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What if simply typing an address into Google was enough to put you on a federal watch list?
That’s essentially what happened after newly unsealed court records revealed that the Justice Department ordered Google to identify 311 users who searched for the Republican National Committee or the Democratic National Committee headquarters during the first five days of January 2021. The demand was made because pipe bombs were discovered outside the RNC and DNC headquarters.
According to Google’s own legal challenge, the warrant swept up ordinary citizens, party volunteers, journalists, and anyone else who happened to search for a committee’s street address or contact information.
Google argued the request was “grossly overbroad” and amounted to the kind of general search the Fourth Amendment was designed to prevent.
Apparently, constitutional protections stop at the search bar.
Citing United States v. Grubbs, the judge ruled that Google had no legal standing to challenge the warrant before it was executed.
So those who did nothing more than search for a committee’s street address had their identities, email addresses, payment information, and account data turned over to the government without ever being notified because a nondisclosure order prevented Google from telling them.
Today, it’s a Google search for a political address that lands citizens on a federal watch list. Tomorrow, it could be a search for a protest, with the list of monitored search terms continuing to grow.
Google searches are just a snapshot of what’s really going on here, though.
Because things like government-monitored internet searches, mandatory tracking systems in vehicles, required biometric data collection for access to online services, and similar, all point toward a gradual expansion of a surveillance state, where privacy and freedoms will be a things of the past.