. Google is.

Why do they even have this data-- deleted material, browsing histories, the content of voice calls? Why did they store it in the first place?

Google can't keep all of its own internal secrets private. The fact that information on you can be extracted via a targeted court order shouldn't be your greatest concern: The fact that they possess it means that it can likely be exploited or extracted in many different ways including via dragnet surveillance and espionage.

throwGuardian4• 7 years ago

Because their business model relies on your personal data?

The question is not why Google has your data, it's why you chose to continue using Google despite the awareness of such a scenario happening. As someone else commented, this article should be circulated far and wide, and people need to be educated on privacy friendly alternatives like ProtonMail.

Lastly, the courts and law enforcement are a problem if they knowingly overreach their limits. Protections against unlawful search and seizure and right to privacy are guaranteed by the Constitution

thelittleone• 7 years ago

Unfortunately ending their data collection is not as simple as leaving Gmail. For example they have Google maps, analytics, recaptcha and the contents of emails sent from friends to your protonmail account.

buboard11• 7 years ago

They could at least encrypt it, storing the key in the user’s devices.

nullc2• 7 years ago

Protections against unlawful search and seizure and right to privacy are guaranteed by the Constitution

US courts have pretty consistently ruled that you don't have much expectation of privacy for material you handed over to someone else. To the extent that its usually available with just an administrative subpoena.

Skipping all forms of due process is probably a step too far-- but a direct court order? After all, if Google can commercially exploit your data including handing it over to partners-- why should a court order result in less access?

skrowl2• 7 years ago

The 4th Amendment SPECIFICALLY stops unreasonable searches stating the exception is with a warrant asking for specific things. They had such a warrant in this case.

Just because you hate Google doesn't mean that the warrant is invalid or the search is unreasonable here.

Jussie may have committed a crime. They have the right to investigate.

unishark6• 7 years ago

Because you can sell targeted ad space for a lot more money.

Also they allow people to opt out of tracking, which is probably how they kept the govt off their backs thus far. But of course few people are aware and savvy enough to opt out of systems which allow it, which is why many want to change organ donation to an opt-out system rather than opt-in for example.

hamhand• 7 years ago

I read in a Chinese programmer forum that they just mark it as deleted when you delete photos,it seems to be a common practice, not sure about google.

onlyrealcuzzo• 7 years ago

It is common practice.

It's not how it works at Google.

delroth• 7 years ago

Just because law enforcement asks for it doesn't mean Google has it. They might just ask for it because many companies actually do keep that data, but Google provides in its privacy policy some fairly strong guarantees on data deletion. The documentation at https://policies.google.com/technologies/retention?hl=en is a good read to get an idea of what is kept and for how long.

Disclaimer: I work at Google, some of my work relates to privacy infrastructure, but I don't speak for the company.

skrowl2• 7 years ago

This is the correct answer. Often times warrants ask for the moon and stars. You can only hand over what you actually have.

tylerl• 7 years ago

To the extent that Google has any of that data, they have it because the user wanted them to retain it. You probably never read your old email drafts, but people would be upset if Google deleted it without them saying to do so.

Everything Google knows about you is available for you to retrieve, delete, and often even change. You totally can selectively edit your location history. It's not a forensic log because that's not the utility users get from it. The fact that courts want to use it as a forensic log is their own damn problem.

mellosouls• 7 years ago

Alternative article for readers in the EU:

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/judge-orders-google-h...

bryanrasmussen• 7 years ago

Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.

unishark6• 7 years ago

I can't read it from the US either due to having an adblocker. And even if you allow ads the paywall appears after viewing one story per day.

Google the title. Others news sites have it.

globuous2• 7 years ago

I'm in the same case, it this the story ?

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/08/us/jussie-smollett-chicag...

sabujp• 7 years ago

this is why many companies have no record of their own internal emails/conversations over a year or two. This is to cover their own tracks in case they get sued. I wonder if there are any email services where you can actually delete your data if it's older than some period?

buboard11• 7 years ago

What was that company that is no longer allowed to add google to their phones? Huh, sounds like they can use it as a selling point

self_awareness• 7 years ago

Article is unavailable in EU due to GDPR.

aepiepaey• 7 years ago

https://outline.com/SysByE

lucb1e• 7 years ago

As I understand it, in summary: someone filed a police report, the police suspect the person staged the incident being reported (so now they're a suspect themselves) and subpoenas their data.

Okay? This is news, how? Should I know the person that allegedly staged it, or is it new that a judge approves a search warrant that allows time-limited access to a suspect's data? Does it matter that they're an actor? (An overloaded term that makes the title quite unclear)

And a little meta: should we change the link to something everyone can actually read or do we want to keep this discussion limited to people from certain continents?

quirkafleeg3• 7 years ago

I'd be far more concerned about Google having my data in the first place...

DarkWiiPlayer11• 7 years ago

"Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism."

It's 2020 and american websites still go the "We'd rather block you alltogether than tell you what we do with your data" route.

aledalgrande5• 7 years ago

lol just checked when GDPR was announced... 2016

close04• 7 years ago

Even a couple of years before being adopted in 2016, with interested parties being aware that it's coming and an outline of what to expect.

rtyturtu• 7 years ago

Maybe geolocked sites shouldnt be posted on HN unless OP provides screenshoot or tldr of contet there

salzig• 7 years ago

I support this thought.

iso9473• 7 years ago

It’s not obvious if a site is geolocked. I know Bbc is blocked in China from experience, but I wouldn’t expect that others would know. Hacker news is available in China (at least last time I was there).

Crosseye_Jack5• 7 years ago

It’s like paywalled sites. If it’s a soft paywall with known bypasses they are generally allowed on HN. If their are known bypasses for sites that geoblock (outline, google cache, archive.today) then I think the same rule should apply.

moviuro• 7 years ago

https://outline.com/SysByE

ossworkerrights• 7 years ago

It’s 2020 and the EU still thinks more bureaucracy is the way to go. I am not entirely sure US websites should necessary spend more to accommodate GDPR, which itself should be revised and made less inconvenient.

beachy• 7 years ago

What do you believe is most inconvenient about GDPR compliance?

DarkWiiPlayer11• 7 years ago

Unless I remember it incorrectly, GDPR doesn't even apply to websites that don't target EU citizens; so it really doesn't affect US websites that are clearly aimed primarily at the USA, just because some EU citizen might use it as well.

And if a foreign website wants to expand into the european market, then yes, no matter its country of origin, it will have to follow EU rules.

So, in conclusion, geoblocking the EU is just plain stupid.

ben1742• 7 years ago

I’m in Europe on vacation, and while GDPR seems to be a good thing, there is nothing more annoying than a cookie policy pop up for every single site you visit. I know what cookies are. I know how they are used. I don’t need a reminder every time I visit a site. I think they way over shot their goal there.

Y-bar• 7 years ago

The stupid thing is that GDPR says nothing about requiring those policy pop ups, that law was discontinued (amended) when GDPR took effect. But no requirements for these pop ups remain

andrepd• 7 years ago

It's training people to ignore those altogether and click "allow" on everything out of frustration. They should have gone with a strategy focused on browser controls. Mandating browsers block 3rd party cookies by default, for example, with explicit opt in.

DarkWiiPlayer11• 7 years ago

You don't need cookie banners; they're only mandatory when you want to track your users, so when you see one of those on every website, it just means every website wants to track you.

Also, if people are trained to just click them away, that's not really that bad, since tracking has to be opt-in, so if you click the banner away, you don't get tracked by default (that is, in theory; the reality is, many websites disregard this completely and have tracking cookies enabled by default)

lrem3• 7 years ago

Eh, no. Cookie warnings were a legislative failure that was fixed with gdpr. But they trained users to click without thinking. So now many companies do disguise the explicit consent to enable tracking to look like the old meaningless cookie pop up. But they're legally a completely different thing.

ACS_Solver• 7 years ago

The cookie policy popups are, at best, an intentionally annoying way of complying with the GDPR or not compliant at all at worst.

GDPR has the great idea that you shouldn't be tracked unless you consent. The popups are a way of forcing consent because users just click through them. However, the default should be that you're NOT tracked and opting in should be explicit, which possibly means all those popups that begin tracking you after one click are not compliant. Then I've also seen sites where opting out is difficult - there's a hard to find link that takes you to some settings page where you need a dozen clicks to disable tracking cookies. That's definitely not GDPR-compliant.

Despite the practical annoyances, I direct my frustration at the cancerous advertising industry that has turned the Web into a giant ad platform, and so the industry is very intentionally undermining GDPR protections.

diffeomorphism• 7 years ago

Cookies are unrelated to GDPR. Completely separate older law.

Hermel2• 7 years ago

Apparently, compliance with GDPR is not worth the hassle for websites that target a non-European audience.

tjoff2• 7 years ago

Yeah, the burden of not exploiting their users really is a huge undertaking.

pingyong2• 7 years ago

What I'm wondering about is: If you're not targeting an EU-audience, and you therefore might not even have servers in the EU, and certainly don't have EU-based revenue streams - why do you even care? Can an EU court even do anything in this situation?

nottorp2• 7 years ago

TBH it's Chicago Tribune. I bet 99.95% of the articles there aren't interesting for someone in the EU. A good part of them aren't probably interesting even for an USer living outside the Chicago area.

I'd certainly never consider visiting normal US news sites unless - like in this case - they were linked to by HN or some other aggregator I do frequent.

Thus, it really makes no sense for them to comply with the GDPR.

swebs• 7 years ago

http://archive.is/LjNKy

Archit3ch• 7 years ago

"Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries." - Lawmakers are happy that the company complies with regulations. - Website builders are happy because they don't need to spend extra effort for no extra profit. - End users are happy that their data isn't being harvested. - The company is happy because they are complying with regulations at no extra cost. Seems like a huge win for everyone involved. /s

aledalgrande5• 7 years ago

For all people writing "is this different from physical documents?" the answer is yes. You have to think a little bit further than tomorrow. This is the perfect step for a totalitarian police government like China.

You don't want the government to control your money with taxes and your health with social insurance, so why do you want it to control every aspect of your private life?

justaguyhere• 7 years ago

What a horrible site - popups/ads all over, you close one another springs up...

CalRobert• 7 years ago

Of course, the GDPR may help to prevent the very issues outlined in this article with regards to privacy and overreach.

thrower123• 7 years ago

Most of this nonsense could have been dispensed with if the original prosecutors hadn't tried to make the whole thing go away when it became clear that the original narrative was fraudulent. Hate crime hoaxes are terrible, because they undermine credibility when the real thing does occur. For that he ought to be nailed to the wall.

greedo• 7 years ago

“If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.”

huntermeyer• 7 years ago

"Show me the man and I'll show you the crime."

- Lavrentiy Beria

(Most influential of Stalin’s secret police chiefs)

dangerface• 7 years ago

If you are in the EU:

https://archive.li/LjNKy

gundmc• 7 years ago

This sounds more like a fishing expedition than a typical search warrant. I expect that Google fought or is fighting this request as stated as they have for others in the past.

"And if we believe a request is overly broad, we seek to narrow it -- like when we persuaded a court to drastically limit a U.S. government request for two months' of user search queries."[1]

If they refused to hand over 2 months of search queries, I guarantee they didn't just hand over a full year of all user data.

[1] https://support.google.com/transparencyreport/answer/7380434...

andrei_says_• 7 years ago

I imagine that for pretty much each and every one of us, a full year of data will yield something actionable by law enforcement or at least by traffic law enforcement. Who didn’t speed once (even while flowing with the rest of traffic)?

If we include dhs, then who, knowingly or unknowingly (go ahead and prove that) did not spend a few moments in proximity with persons of interest?

“Give me six sentences written by the most honest of men and I’ll find a reason to hang them” is more relevant than ever and I’m just imagining how much more can be found in the full surveillance trail of google services.

MatthewWilkes• 7 years ago

Interesting that commenters are talking about overreach with data collection. I'm not sure if that's in the article because the paper in question blocks people in the EU out of a desire not to comply with privacy laws. A little ironic.

novaleaf• 7 years ago

For anyone like me who didnt know about the case, this info is burried half way down the article:

Smollett reported that two men attacked him near his high-rise apartment in the Streeterville neighborhood on a frigid night last Jan. 29, slipping a noose around his neck and shouting racist and homophobic slurs. Jussie Smollett files counterclaim against Chicago saying prosecution was malicious »

Smollett’s manager — whose Google account information has also been ordered turned over — called 911 to report the attack and met responding officers in the lobby of Smollett’s building. He can be seen on body camera footage reaching toward Smollett to grab the noose around his neck with disdain. “The reason I’m calling (police) is because of this s--- ,” he said.

But Smollett eventually turned from victim to suspect after an intense investigation by Chicago police detectives who used two brothers’ cellphone records, internet search history and text messages to corroborate their story that the actor paid them $3,500 to stage the attack.

Prosecutors alleged that Smollett staged the attack because he was unhappy with the “Empire” studio’s response to a threatening letter he received at work a week earlier. Chicago police took it a step further, accusing Smollett of faking the letter as well.

webboynews• 7 years ago

ITT: people feeling bad for jussie but can't say it outright because then theyd be revealed as hypocrites

Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

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