Feds Now Adding Dragnet Searches Of YouTube Users’ Video Watching To Their Investigative Arsenal
from the collect-it-all dept
All you need is Google. That’s how things have been going in the law enforcement world. If you don’t know who you’re looking for, just ask Google to do it for you. A variety of warrants that demand Google search its data stores for personal information (that might lead investigators to find potential suspects [who can then be properly targeted with more normal warrants]) have been standard operating procedure for years.
There’s no probable cause to believe Google has committed any crimes. Nor is there necessarily even any reason to believe Google is housing data pertaining to criminal activity. At best, these warrants — ones that seek anything from mass groupings of location data to information on people using certain search words when utilizing Google’s search engine — simply assume Google has collected so much data, it’s a logical place to start an investigation.
The most common form of these Google-centric warrants is the “geofence warrant,” a warrant that asks Google to provide certain information about anybody in a certain area at a certain time. These warrants make anyone in the area a criminal suspect and, if Google complies, citizens are at the mercy of investigators who have the power to decide who is or isn’t a criminal suspect, even when the geofenced areas include things like apartment complexes, churches, or heavily trafficked business areas.
The next most popular is the “keyword” warrant. Using even more specious reasoning, investigators approach courts with warrant affidavits attesting that Google houses information on Google searches that may be relevant to the investigation. Without a doubt, Google stores information about keyword searches. But just because it does store this info doesn’t mean the keywords provided by investigators have anything to do with the crimes being investigated.
This is the latest wrinkle in the Investigatory world. As Thomas Brewster reports for Forbes, keyboard warriors working for federal agencies are now using warrants and court orders to demand Google turn over information on users who may have watched certain videos that have been viewed tens of thousands of times.
Federal investigators have ordered Google to provide information on all viewers of select YouTube videos, according to multiple court orders obtained by Forbes. 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.
In a just-unsealed case from Kentucky reviewed by Forbes, undercover cops sought to identify the individual behind the online moniker “elonmuskwhm,” who they suspect of selling bitcoin for cash, potentially running afoul of money laundering laws and rules around unlicensed money transmitting.
In conversations with the user in early January, undercover agents sent links of YouTube tutorials for mapping via drones and augmented reality software, then asked Google for information on who had viewed the videos, which collectively have been watched over 30,000 times.
The feds couldn’t figure out how to set up a honey pot, nor could they figure out how to monitor these links on their own. Following these failures, they then asked a judge for permission to hassle Google into turning over information on (potentially) 30,000 different YouTube viewers. I’m sure it’s more nuanced than that, but that’s what the plain text conveys.
The unsealed court order wasn’t just fishing for a list of vague identifiers that could be winnowed down to a list of suspects and a follow-up warrant demanding actual identifying information on these ~30,000 YouTube users. No, it appears the feds led with the big ask, demanding names, addresses, phone numbers, and user activity for every viewer of these videos between January 1-8, 2023. AND(!!) it asked Google to provide IP addresses for all viewers who were not logged into (or did not possess) Google accounts.
And if you think that fishing hole is pretty fucking big, just keep reading. Brewster has tracked down a few other similar demands for YouTube viewer data and 30,000 viewers is actually on the shallow end of this metaphor. An attempt to find someone who called in a bomb threat resulted in this spectacular abuse of process:
[Federal investigators] asked Google to provide a list of accounts that “viewed and/or interacted with” eight YouTube live streams and the associated identifying information during specific timeframes. That included a video posted by Boston and Maine Live, which has 130,000 subscribers.
This was supposedly justified by the fact that one camera installed by a local business provided a continuous live stream of the area where the supposed bomb had been placed. (It does not appear that any bomb was actually placed anywhere, but a bomb threat alone is often enough to attract the attention of federal officers.)
If 30,000 users being subjected to a single federal law enforcement search is unequivocally bad, the search of perhaps 130,000 users is an almost unimaginable abuse of government power.
We still don’t know how these inexplicably broad requests were handled by Google, nor whether they were instrumental in the prosecution of criminal activity. The DOJ refused to comment on the court orders or the cases. Google has yet to say whether or not it complied with these ridiculous court orders. The court system itself hasn’t been much help to the general public, even though it’s more than willing to assist another government branch by acquiescing to its requests for secrecy.
It’s not just the Fourth Amendment in play here. There’s also the First Amendment. Much like in cases involving mass keyword searches, citizens should feel free to consume any non-illegal content they want without fearing the government may demand their content provider turn over their identifying info.
This is a scary step forward by law enforcement. Hopefully, Google has been resisting these clearly unconstitutional demands for data. And even more hopefully, courts will start seeing enough of these broad warrants, they’ll start shutting down this new form of government overreach.
Filed Under: 4th amendment, privacy, surveillance, video watches, warrants
Companies: google, youtube
Comments on “Feds Now Adding Dragnet Searches Of YouTube Users’ Video Watching To Their Investigative Arsenal”
Yet another justification for AdNauseam & friends (and having them click erry-damn-thing they find, naturally). If nothing else I’m completely in love with the idea of generating heaps and heaps of entirely useless profiling data for a crawler every single time it triggers an ad link or tracker.
It’s especially awesome now the indexed internet is, in the main, utter shite, so maintaining a whitelist is depressingly little work.
The gubment is out to get you
Sleep well America
Just use a burner phone and VPN
-Problem solved
Looks like my idea of buying a condo in Tijuana, Ensenada, or Rosarito and parking a computer there is sounding even better as a home computer in Mexico is not subject to US jurisdiction
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How much do you trust your VPN not to rat you out?
for instance, PC Mag did an article on the topic. How To Geek provides tips on seeing if your information is still leaking.
And of course, Facebook used to have a VPN you could have used!
Re: Re:
This is why you want your owm private VPN and not a commercial VPN service
That is why I talk about buying a condo in Mexico and parking a computer there and putting a VPN on it
Neither the condo, computer, or whatever ISP it is on subject to American laws.
That is why the rich will alwaye get around any censorship. A second home abroad is not subject to American law, even if a US citizen owns it
A VPN on a home computer will stay under the radar
Vwey funny
Someone calls WHO?> with a bomb scare?
IF it was the FBI getting the call, and they arnt setup to TRACK Cellphones on call-ins..
If they dont know HOW to do a *69? or is it *78 on the old digital phone system. Like WTH is the FBI used for?
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Maybe they’re still staking out that phone on the corner, trying to catch that guy who keeps calling margaret.
How about just don’t be an anti-social pervert with a predilection for crime?
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The cops are monitoring you.
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Anon. You are under arrest. Our investigation concluded that you watched the same video as a wanted criminal. You must be him. Come with us.
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Well cops for the most part don’t go after cops no matter what.
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Sorry, but Benjamin Jay Barber (aka Blow Job Bob) will never be able to comply with such a requirement.
VPN advertisment right here
I mean. VPNs are really becoming popular for people to get some much needed privacy. I don’t use VPN for everything, but I just might start.