Democrats urge Google to limit geo tracking to protect people seeking abortions | Hacker News Reader

Democrats urge Google to limit geo tracking to protect people seeking abortions

techcrunch.com

10 pointsarkadiyt6 comments

>"While Google deserves credit for being one of the first companies in America to insist on a warrant before disclosing location data to law enforcement, that is not enough. The only way to protect your customers’ location data from such outrageous government surveillance is to not keep it in the first place,” the letter said.

If government surveillance is the problem, why shouldn't the government do something about? Why not get rid of Third Party Doctrine? Why not protect the Fourth Amendment instead of hole punching it when convenient?

This is something that can be done by Google itself, without having to convince the Texas legislature (who voted for the laws trying to go after women) or the Federal legislature (which finds it impossible to pass almost any law).

Fixing the Fourth Amendment would be a good idea, but that will take time (if at all). Meanwhile this is something data collectors like Google could solve by turning a switch.

You give far too little agency to Congress in these matters. The PATRIOT ACT, CLOUD ACT, FOSTA/SESTA, and other laws were passed with bipartisan support. Currently, members of Congress are reenacting the Crypto Wars with legislation like EARN IT. Congress needs no help to undermine the rights of its citizens. It's ironic that the same people are now unhappy when a state is copying their own methods. Ultimately, this a case of Democrats being hoisted by their own petard.

The Fourth Amendment does not need to be fixed. It needs protection, and not just from Republicans, but from abuse by any government body or agency. That Google can allegedly stop data collection (although I'm not convinced that any such "switch" exists) is irrelevant to the fundamental matter. If Democrats want to protect privacy, they shouldn't have interfered with it in the first place.

How about just stop collecting geo data on Everyone unless they requested you to do it?

How will this work? Is a Texas police force "allowed" to request location data about a "citizen" of Texas while they are in another state?

Surely that would violate numerous laws.

Businesses are expected to comply with evidence gathering procedures. This is why I always answer no when Google surveys me to ask, "Is your data safe with us?" No, no it's not and that's by design. As long as it's mathematically possible to retrieve, there will be a judge who compells a business to do so.

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