You are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

0
0

[–] tame ago 

Just from the description there, it sounds no different to "this credit card has been compromised, where else was it used?"

If the guy lives in city A and they're asking about searches from his logged-in accounts originating from IPs in city B, then that sounds like a good way to narrow down where the culprit might be. There's a fair chance it's happening with the consent of the guy whose data's being requested, too, which changes the situation considerably.

0
0

[–] rwbj ago 

For a specific person, not from a specific person.

The idea is maybe the perpetrators googled for information on the person so they're asking for every google search from the city about the person. If they get any hits there then they'll probably also ask for every search from every person that searched for this person.

The problem isn't necessarily just this case in a vacuum (though I think this situation is already pushes some boundaries that should not be passed) but the precedent. Once this process is established as reasonable there will be increasingly streamlined methods of carrying it out. Given the current state of America it won't be long before a warrant is no longer required and you'll see law enforcement being able to query extensive information about anybody who searches for any given phrase. And this could be very useful in law enforcement, but it could also opens itself up to extensive abuse. You're left trusting lower and lower level law enforcement with ever more of your digital existence when we've already shown beyond a doubt even the highest level national security agencies cannot be trusted to behave responsibly with such access.