Privacy Guides

That headline misses the big problem. It's not that Google was forced to give up search history data. If Google gets a warrant, they will comply. The real problem is that the justices acknowledged that the warrant was unconstitutional and permitted the evidence anyway. They claim the police "acted in good faith" while violating the constitution, which is a horrifying precedent.

If you're thinking "alls well that ends well," because they caught the arsonists who murdered a family of five, I can sympathize with that feeling, but consider that the murderer may have his conviction overturned on subsequent appeals.

The police obtained a warrant for everyone who searched for a thing from Google, and the search information was used against the accused in court. 14 states currently outlaw abortion, and there's some cousin-fucking conservative prosecutor in Dipshit, Alabama, just salivating over the prospect of obtaining the IP addresses of every person looking up directions to clinics.

"Ahhh gosh oh golly I guess i better comply with this police warrant" says the company that actively engages in one of the largest tax fraud operations in human history.

the police acted in good faith, meaning the evidence will be allowed in court despite the warrant being legally flawed

I have no knowledge (or particular interest) in USA laws, but I guess that judges making this decision is a statement of future intent. I guess if you don't want to be tracked then don't use services which track you!

Forced? Not at all. Google happily complied.

Stop using Google products, people. There are alternatives for every service they offer. They haven't invented anything new in over a decade

Never ask Google a question you wouldn't also ask the feds!

I am conflicted on how I feel about that. Obviously information dragonets are bad because they're specifically designed to produce false positives. In this case, however, they produced a definite positive that wouldn't have been achieved otherwise.

Edit:

The good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule provides that “evidence
obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment should not be suppressed in
circumstances where the evidence was obtained by officers acting in objectively
reasonable reliance on a warrant issued by a detached and neutral magistrate, even
if that warrant was later determined to be invalid.” Gutierrez, 222 P.3d at 941; see
also Leftwich, 869 P.2d at 1272 (holding that Colorado’s good-faith exception,
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codified in section 16-3-308, C.R.S. (2023), is “substantially similar” to the Supreme
Court’s rule). The exception exists because there is little chance suppression will
deter police misconduct in cases where the police didn’t know their conduct was
illegal in the first place. Leon, 468 U.S. at 918–19. In such cases, “the social costs of
suppression would outweigh any possible deterrent effect.

But the good-faith analysis in Gutierrez is distinguishable. True, we held
there that the good-faith exception did not apply, but we had already recognized
that individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their financial records
when Gutierrez was decided. Id. at 933 (citing numerous cases and statutes
establishing that an individual’s financial records are protected under Colorado
law). So, the police were on notice that a nexus was required between a crime and
Gutierrez’s individual tax records. See id.

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¶70 By contrast, until today, no court had established that individuals have a
constitutionally protected privacy interest in their Google search history. Cf.
Commonwealth v. Kurtz, 294 A.3d 509, 522 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2023) (holding that, under
the third-party doctrine, the defendant did not have a reasonable expectation of
privacy in his search history). In the absence of precedent explicitly establishing
that an individual’s Google search history is constitutionally protected, DPD had
no reason to know that it might have needed to demonstrate a connection between
the alleged crime and Seymour’s individual Google account.

In essence, the court is saying that this is the one and only time this will be allowed in Colorado.

https://www.courts.state.co.us/userfiles/file/Court_Probation/Supreme_Court/Opinions/2023/23SA12.pdf

search warrant that required Google to provide the IP addresses of anyone who had searched for the address of a home within the previous 15 days of it being set on fire

I’m fine with this. It’s specific to an actual crime that happened, and not targeting a known individual or preventing something that hasn’t happened yet, “for the children” or some nonsense like that.

Another reason to use VPN/Tor.