Tim Cushing writes:
Earlier this week, reporting by Thomas Brewster for Forbes uncovered yet another way law enforcement is expecting companies like Google to perform their investigative work for them.
For a few years now, we’ve covered the use of geofence warrants capable of turning multiple people into criminal suspects, as well as the even more dubious “keyword” warrants, which turns anyone Googling certain words into a possible suspect.
The feds are now targeting any viewers of certain YouTube videos, serving up some pretty general-looking warrants that demand Google turn over a wealth of information on anyone who accessed certain YouTube URLs during a certain time period. Technically, they’re not “warrants,” but 2703(d) court orders for customer information, but that hardly makes it any more comforting.
Read more at TechDirt.