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CNN: The Department of Justice Report on Trump's Wiretap Allegation Does Not Confirm His Conspiracy Theory

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Captain Magic3/17/2017 7:45:22 pm PDT

Another WTF, Minnesota?…..

Star Tribune: Police got search warrant for everyone who Googled Edina resident’s name
Google said Friday that it objected “to this overreaching request for user data, and if needed, will fight it in court.”

A search warrant issued to Edina police to collect information on anyone who used certain search terms on Google is raising concerns about constitutional violations.

Privacy law experts say that the warrant — issued to find a suspect in an attempted identity and credit theft of an Edina resident — is based on an unusually broad definition of probable cause that could set a troubling precedent.

“This kind of warrant is cause for concern because it’s closer to these dragnet searches that the Fourth Amendment is designed to prevent,” said William McGeveran, a law professor at the University of Minnesota.

Issued by Hennepin County District Judge Gary Larson in early February, the warrant looks at anyone who searched variations of the resident’s name on Google from Dec. 1 through Jan. 7.

In addition to basic contact information for people targeted by the warrant, Google is being asked to provide Edina police with their Social Security numbers, account and payment information, and IP (internet protocol) and MAC (media access control) addresses.

A spokesperson for Google, which received the warrant, said Friday: “We will continue to object to this overreaching request for user data, and if needed, will fight it in court. We always push back when we receive excessively broad requests for data about our users.”

Information on the warrant first emerged through a blog post by public records researcher Tony Webster. Technology website Ars Technica called the Edina warrant “perhaps the most expansive one we’ve seen unconnected to the U.S. national security apparatus.”

(That’s why all smart/paranoid kids use DuckDuckGo as their search engine-preferably behind a VPN through a TOR session hosted under a VM…..)