Rethink Googling That Video of Big Bird Teaching Your Child the Letter ‘B’—You Might Be Caught in a Federal Dragnet
by Douglas Ankney
According to Techdirt, the federal government is obtaining court orders forcing Google and others to provide user ID information of people accessing innocuous videos based on the fact that one of the hundreds or even potentially thousands of former viewers might be a suspect of a criminal probe. The premise is similar to geofence warrants that some courts have held to be unconstitutional.
Here’s the facts. The U.S. has conducted numerous undercover transactions with an unknown subject identifying him or herself as ELM. The government sent cash and Bitcoin to ELM, who believed the proceeds were from drug transactions. During one such transaction, ELM responded by sending the government a link to a YouTube video (“YTV1”). The government, in turn, responded by sending links to two other YouTube videos (“YTV1” and “YTV2”) to ELM.
Based on this, the government requested a federal magistrate issue an order under § 2703(d) of the Stored Communications Act, directing those certain records and information connected with any Google account(s) or IP addresses of users accessing YTV1, YTV2, or YTV3 between 01/01/2023 and 01/08/2023 be provided. The three videos were innocuous presentations of mapping software that were recorded at least one year ago. Yet, the magistrate issued the order, and Google provided the requested information on every person who watched those videos during the relevant weekly time period (apparently approximately 200 people).
By analogy, this is comparable to a theft at a Walmart. The police demand the name and address of every person in Walmart that day and of every person who had been in the Walmart the previous week. Worse yet, the government sought, and the magistrate granted a one-year gag order. Thus, we have a clandestine and likely unconstitutional court order hidden from public view with no challenge to, or review of, its legitimacy.
Perhaps this overarching abuse of government power did provide identifying information on ELM. But the government had other options if its purpose was genuinely limited to learning the identity of ELM. For example, the government could have uploaded the videos with the setting on private and sent the link to ELM. Then, any viewer would be limited to only ELM or someone closely connected to ELM.
It seems that the government’s purported reason for requesting that amount of information can be succinctly explained by Big Bird: “B” for “Bullshit.”
Source: techdirt.com
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