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Google was ordered to identify people who watched certain YouTube videos. Privacy experts say the orders are unconstitutional. (www.forbes.com)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 7 months ago (27 children)

Well... the part they quoted is a little misleading.

The two situations they talked about at least on the face of it were:

An undercover agent was in contact with someone, and sent them a link to something in the expectation they'd click it and then that undercover agent could track down what was the IP/identity of the person who clicked the link. Pretty standard stuff. The only weird part is that it was a stock Youtube link and they asked Google to be involved to give them identifying information after (and that for whatever reason there were 30,000 people who watched the video and they asked for the info about all 30,000).
Law enforcement got a bomb threat, then they learned that there had been a livestream of them while they were looking for the bomb. That doesn't automatically mean anything about the person who was livestreaming (maybe they just saw something exciting happening?), but wanting to talk with that person makes 100% sense to me.

So, to me both of those seem pretty reasonable. But of course the on-the-face-of-it explanation for #1 doesn't completely make sense for a couple of different reasons. But I wouldn't automatically class either of these as abuse by law enforcement without knowing more.

[–] [email protected] 72 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (11 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, and that's also wrong. The shitheads in blue should not get access to any private video feeds.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 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.

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