If the linked article has a paywall, you can access this archived version instead: https://archive.ph/zyhax

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.

“This is the latest chapter in a disturbing trend where we see government agencies increasingly transforming search warrants into digital dragnets. It’s unconstitutional, it’s terrifying and it’s happening every day,” said Albert Fox-Cahn, executive director at the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. “No one should fear a knock at the door from police simply because of what the YouTube algorithm serves up. I’m horrified that the courts are allowing this.” He said the orders were “just as chilling” as geofence warrants, where Google has been ordered to provide data on all users in the vicinity of a crime.

  • metaldream@sopuli.xyz
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    9 months ago

    It’s crazy to me that this got 61 upvotes while the main concern here, that 30,000 unrelated people had their data handed over to the government, is just an aside in point 1.

    It really concerns me that people think any of this reasonable. If this is “reasonable” then there’s nothing stopping cops from getting all of our data, whenever they want it. All they have to do is find one suspect who watched one video.

    That’s fucking crazy and clearly unreasonable. Take my downvote for having an exceptionally bad opinion on this topic.

    • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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      9 months ago

      30,000 unrelated people had their data handed over to the government

      It doesn’t say it happened. It said Google received a court order. People challenge court orders sometimes, there’s just a process you have to go through to do it.

      The whole article is honestly just weird. E.g. “Privacy experts from multiple civil rights groups told Forbes they think the orders are unconstitutional because they threaten to turn innocent YouTube viewers into criminal suspects.” That is… that’s not what “unconstitutional” means at all. Sometimes cops will question innocent people or knock on doors when they’re investigating crimes. If they’re doing it without court oversight, that’s dangerous. If “crimes” include things that aren’t actually crimes, that’s dangerous. If “knocking on doors” includes more than just actually asking questions to investigate, that’s dangerous. But I’m a little doubtful that they showed up at anyone’s door just because that person watched a YouTube video and started asking them questions related or unrelated to the specific crime they were investigating.

      The article’s written in a way where you genuinely can’t tell some important details – they don’t say whether the video was public or unlisted, they don’t say whether the cops were the ones that uploaded it, there are important things like that that they don’t make clear. But the idea that the constitution says the cops can’t gather data under any circumstances to investigate a crime seems like just a knee-jerk “cops bad” reaction.

      I don’t even necessarily disagree with your broader point. If the cops took a publicly-listed YouTube video and asked a court for the identities of 30,000 people who happened to watch it, and then the court agreed, and then Google gave them the data instead of pushing back legally (which the article claims they do sometimes), then sure, that’s wrong. But literally every one of those elements is unclear from the article whether it happened.

      there’s nothing stopping cops from getting all of our data

      At the end of the article is an instance where the cops went to the court for a “geofencing” warrant and the court threw out their request because it was too broad. That’s the point of oversight and why having to get a warrant is an important step.

      Like I say I’m honestly not completely disagreeing with you here. I definitely think too much data gets harvested about what every person does online and the cops are too freely able to access it with too little oversight. Depending on the details, maybe that’s what happened here, or maybe it was legit. I’m just saying I’m don’t agree with the assertion that it’s always wrong.

    • RedFox@infosec.pub
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      9 months ago

      It’s not terribly different from law enforcement getting a search warrant for a video feed covering the apartment of a known pedo video distributor and then tracking down everyone.

      The problem would be violation of privacy for everyone who went there who wasn’t a pedo.

      Obviously, that’s not a perfect comparison for the Internet because it’s acceptable from anyone, but they’re following the same playbook.

      How much privacy are you willing to trade to stop pedos from hurting kids?

      Edit: in thinking about this, the save the kids stuff has been worn out by a certain group that even I’m tired of. I didn’t really think about that when I came up with the example, not that I expect it would matter to people’s personal feelings on the matter.

      • systemglitch@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        If I had my way, none, the pedo part is irrelevant. Save the kids mentality is not justification for draconian overreach

        • RedFox@infosec.pub
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          9 months ago

          Yeah, I just edited the comment. That narrative is tired and political, and I honestly didn’t think of that at the time.

          Not that it really matters what the example is.

        • systemglitch@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          You’re thinking and able to reconsider previous statements, I’d consider that a win. Far too I find we simply double down without the due consideration we owe ourselves.