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Comment by alexfromapex | Hacker News Reader

Highly disturbing that the court is allowed to request that much data without any legal restrictions [on privacy].

This is a court-authorized search warrant authorized by a aitting judge. It doesn't get any more legal than that, and it's Google or any other company's legal duty to comply.

It certainly can get more legal than that -- Google (or the target, if they somehow found out) could appeal against the warrant, which would result in another round in the courts.

More optimally Google could decline to collect this information and would thereby be immune to any such requests.

When it comes to Gmail they could take an approach like password managers where the user's password is instrumental to decrypt the data and Google lacks any manner to circumvent the encryption - they just choose not to.

I would be all for Google not collecting this info -- that's what I've always done in my startups. Privacy by design is a great thing.

However, my point was that the comment I replied to was factually wrong -- there is legal action Google could choose to take instead of immediately complying.

I agree and didn't mean to directly go against what you said - but I wanted to make sure it's highlighted and known that Google exposed themselves to this risk voluntarily.

The courts are the legal restriction. The way in which the evidence collected can be challenge in the appellate courts.

I realize that didn’t expect to be taken so literally.

Ambiguity isn't always an effective rhetorical device, especially on an internet that has fallen prey to the law of averages.

I don't know why you think there aren't any legal restrictions - this wasn't a random LEO going cowboy and trying to hack into google, a judge directly ordered this action and signed onto the warrants.

I mean as far as privacy is concerned. They were able to request all text messages, documents, location data, voicemails without any stipulation that they were relevant to the case.

Well, yeah. They have to go through them to determine if they're relevant. Same reason a physical search warrant will let the cops seize a vaguely defined bunch of stuff from your house.

In particularly sensitive cases, the judge may appoint an official to be a go-between between the evidence and the prosecution. For example: https://miami.cbslocal.com/2018/04/26/special-master-evidenc...

The court order is the determination that the information has enough probability of being relevant that it needs to be turned over to be reviewed.

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