Slashdot Mirror
Google Searches Used in Murder Trial?
mcrbids writes "Well, the details are a bit scant, but it seems that the content of Google searches were used to help establish intent in a murder trial. Will police in the future simply serve a subpoena to Google to find out what you've been thinking about? While this use of that information makes sense, at what point does your privacy give way to public concerns? Should police be able to search through your search history for "questionable" searches before you've been arrested for a crime, and what effect would this have on the health of society?"
Will police subpoena google? No, because in this case, the
search history was recovered from the local hard drive.
Note to self: Remeber to clear browser cache before killing someone.
Thanks for the reminder slashdot!
What are you eating? isItVeg?.
The stated use (subpeonaing google for information on a person who has been arrested and they are building a case against) is perfectly reasonable, assuming they have reason to believe google would have useful evidence. That's what happens when you get arrested, they try to collect evidence to use against you from any source the can.
And of course, the slippery slope case presented in the intro copy would NOT be reasonable. If i am arrested for valid suspicion i would expect them to try to build a case against me. But, in a free society, it is not acceptable to have everything i do fed into a system which is flagging people as POTENTIAL criminals.
so: yes. and no.
lysergically yours
that a lot of bored people in the supposed privacy of their own home will search for a lot of crazy things that in 99.99% of cases they have no intention of carrying out.
The information on the searches came from his browser history, not from Google.
*launches google*
*types "how to bomb white house"...*
**KNOCK KNOCK**
"Who's th....
This isn't new. Last year, I was a juror on a trial for various sex/computer crimes, and part of the evidence admitted were the search strings from Google in the IE history/cache. In the interest of keeping my lunch down, I'm not going to reprint some of the searches here. We'll just say that they're bad.
How would Google know what someone has been thinking about?
They're Google.
Need information to help with killing your wife? Choose Altavista, the Cops would never think to ask us!
Visit altavista.com and search "Snap Neck"
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
From the article:
In other words, they looked at the files on his computer as evidence. That's been done for
Might they subpoena google in the future? Maybe, but that hasn't happened yet...
How would Google know what someone has been thinking about?
Gee, based on just the searches that I do? They could figure out that I work for a mental health agency, that I used to work for an insurance agency, that I'm considering getting engaged, that I perfer credit unions to banks, that I've filed or am considering filing bankruptcy, etc, etc, etc. Don't even get me started about my porn perferences ;)
I can't even say that they couldn't pin all that down to an actual name any more either since I'm using G-mail and it receives the same cookie that google.com does.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Last week, a forensic investigator discovered that Petrick allegedly researched lake levels, water currents, boat ramps and access about Falls Lake just four days before he reported Sutphen missing on Jan. 22, 2003.
~http://www.wral.com/news/5287261/detail.html
Yes, the info was found on his hard drive, not acquired from Google or his ISP or anywhere else.
Don't even get me started about my porn perferences ;)
Dude, that you perforate your porn is TMI.
You mean you've forgotten about this already???
Evidence like this is usually used in conjunction with other evidence. Like if they think you set off a pipe bomb they could use reciepts of you buying PVC pipe, duct tape, and a bunch of nails, a pound of C4 found in your apartment, along with a search on "how to build a pipe bomb" to get a conviction.
Remember folks, slashdot doesn't have a -1 "disagree" moderation!
If you've filed bankruptcy or are considering it, I would caution against getting engaged.
Why not? When she leaves and takes half, she won't be getting much, now will she?
He could have browsed from a live CD and not left a trail. I wonder how many crimes are being solved because criminals don't know how to take a few simple security steps?
That won't help if law enforcement subpoenas Google, or any other website for that matter (yeah, I know that in this case Google wasn't involved, but I could easily imagine it happening). Probably the best thing to do is use someone else's open access point, with your live CD on your laptop.
When I was in high school a friend and I used to mix our own black power and explode pipe bombs in his father's field (it was a farming area) during the winter when there were no crops to damage. Can you imagine what would happen if any children tried that today?
.22 rifles, 12 gauge shotguns, pistols, or whatever we owned and favored (my cousin had a lever action 30-30 rifle just like "The "Rifleman" did on the television program of that name), and head out in the farming fields hunting Jack Rabbits - which were pests to the farmers.
Even stranger to today's society, our parents knew and approved of our activities. FWIW, we both had First Class Radio Amateur Licenses and were in all the math/science/electronics classes together, so we weren't totally clueless about what we were doing. This was back in a time (~1955) when a group of us kids would think nothing of grabbing our
9/11 Eyewitnesses to Explosive WTC Demolition 1 of 2
yeah exactly, this is a very stupid summary just trying to troll for some reactionary privacy outcries. Guess what? if you get arrested for a crime you're privacy is going to be invaded a whole lot more than just "what you searched for at google". Your phone records get inspected, your computer gets inspected, heck, you're house gets searched. Somehow we are supposed to be concerned that your internet searches can be accessed when the police have already arrested you after getting an arrest warrent and invaded your home after getting a search warrent? Since when is your behavoir on the internet more private than what you have in your own closet?
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR