In your story, the injustices are 1) the police going on a fishing expedition, and 2) the police using the data gained through an investigation to unjustly harass people. Those are bad things and we should have laws to prevent that and punish people who do so.
I agree it would be bad if they were making the request in furtherance of a conspiracy to do either of those things.
But the police asking Google for a list of people who viewed a video, though, is in itself not one of those things. It’s similar them asking a business owner whose business has a camera overlooking a street near a crime scene to hand over surveillance footage (which will include innocent passers by) or a business that sells a product which was known to be used by a criminal to provide a list of purchasers of that product (which will include innocent purchasers).
Many such businesses will voluntarily hand over such information to assist with an enquiry. Some businesses might refuse, or might choose not to have such information.
And this is why judges are involved in the process of issuing warrants and grand juries in the process of issuing subpoenas when the police or a prosecutor want to compel the production of evidence of that sort.
But it just seems inevitable that, at the beginning of an investigation into a crime where the perpetrator is unknown, the first step is to identify possible suspects; by definition not all of the people so identified will end up being investigated. How are the police to do that if they can’t ask anyone for information that might bring innocent people’s names to their attention?
I appreciate it seems idealistic maybe, but it feels to me that we need rules that ensure ‘coming to the attention of the police in the course of an investigation’ is genuinely harmless; not rules that assume it automatically exposes you to harm.
>And this is why judges are involved in the process of issuing warrants and grand juries in the process of issuing subpoenas when the police or a prosecutor want to compel the production of evidence of that sort.
That's the issue, court orders aren't free to make and factors like "it is filming a public street" are taken into account. There isn't anything "public" about "viewing a video stored on a server of a large private website". And there enlies the rub.
Also, the story here isn't just "get me a list of 30k people who watched a video", which may be reasonable:
>The court orders show the government telling Google to provide the names, addresses, telephone numbers and user activity for all Google account users who accessed the YouTube videos between January 1 and January 8, 2023. The government also wanted the IP addresses of non-Google account owners who viewed the videos.
They want ALL your Google activity for a week, because you watched a video that may or may not have been recommended to you by Google itself. that can include schedules, emails, financial transactions, Maps inquiries, chat records, etc. Depends on how much you use google, but Google can power a lot of aspects of life these days.
Even if you aren't on Google you have your IP revealed for simply viewing a video. That feels like an overreach.
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The second factor is that they barely have a specific suspect. That just think "they saw this video -> they may be money laundering":
> Google to hand over the information as part of an investigation into someone who uses the name "elonmuskwhm" online.
I can't believe that passed a court order. some random handle is selling bitcoin and may have watched this video, so lets get all the data of everyone who watched this tutorial at this time.
>How are the police to do that if they can’t ask anyone for information that might bring innocent people’s names to their attention?
by narrowing it down to more than 30k people. That can be an entire town for some smaller areas
>but it feels to me that we need rules that ensure ‘coming to the attention of the police in the course of an investigation’ is genuinely harmless; not rules that assume it automatically exposes you to harm.
in my mind this is the more idealistic scenario. They've had decades to espouse this sentiment and they aren't even close to doing so.
Also, the issue is that it's not like the government deletes this data after they are done. Quite the contrary. Maybe the US government needs its own GDPR protocol so this won't be pulled up on record down the line.
I agree it would be bad if they were making the request in furtherance of a conspiracy to do either of those things.
But the police asking Google for a list of people who viewed a video, though, is in itself not one of those things. It’s similar them asking a business owner whose business has a camera overlooking a street near a crime scene to hand over surveillance footage (which will include innocent passers by) or a business that sells a product which was known to be used by a criminal to provide a list of purchasers of that product (which will include innocent purchasers).
Many such businesses will voluntarily hand over such information to assist with an enquiry. Some businesses might refuse, or might choose not to have such information.
And this is why judges are involved in the process of issuing warrants and grand juries in the process of issuing subpoenas when the police or a prosecutor want to compel the production of evidence of that sort.
But it just seems inevitable that, at the beginning of an investigation into a crime where the perpetrator is unknown, the first step is to identify possible suspects; by definition not all of the people so identified will end up being investigated. How are the police to do that if they can’t ask anyone for information that might bring innocent people’s names to their attention?
I appreciate it seems idealistic maybe, but it feels to me that we need rules that ensure ‘coming to the attention of the police in the course of an investigation’ is genuinely harmless; not rules that assume it automatically exposes you to harm.