'Search Everyone First?' Lawyers Challenge Use of Warrants to Find Google Searchers

Bloomberg reports:

After five people were killed in a 2020 arson in Colorado, law enforcement officials failed to turn up any leads through their initial investigative techniques. So they served a warrant to Google for anyone who had searched for the address of the fire, according to a court motion.

Google eventually complied with the data request, helping law enforcement find suspects. Three teenagers who had searched the address were charged with murder. But the technique also drew a challenge from defense lawyers, who are calling reverse keyword search warrants 'a digital dragnet of immense proportions.' It's the first case to challenge the constitutionality of the method, the attorneys say.

Defense lawyers filed a motion Wednesday to challenge the judge's decision to use evidence from the warrant to charge their client, Gavin Seymour. They're asking the Colorado Supreme Court to review the matter, after the judge earlier denied their motion to suppress the evidence. The keyword search warrant 'is profoundly different from traditional search warrants seeking data belonging to a suspect,' the defense argued in the court filing. 'Instead, the process operates in reverse — search everyone first, and identify suspects later.'

One defendant's lawyer points out Google must review the activities of billions of innocent searchers to respond to keyword search warrants, arguing this has 'tremendous implications...for everyone in the country who uses Google to run searches.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.