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Crime Google Privacy The Courts

Feds Forced Google To Reveal All Google Users Within 100 Feet of a Bank Robbery (theverge.com) 141

Federal investigators asked Google for help finding two men who'd robbed a Wisconsin bank in October of 2018: They left the bank at 9:09AM, just seven minutes after they entered, carrying the bag full of cash, three drawers from the vault and teller station, and the keys to the bank vault itself. In the months since, police and federal agents have struggled to track down the bank robbers. Local media sent out pictures from the bank's security cameras, but it produced no leads.

Finally, police hit on a more aggressive strategy: ask Google to track down the bank robbers' phones.

In November, agents served Google with a search warrant, asking for data that would identify any Google user who had been within 100 feet of the bank during a half-hour block of time around the robbery. They were looking for the two men who had gone into the bank, as well as the driver who dropped off and picked up the crew, and would potentially be caught up in the same dragnet. It was an aggressive technique, scooping up every Android phone in the area and trusting police to find the right suspects in the mess of resulting data. But the court found it entirely legal, and it was returned as executed shortly after.

That kind of warrant, known as a reverse location search, has become increasingly common in recent years... In each case, police weren't tracking the location of a specific suspect -- where normal standards of reasonable suspicion would apply -- but instead pulling the names of every individual who had been in the vicinity when a crime took place. For civil liberties groups, it's a dangerous and potentially unconstitutional overreach of police power. But those concerns haven't been enough to keep police from filing reverse location search warrants when a case runs dry, or to convince judges to reject them.

The Verge reports that Minnesota over 20 of the same kind of warrants have been served just in the state of Minnesota -- though in the Wisconsin case, it's not even clear that it did any good.

"When The Verge reached out to the FBI's Milwaukee division to ask if any charges had been brought, officers said the case was ongoing and they could not provide any additional information as a result. With nearly a year elapsed since the warrant was served, that suggests this particular reverse location search may not have been as fruitful as investigators hoped."
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Feds Forced Google To Reveal All Google Users Within 100 Feet of a Bank Robbery

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  • by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Monday September 02, 2019 @03:55AM (#59148312) Journal
    Hey, you know what they say, it's not a real robbery if it's not live-streamed on Facebook. Do you know where I got my scars?
  • by Custard Horse ( 1527495 ) on Monday September 02, 2019 @03:57AM (#59148314)

    They robbed a bank in 7 minutes - it seems highly unlikely that they will have anything other than dumb burner phones.

    Besides, I've seen the films - the bank robbers will have Apple devices to flaunt their new wealth. They'll never get caught.

    • by Cederic ( 9623 )

      They robbed a bank in 7 minutes - it seems highly unlikely that they will have anything other than dumb burner phones.

      Those two things don't follow.

      How long is the average bank robbery? 7 minutes sounds well within ordinary bounds - indeed, longer than many.

      I'd expect a well organised tightly planned robbery to be much quicker, to minimise the highest risk period of the event.

    • "They robbed a bank in 7 minutes - it seems highly unlikely that they will have anything other than dumb burner phones. "

      What for? To call an Uber to flee?

      People have robbed banks for centuries without the need for any phones.

      • People have robbed banks for centuries without the need for any phones.

        Modern problems require modern solutions. Without a phone, how else are you going to take a selfie of yourself standing in the vault with all of the cash around you for FaceBook?

    • They robbed a bank in 7 minutes - it seems highly unlikely that they will have anything other than dumb burner phones.

      I guarantee, right now someone in congress is probably considering passing a law making it illegal to rob a bank without an activated android phone on your person.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 02, 2019 @03:57AM (#59148316)

    They used a search warrant. If the court says this specific information collected in this manner can be used in evidence then what more do you want?

    I had a car stolen from my driveway and the creeps even tried to hit me as they screamed through the gate. The cops didn't respond for more than 2 hours. I got the stripped down car back 4 days later when a woman rang and asked me to move my car wreck from the front of her house. I asked at the time why didn't they simply use phone records because at that place, that time of day, there would have been nobody but the perpetrators at the scene while they used spanners, wire cutters and wrecking bars to get what they wanted.

    "Nope can't do that. That sort of information is fully protected and only usually available to the Feds with a special warrant. Don't worry you got insurance right? What do you care really?"

    • by lucasnate1 ( 4682951 ) on Monday September 02, 2019 @04:02AM (#59148324) Homepage

      They used a search warrant. If the court says this specific information collected in this manner can be used in evidence then what more do you want?

      I had a car stolen from my driveway and the creeps even tried to hit me as they screamed through the gate. The cops didn't respond for more than 2 hours.

      Here's the problem. Whatever amazing tracking services police are going to use, they will never be used to help little old you, only banks, corps, churches, and politicians.

      • You really think "banks, corps, churches, and politicians" will allow churches in on it ;)

        Just my 2 cents ;)
      • priority. Banking/Financial system is back bone of the economy. You need to protect them with the most importance. [of course rich/corporate etc play too - as rich has more dependence/investment in banking]
      • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

        Maybe it just depends upon the jurisdiction. Cops here (northern VA) are very helpful unless you treat them like shit. I've interacted with them on probably a dozen occasions since moving here in '82. Not all departments are the same, so YMMV.

    • I got the stripped down car back 4 days later when a woman rang and asked me to move my car wreck from the front of her house. I asked at the time why didn't they simply use phone records because at that place, that time of day, there would have been nobody but the perpetrators at the scene while they used spanners, wire cutters and wrecking bars to get what they wanted.

      Oh, common. It's /. here, we're all geeks here around: How come your car didn't have an old smartphone with an unlocked bootloader (or, for a little bit more nerd-cred, a Raspberry Pi with a GPS shield and a 3G/4G USB stick) hidden somewhere in the car, that you could use SSH into to check what's happening with your car? (Bonus geek point for having it also connected to the car's OBD2 port)~~

      More seriously, jokes aside, if car stealing is a thing that happen around were you live, an old smartphone hidden i

      • Re:/. here (Score:4, Insightful)

        by guruevi ( 827432 ) on Monday September 02, 2019 @10:18AM (#59148832)

        Cops don't go looking for your car even if you have LoJack or OnStar. Not worth the risk to them and you have insurance anyway, why indeed do you care? You'll get a damaged car back at best and no insurance payout to repair it.

        • Cops don't go looking for your car even if you have LoJack or OnStar. Not worth the risk to them and you have insurance anyway, why indeed do you care? You'll get a damaged car back at best and no insurance payout to repair it.

          You will pay a deductible and your insurance rates will go up.

        • You'll get a damaged car back at best and no insurance payout to repair it.

          If they jump on it before it gets chopped up, then they can both catch the perpetrators, and possibly stop it from being damaged severely (as some cars are depressingly easy to steal.) So they stop most of it from happening to you, and all of it from happening to someone else.

    • by jrumney ( 197329 ) on Monday September 02, 2019 @08:13AM (#59148632)

      Will you have issues when China gets a court to issue a search warrant for Google to reveal all people in the vicinity of Hong Kong Airport?

    • by lgw ( 121541 )

      They used a search warrant. If the court says this specific information collected in this manner can be used in evidence then what more do you want?

      The Fourth Amendment was added to stop exactly this sort of warrant.

      This was very common in the century or two leading up to the American Revolution. Warrants would be issued to arrest, or to search, everyone within an area, or everyone of a certain religion.

      no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized

      The entire point is that you can't issue a warrant to search everyone to fish for suspects. You must already know the particular individuals you want to search, backed up by probable cause.

      The Constitution could not be more clear about this. But the

      • In the case, the thing to be searched was Google's database, and the thing to be searched for were the records of anyone in that area. No search was performed on any of those people in the area - which might have been an unconstitutional general warrant.

        This isn't even third-party doctrine stuff. The warrant was entirely in keeping with the Fourth Amendment.

      • And for the example case of why this is a problem, imagine someone who was convicted of robbing a convenience store (or worse, a bank) at the age of 20. They serve their time, then live the rest of their life on the straight and narrow. But by sheer coincidence, 10 years later, they happen to get coffee across the street (or smoke a cigarette in an alleyway, or just walk by) at the time of the bank robbery. Guess who just became a prime suspect in the robbery, despite nothing but circumstantial evidence to
    • > what more do you want?

      I want law enforcement; at all levels from the police, to the prosecutors, to the courts, federal, state, local, and everything in-between; to LEAVE INNOCENT PEOPLE ALONE! In their mass surveillance expedition here, did the scum hoover up the data on even one non-bank-robber? Yes? Then it is an intolerable invasion and abuse that should not have happened and should never again be tolerated. Sorry, not sorry: "close enough for government work" and "whoops. my bad. can I get a

      • by anegg ( 1390659 )

        I want law enforcement; at all levels from the police, to the prosecutors, to the courts, federal, state, local, and everything in-between; to LEAVE INNOCENT PEOPLE ALONE! In their mass surveillance expedition here, did the scum hoover up the data on even one non-bank-robber? Yes? Then it is an intolerable invasion and abuse that should not have happened and should never again be tolerated. Sorry, not sorry: "close enough for government work" and "whoops. my bad. can I get a do-over?" don't cut it in my book when you're talking about government workers empowered to take away your freedom, and potentially your life.

        Your expectations are way more conservative than mine in this case. If the bank was robbed, and the police physically stopped people in the vicinity of the bank, wouldn't they have the ability to execute at least a cursory search to ensure the people weren't carrying stolen loot? I was held at gunpoint by a police officer, and searched (pat down over my clothing), because I was in the vicinity of a robbery and was a match to a description (high level description given to the police immediately following t

  • Anything the robbers touch, be it with their shoes or what not, will leave residue. Take this to analysis, you know, like in the good old days when prosecuting criminals was just that, not a convenience to spy on people.
    • If the robber even have half a brain, anything that was present during the robbery with the sole exception of their own naked body and the money that they got it, would have been turned to ashes by now.

      Including the car.

      • If they burned it they would need somewhere to do that. From the residue collected in the bank, you can still gain a lot of knowledge, like if the clothes were new or old, what colour they were, what type of sole, the kind of shoes, etc. Together with the (scarce?) footage they have, they have a lot to go on to build profiles on them.

        Then is the matter of speed, type of escape vehicle, and possible distance covered. Most likely they didn't need to go far, because if this was a serious robbery and the pol
        • If they burned it they would need somewhere to do that. From the residue collected in the bank, you can still gain a lot of knowledge, like if the clothes were new or old, what colour they were, what type of sole, the kind of shoes, etc. Together with the (scarce?) footage they have, they have a lot to go on to build profiles on them.

          Sorry, but you watch too much CSI.

          The real world is not like that.

  • Old fashioned (Score:2, Insightful)

    I guess that whole “innocent until proven guilty” thing is considered hopelessly old fashioned nowadays.

    • Re: Old fashioned (Score:3, Insightful)

      by c6gunner ( 950153 )

      Who exactly is being presumed guilty until proven innocent?

      Were you honestly trying to make some kind of point there, or were you just tossing out a pithy line hoping to get modded up by the vacuous?

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Isn't there some minimal requirement of suspicion before the cops investigate a person in the US?

        I'm no expert but I thought they had to have "probable cause" or something. In the UK they can't even demand your name unless they have some reasonably reason to suspect that you may have been involved in a crime. Simply being within 30m of a crime doesn't seem very reasonable.

        • by jrumney ( 197329 )

          Ask any black person walking down the street what counts as "probable cause". Tthe only difference is that they will live to tell the tale in UK.

          • There are tragedies in the USA, but the vast majority of street stops have no violent outcome, even when there is racial profiling involved. There are tragedies in the USA, and in every nation. If you do not believe the UK has a history of police violence, I'd urge you to review the history of India in colonial days, of Australia, and the more recent history of Ireland. Let's not excuse abuse on anyone's part.

            • by jrumney ( 197329 )

              Let's not excuse abuse on anyone's part.

              Isn't that what you're doing, by reacting to me pointing out current major problems with US police actions by countering with centuries and decades old examples of British actions?

              • I'm not excusing abuse. I'm pointing that your comment about how black people will survive police contact in the UK, and not in the US is an insult to the _generally_ good police behavior in the USA, and ignores the historical abuse of entire nations, of religions, and of races at the hands of British police.

                Britian, at least, is a smaller nation than the USA and has fewere deaths in police homicide in a year, partly because of the rarity of firearms. But there are survivors of "the troubles" in Ireland w

        • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday September 02, 2019 @09:43AM (#59148784)
          Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

          Finding out who was around a crime scene doesn't make those individuals suspects (w/o additional evidence), but they are certainly potential witnesses. If the police had used cameras and facial recognition, would it be any different?

          From Cornell Law:
          Probable cause is a requirement found in the Fourth Amendment that must usually be met before police make an arrest, conduct a search, or receive a warrant. Courts usually find probable cause when there is a reasonable basis for believing that a crime may have

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            A better comparison might be if the police were able to round up everyone in the area at the time. They would need some way to identify them to see if they were associated with the robbery, e.g. asking for their name or ID, checking fingerprints etc.

            So now they can achieve the same thing by asking Google and getting a list of user accounts, with whatever details the user entered (possibly real name, email address, phone number (needed to create a Google account) and potentially a lot more).

            I'm not comfortab

            • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

              It's common practice to question people in the area of a crime to see if they were witnesses. That doesn't require a "round up", it just requires knowing they were at the scene at the time. Why are we taking the leap that everyone found in this search becomes a suspect? Example...the home across the street from ours was robbed a few years back. Police canvased all the homes...knocked on my door and questioned me if I'd seen/heard anything. Am I under suspicion because I was across the street?...no. Th

              • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                "It's common practice to question people in the area of a crime to see if they were witnesses."

                Yes, but my point is that there are strict legal limits to that questioning. As I say, in the UK they can't even ask your name without some reason to suspect you might be involved. Being within a 30m radius of a crime seems dubious.

                Yet with this method they get your name and more direct from Google. You also don't get an opportunity to protest and may not even be notified that it happened so that you can follow up

                • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

                  I guess I'm confused as to why them having your name would be a problem, or why you would protest. What would you protest against?...them knowing you were there? You're in no way obligated to cooperate with them, and they'd likely be able to figure out your name in the long run, this just makes it less difficult.

                  • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                    There is a long history of the police using these powers to harass people, which is why there are strict limits on them. Back in the day they would go and round up the usual suspects, the Irish, the blacks, anyone they didn't like. Fit them up if necessary.

                    • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

                      So, of the hundreds of thousands of police, and interactions they've had with the public, how much of that has occurred in the last few decades? Sure, it happens, and there are assholes in every walk of life, every business, every government branch, but the percentage of those incidents in recent times is minuscule. And yeah we all hear about them more often now because there are cameras everywhere, but you hear nothing of those who are doing their jobs properly. Do we need to color the vast majority of

              • by dryeo ( 100693 )

                There are too many innocent people convicted of crimes or forced to plea bargain to think that just because you're innocent, you have nothing to worry about.
                America is particularly bad as some of the Judiciary and law enforcement are elected which causes extra pressure to close cases with a conviction.
                Then there is the fact that a simple arrest destroys your social credit rating
                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • Especially in the Northern blue states.

    • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

      The police gathering who was in the location of a crime does in no way make them guilty or even necessarily suspect. Why jump to an illogical conclusion?

  • In other words (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Monday September 02, 2019 @04:47AM (#59148370)

    If you plan a heist, leave your phone at home for an alibi.

    "Can't have been me, officer, look, my phone ain't been there"

    • Re:In other words (Score:4, Interesting)

      by MrDoh! ( 71235 ) on Monday September 02, 2019 @05:45AM (#59148414) Homepage Journal
      Which also becomes a useful method of detection of a robbery about to occur. Have detectors at the entrance, if someone enters WITHOUT a phone, alert security to at least be aware there might be an issue. If 3 guys walk in and none of them have phones, silent alarm. Far less intrusive than a walk through metal detector, embedded in door frames to cover doors on either side/one detector aimed at main entrance.
      • I frequently leave my phone at home because it has so shit batteries. Guess I'll be banned from banks now.
        • It's okay, dude, I have to carry two due to work. If you walk in with some business-looking chap, I bet you'll pass muster at least half the time.

      • So I have to steal a cellphone first, gotcha.

      • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

        Guess I'm one of the few who doesn't carry his cell everywhere.

      • I know from personal experience that my dumb phone doesn't set off at least a couple varieties of commercial cell phone detectors. Most of them are designed to listen for the "chattier" traffic from smart phones, and/or are hard to configure properly to listen in on the actual tower sync signals used by plain (no data) cell phones. I'd really prefer it if you didn't make my wife and I (both dumb phone users) walking into a bank into a robbery in progress alert, thank you.
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Buy an Alexa device and play back a few random queries during the period when you were doing the crime. Then you have a witness to prove you weren't there.

    • You assume they are only looking for phones belonging to the robbers. My guess is they are looking for witnesses to question, in hopes of learning more details. In that case, it doesn't matter whether the robbers were carrying phones or not.

  • by kaptink ( 699820 ) on Monday September 02, 2019 @05:15AM (#59148396) Homepage

    https://techxplore.com/news/20... [techxplore.com]

    Two years minimum of pretty much everything on tap. Not just location etc. Even the fisheries Dept are on the list?

    • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

      Couldn't help but read your subject as:
      Be thankful you don't live in Anus
      Yes, I am.

  • I would expect criminals are getting intelligent enough to leave their phones at home, or in a likely alibi location, when going out to perform these sorts of crimes...

    So many people have been caught because of their phones that it only makes sense these days. Even TV programmes show criminals being caught with them, and some throwing the away.

    • Why would you assume this? Many criminals are _fools_, not professionals, kids relying on the laziness of law enforcement to pusue minor property crimes to avoid arrest.

  • I'm waiting to hear that they vacuumed the bank and did 23andMe DNA searches on the families of everyone who left a hair at the bank.

  • by Chas ( 5144 )

    Okay, easy ways for a criminal to avoid this sort of outing.

    1: Don't bring your Android/Apple phone to a bank robbery.
    2: Bring a dumb burner phone if you HAVE to have a phone.
    3: Use cheap walkie-talkies.

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday September 02, 2019 @06:38AM (#59148474)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • "Civil libertarians need to get a grip on issues like this and focus on the real problem which is the tracking in the first place."

      Seriously, has anyone looked at what location data Google collects? It's downright creepy.

    • by Kohath ( 38547 )

      Civil libertarians need to get a grip on issues like this and focus on the real problem which is the tracking in the first place.

      The other issue is that government isn't trustworthy. Maybe they won't misuse this information this time, but we have seen enough negligence and malicious intent from government actors to know they shouldn't have tracking data on people.

      Any agency or bureau that acts unaccountably should be shut down. Unfortunately that's almost all of them. We can replace them with a new, very strictly accountable agency if we need that work done.

    • by crtreece ( 59298 )

      There's really no difference between getting Google to tell them who was within X feet of the building and getting the bank to hand over video evidence of who was within X feet of the building.

      Actually, there's a number of big differences. The bank is the victim of the robbery. I don't expect the police would need to demand anything, the bank would be bending over backwards giving the police whatever they thought might help find the robbers. Someone within the vicinity of a robbery doesn't necessarily have anything to do with it. Why should their movements be subject to investigation without something more than circustantial evidence?

      focus on the real problem which is the tracking in the first place.

      I'm with you on that one. I don't need to be connected 100%

    • > Civil libertarians need to get a grip on issues like this and focus on the real problem which is the tracking in the first place.

      Turns out the Police Chief's wife was having a tryst at the first floor apartment across the street from the bank.

      And they didn't catch the robbers.

  • Ready lads? Right, let's go rob this bank but before you do make sure you have your phone, it's on AND all your location/data shit is on. Never know when we might need to call you....
  • ... and is a perfectly reasonable request in this case.... if they have a warrant that is. Which I suspect. Need access to evidence to solve a crime? If all legal requirements are met send Google can actually provide, then I don't see what all the fuss is about.

    • Nope, not reasonable, it's like getting a warrant to search every house in the city because the robber is thought to live there.

      It's called a "blanket search warrant" in law, and it is unconstitutional.

      • Not really a good analogy. They got a warrant only for phones that were in the immediate vicinity of the robbery. It would be more like a warrant to search every car in the bank's parking lot looking for the stolen money.

  • It's all well and good to say that it was useful here, but this means that Google retains long-term tracking information on everybody.

    Long-term tracking of users should be illegal. In Europe, it almost certainly *is* illegal, due to the GDPR. Of course, IANAL.

  • Google's data does not implicate everyone equally, so some people will be considered more suspect than others. That sort of distortion of evidence is sometimes enough to overturn convictions.

  • both personal and works phones. good luck with that.

  • I had my location tracking disabled. I must be up to no good according to cop logic.

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