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.
Oh ive been following this. I said to myself from the get go he should not be using any big tech products at all. This is what happens.
If you’d self hosted, it would still happen. Just in that case, on stead of Google handing over your data, you’d have to do it yourself at the risk of being jailed if you don’t.
The point it: if its data, you can be forced to hand it over. The only way to not having to hand over emails is it not store any emails at all anywhere
True but they’d need a warrant and you could have it encrypted.
In the end they’ll get it if they want it tho
This is the first I’ve heard of the situation so I could be wrong, but he was introduced as a youtuber. If YouTube (a big tech product) is the source of his fame and income, isn’t it silly to say he shouldn’t be using any big tech products at all?
There is obviously room for compromise and nuance, like limiting the info he gives them, but I don’t think that’s what you’re advocating for
Youtube has also been being difficult with his videos, telling him to delete and reupload (thereby losing millions of views) to remove blurs that Ben never put there etc, its all very nefarious. I’m inclined to believe the Mormon Mafia textends into YouTube /google, but thats just a guess. Corruption runs deep.
Yes he basically has to use YouTube, but that wouldn’t stop him from also being more secure in other ways, not using gmail, using secure phones, etc. In the end, theyve 100% been illegally using flock cameras to track him anywhere he goes. Scary man.
Its too bad there is no other video platform normal folks can use.
I think the simpler answer is a combination of two things: the Mormon Church and it’s top members have more money than God, and paying off Google to do your bidding is probably a lot cheaper than we expect.
Agree