The U.S. government is reportedly secretly issuing warrants for Google to provide user data on anyone typing in certain search terms, raising fears that innocent online users could get caught up in serious crime investigations at a greater frequency than previously thought.
In an attempt to track down criminals, federal investigators have started using new “keyword warrants” and used them to ask Google to provide them information on anyone who searched a victim’s name or their address during a particular year, an accidentally unsealed court document that Forbes found shows.
www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrews…c355077c97
Google has to respond to thousands of warrant orders each year, but the keyword warrants are a relatively new strategy used by the government and are controversial.
news.yahoo.com/government-secret…NXw-6fcgvi
In an attempt to track down criminals, federal investigators have started using new “keyword warrants” and used them to ask Google to provide them information on anyone who searched a victim’s name or their address during a particular year, an accidentally unsealed court document that Forbes found shows.
Google has to respond to thousands of warrant orders each year, but the keyword warrants are a relatively new strategy used by the government and are controversial.
“Trawling through Google’s search history database enables police to identify people merely based on what they might have been thinking about, for whatever reason, at some point in the past,” Jennifer Granick, surveillance and cybersecurity counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, told Forbes.
“This never-before-possible technique threatens First Amendment interests and will inevitably sweep up innocent people, especially if the keyword terms are not unique and the time frame not precise. To make matters worse, police are currently doing this in secret, which insulates the practice from public debate and regulation,” she added.
The government said that the scope of the warrants is limited to avoid implicating innocent people who happen to search for certain terms, but it’s not publicly disclosed how many users’ data are sent to the government and what the extent of the warrant requests are.
AC
- Ellen Brown: The Looming Quadrillion Dollar Derivatives Tsunami
- Janet Yellen Just Poured Lighter Fluid On Every Small Bank In America
- The Great Financial Collapse of 2023. Comparison of Bear Stearns’ collapse in March 2008 and Credit Suisse in March 2023.
- Ron DeSantis unveils legislation to BAN Central Bank Digital Currency in Florida, protecting citizens from a grave threat to civil liberties…
- Never in history have we had all three issues happening at once…
- Clearwater Mayor abruptly resigns… Council members left in stunned silence
- Sperm has been almost entirely replaced by spike proteins
- People are crashing…
- Armstrong: WOKE Culture is Destroying the Economy & our Nation
- 2023: A Year When Everything Is Suddenly Breaking Loose All At Once
Views: 27