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Google Pressure Cookers and Backpacks: Get a Visit From the Feds
An anonymous reader writes "Massachusetts resident Michele Catalano was looking for information online about pressure cookers. Her husband, in the same time frame, was Googling backpacks. Wednesday morning, six men from a joint terrorism task force showed up at their house to see if they were terrorists. Which raises the question: How'd the government know what they were Googling?"
The Atlantic article is BAD. Not only is it a summary with no additional information (and information removed), but uses a bad and unrelated photograph!
Read the original article on Medium, and I strongly suggest that a Slashdot editor change the article link.
Although circumstantial, this implies one of two possibilities. Either Google is voluntarily looking for "suspicious" searches and reporting them to law enforcement, or law enforcement (using a warrant, a wiretap, a NSL, or similar) is either forcing Google to look for such suspicious searches or simply wiretapping Google.
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This needs to stop.
When they come to your house you tell them to fuck off and come back with a warrant. Cooperating only encourages them.
This raises another question. What happens when these people refuse to answer questions or allow a search of their home?
IANAL, but I've done quite a bit of reading about this topic. The rule (at least in the US) is very simple: You are not required, nor should you allow any law enforcement officer into your home or business without a search warrant. Needless to say, you should not be talking to them at the front door either. They are not going to bust your door down, and it's likely they will not return.
Keep in mind that you should never talk to a federal agent without your attorney's advice. The reason? It is a federal crime to lie to a federal agent, and there are many cases of people being charged with lying rather than the original crime for which they were being investigated.
Don't take my word for it. Read the words of a former government attorney (scroll down to "The Raid"). There are any number of good articles and videos authored by attorneys. Here's another one that's worth a read.
warrant isn't mentioned in the article either, not for getting the data and not for performing the raid(which they i think claim was "consentual", but what the fuck do you expect people to do if you come up geared for a war and want in..)
Imagine: "Sir, do you consent to a search where we poke and prod around your house and not damage anything, or will you force us to get a warrant and we can completely destroy your house during the 'search'?"
Hint: Courts have ruled that damage done under a search warrant is generally not compensated.
There have been cases where officers "looking for drugs" will damage homes to the point where they are uninhabitable, but the courts rule the individual must pay for the damage. Police performing a "search" can destroy just about any property they want. Smashing vases and poking holes in drywall as part of the "search" are generally considered legal. The police can even burn down your house an not pay you for it (see Patel v US and many other cases).
It has gotten to the point that "inverse condemnation" via police action is now a thing. Police and other government agents so greatly damage the property that it is the equivalent of condemnation.
No, you really don't want them force to get a warrant if they already don't like you.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
You are employing the modern misuse of the phrase. It does not mean that a question "begs to be asked." Questions cannot beg.
But people can.
"Begging the question" essentially means you are begging the audience to grant you assumptions without requiring you to prove them (generally falsely).
If I were to argue, "To reduce crime we must build more prisons to lock up minorities," that statement begs several questions be answered in a way favorable to my argument, but that I have not proven. Are minorities committing crimes? Will building prisons to lock them up reduce this crime? I haven't proven those things, but I'm just skipping over that messy business and begging the audience to act as if those questions were asked and answered in favor of my argument.
It's basically how politicians speak at all times.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.