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To Catch A Robber, The FBI Attempted An Unprecedented Grab For Google Location Data (forbes.com)
Back in March, as it investigated a spate of armed robberies across Portland, Maine, the FBI made an astonishing, unprecedented request of Google, Forbes reports. The feds wanted the tech giant to find all users of its services who'd been within the vicinity of at least two of nine of those robberies. They limited the search to within 30-minute timeframes around when the crimes were committed. But the request covered a total space of 45 hectares and could've included anyone with an Android or iPhone using Google's tools, not just the suspect. From a report: The FBI then demanded a lot of personal information on affected users, including their full names and addresses, as well as their Google account activity. The feds also wanted all affected users' historical locations. According to court records, while Google didn't provide the information, the cops still found their suspect in the end. Outside of concerns around government overreach, the FBI's remarkable attempt to force Google to assist in its investigation will likely worry all who were disturbed by an Associated Press investigation published on Monday that claimed Google continued to track people even when they turned location features off. The court warrants unearthed by Forbes indicate some at the FBI believe they have a right to that location data too, even if it belongs to innocents who might be unwittingly caught up in invasive government surveillance. And the government feels such fishing expeditions are permissable; it issued the warrant on Google without knowing whether or not the suspect used an Android device or any of the company services at all.
As with any controversial topic it is always one extreme vs the other: either we let all robbers lose or we have a police state. I cannot stress enough that there is a middle ground, a situation when the police has tools to effectively catch criminals and citizens have enough freedom to not be oppressed by the government.
People mostly do not realize how much government oversight they take for granted nowadays vs ancient times and still not ending up with a police state (e.g. there was time, when people were free to travel to any country with only restriction to report at the destination to a local duke). On the other hand technology did change reality for both police and criminals, the latter use it freely, let the police also have a chance - the point is to make enough check and balances to keep a free society.
I think a key to a free society is not police stripped of modern tools, but a healthy (being exercised by educated and informed society) democracy with police having tools but being kept accountable for its actions. Technology will keep changing the reality we live, we have to adapt, otherwise the free society many of us enjoy might perish - aka cyber-warfare dangers to democratic elections.
> I don't think you should be able to request information about a large number of people, most of whom are innocent, to maybe find just one guy.
Agreed.
> If you have *a* suspect and you want to build a case by requesting information regarding his whereabouts from his cell phone company, plus google, I agree.
IF they have probable cause and a warrant, agreed.
Here we have a class that doesn't fit either of the above.
They don't need info about many people. They don't have the name of a suspect.
They have evidence that the (one) perpetrator or team repeated the crime in several locations at known times. They can ask Google for the name of the ONE person who was at all crimes. Google can run a quick database query to get one name, the very likely perp. Obviously then police would follow up and gather appropriate evidence.
I (and SCOTUS) think there is an interesting distinction between the government saying "give us data on everyone so we can see if any of it is interesting" vs "here are some criteria which will identify the armed robber. Let us know if you have the name of the person who fits these very specific criteria."
By way of analogy, it would generally be unconstitutional for the FBI to subpoena all of my emails in order to see if I ever talked to Paul Combetta. It would be legal for them to ask for "any emails you exchanged with Paul Combetta in July 2014 about wiping servers". Specificity matters.
How do they know even know the robber has a smartphone? If they can't even prove that then they should be flat out denied before even broaching the issue of obtaining google location data.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
The problem is that, bad as Google sometimes is, the government has many instances of being a lot worse. Google doesn't kill innocent people. Google doesn't lock innocent people up. Etc.
In a way it's like the difference between civil and criminal law. Criminal law rightly has a lot higher requirements and standards of proof.
Now I say this as someone who attempts to keep from being tracked by Google. I don't like them accumulating information about me, or other people. But they will only result in more spam.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.