Dissenting judge says such a wide-ranging search of a billion Google users’ search history without a particular target is exactly the kind of thing the Fourth Amendment was designed to stop
DENVER — Colorado’s highest court on Monday upheld the search of Google users’ keyword history to identify suspects in a 2020 fatal arson fire, an approach that critics have called a digital dragnet that threatens to undermine people’s privacy and their constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.
After some back and forth over how Google would be able to provide information without violating its privacy policy, Google produced a spreadsheet of sixty-one searches made by eight accounts. Google provided the IP addresses for those accounts, but no names. Five of the IP addresses were based in Colorado and police obtained the names of those people through another search warrant. After investigating those people, police eventually identified three teens as suspects.
The state Supreme Court ruled that Seymour had a constitutionally protected privacy interest in his Google search history even though it was just connected with an IP address and not his name. While it also said it assumes that the warrant was “constitutionally defective” for not specifying an “individualized probable cause”, the court said it would not throw out the evidence because police were acting in good faith under what was known about the law at the time.
In a dissent, Justice Monica Marquez said such a wide-ranging search of a billion Google users’ search history without a particular target is exactly the kind the Fourth Amendment was designed to stop. “With all law enforcement demands, including reverse warrants, we have a rigorous process designed to protect the privacy of our users while supporting the important work of law enforcement,” it said.
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