If you’re not familiar with the LEGO scandal, the tl;dw is that this YouTuber Reckless Ben (Ben Schneider) has been investigating a stolen set of LEGO worth ~$100-200k (depending on who you ask) and the local police dept and criminal justice system has been colluding with the criminals (all members of the local Mormon church) to get him to STFU. The long version is, very long. You can check his channel for more.
Previously the local police dept managed to get a warrant to raid Ben’s rental home with guns drawn and arrest him, based on what is clearly fabricated evidence. Here they appear to have done it again to get access to his Google account.
The linked video is mirrored on Peertube and timestamped to the relevant section.
Ben does also provide a copy of the subpoena in the video but I cannot vouch for its’ validity, and he has used placeholder evidence before, but that’s neither here nor there.
Anyway, the part that was relevant to this community was that in the course of their investigation they subpoenaed Google, and Google handed over basically his entire life to them. I’m sure this was very useful in their investigation.
I don’t necessarily blame Google here for complying with a subpoena, but the moral of the story is to stop giving Google your data, because everything you say and do can and will be used against you in a court of law, with or without legitimate justification, and the more stuff you give them, the more ammunition you’re providing the prosecutor.
This is also not exclusive to Google. Anything not local, self-hosted or encrypted a la Proton can be subpoenaed and the provider will have to comply. It just so happens that Google probably has more information about literally everyone in the world than any other particular entity.
Thanks, appreciate the clarity.
I hope its as simple as that.
It’s not. This reply is incredibly naive. They can compel you to give the password to your phone, why wouldn’t they be able to compel you to give the password to your encryption? There’s a reason so many cases are solved via phone contents even though that’s “testifying against yourself”. If they have a warrant and you refuse you’ll definitely be charged with obstruction. Also in court there’s a concept where if you refuse to provide evidence the court/jury is instructed to assume that it’s as bad as it can possibly be, making sure you’re going to lose.
That’s what I thought, hence the “I hope…”. I wasn’t hopeful with the “I hope…” 😁.
I just don’t trust nowadays that there are enough or sufficient safeguards for people, regardless of what way their data is stored. OK you might hold out and not give them your encryption key from your head, and on that singular point you technically win, but at what cost with the litany of other things you will be nailed for, as you have outlined. You can think about that win from your prison cell I guess?
Loss is almost predetermined in situations like this.
Most of this seems to relate mainly to the US, and I dont live there, but this shit is still frightening.
I would guess this is the case everywhere. If there was, “I don’t want to give you evidence” loophole so many people would walk away no problem. I mean, this literally how Alex Jones lost. They refused to comply with discovery so the judge said you lose, let’s go to the judgement phase. There was no trial.