Content Moderation Case Study: Google 'Removes' German Residences From Street View By Request (2010)

from the privacy-or-not? dept

Summary: Google's Street View is a powerful mapping tool that allows users to visit places they'll possibly never be able to visit and allows local users to see homes and businesses they're trying to locate.

But Google's Street View hasn't been warmly welcomed everywhere. In Germany -- a country with a long history of pervasive surveillance by government agencies -- Google’s mapping project hit a roadblock. In an effort to comply with German privacy laws, Google worked with data protection authorities to ensure all requirements were met before its cars and cameras hit the road.

Restrictions on data collection have resulted in Germany being one of the least-mapped countries in Europe.

After meeting with considerable public opposition to Google's street mapping, Google allowed residents to opt out. This resulted in opted-out locations being blurred in Street View, providing owners with more privacy inside Street View than they enjoyed outside it.

Decisions to be made by Google:

• Should the normal lack of an expectation of privacy in publicly-viewable areas override local restrictions on data-gathering?
• Is an opt-out plan cost effective (as compared to simply not mapping at all in restricted areas)?
• Do "holes" in map coverage increase risks to drivers and travelers? 
• Is there a possibility the opt-out function could be abused by trolls and/or opponents of Google's Street View project?

Questions and policy implications to consider:

• Does following local privacy laws possibly make Google's Street View less useful than competing products that may not follow laws or that receive more deference from local authorities?
• Is the mapping project likely to run into greater resistance in the future, given world legislators' ongoing concerns with lax privacy laws?
• Could Google be considered culpable for harm resulting from incomplete maps, especially when coupled with Google's built-in live navigation software?
• What tools does Google have at its disposal to push back against legal restrictions?

Resolution: Given the chance to opt out, most Germans chose not to. According to Google, less than 3% of affected households asked Google to blur their residences, resulting in a little more than 244,000 blurred houses in Street View.

The opt-out program also led to an unfortunate, unforeseen, and completely unintended consequence. A small group of rogue "transparency advocates" sought out "blurred" houses and egged them. Some of those who opted out were also treated to handwritten notes informing them that Google was "cool." Very little actual damage was done.

Despite the early opposition -- which resulted in Google shutting down its attempted mapping of Germany in 2011 -- Google has taken a second run at the country and its resistance to the Street View project. Its site lists a large number of German cities and towns that have recently been mapped by Google during its latest attempt, which began in July 2020 and will wrap up early next year. Google "removes" German residences from Street View by request (2010)

Filed Under: germany, google maps, maps, privacy, street view
Companies: google

Google's Location Info Failure Might Interest The FTC

from the do-better dept

Earlier this week, the Associated Press did a story revealing that even for Google users (on both Android and iPhone) who turned off location tracking Google was still tracking their location in some cases.

Google says that will prevent the company from remembering where you’ve been. Google’s support page on the subject states: “You can turn off Location History at any time. With Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored.”

That isn’t true. Even with Location History paused, some Google apps automatically store time-stamped location data without asking. (It’s possible, although laborious, to delete it .)

For example, Google stores a snapshot of where you are when you merely open its Maps app. Automatic daily weather updates on Android phones pinpoint roughly where you are. And some searches that have nothing to do with location, like “chocolate chip cookies,” or “kids science kits,” pinpoint your precise latitude and longitude — accurate to the square foot — and save it to your Google account.

If you squint, you can kind of see why this might have happened. Apps like Maps and weather more or less need your location info to work well (though, the search part is a bit more baffling). But, even so, this seems like a huge blunder by Google, a company that should absolutely know better. The latest, of course, is that Google has quietly moved to update the language that users see to "clarify" that some location data may still be recorded:

But its help page for the Location History setting now states: “This setting does not affect other location services on your device.” It also acknowledges that “some location data may be saved as part of your activity on other services, like Search and Maps.”

Previously, the page stated: “With Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored.”

It's entirely possible, if not likely, that the location history feature is completely disconnected from the location specific data within these other apps. But, still, the average consumer is not going to realize that. Indeed, the tech savvy consumer is mostly unlikely to understand that. And Google's new "clarification" isn't really going to do a very good job actually clarifying this for people either. Google certainly has done a better job than a lot of other companies both in providing transparency about what data it collects on you and giving you controls to see that data, and delete some of it. But this was still a boneheaded move, and it's simply ridiculous that someone at the company didn't spot this issue and do something about it sooner.

As I've been pointing out for a while, a big part of why so many people are concerned about privacy on digital services is because those services have done a piss poor job of both informing users what's happening, and giving them more control over the usage of their data. This kind of situation is even worse, in that under the guise of giving users control (a good thing), Google appears to have muddied the waters over what information it was actually collecting.

I also wonder if this will make the FTC's ears perk up. There is still an FTC consent decree that binds the company with regards to certain privacy practices, and that includes that the company "shall not misrepresent in any manner, expressly or by implication... the extent to which consumers may exercise control over the collection, use, or disclosure of covered information." And "covered information" includes "physical location."

Would these practices count as misrepresenting the extent to which consumers could stop Google from collecting location info? It certainly seems like a case could be made that it does. There are many areas where it feels like people attack the big internet companies just because they're big and easy targets. Sometimes those attacks are made without understanding the underlying issues. But sometimes, I'm amazed at how these companies fail to take a thorough look at their own practices. And this is one of those cases.

Filed Under: ftc, google maps, location, location info, privacy, transparency
Companies: google

L.A. Lawmakers Looking To Take Legal Action Against Google For Not Solving Long-Running City Traffic Problems

from the fix-our-stuff-or-we'll-fix-you dept

Hopefully nothing will come of this, but one should never underestimate the creativity of city attorneys presented with the opportunity to rack up billable hours.

Yet another Los Angeles city councilman has taken Waze to task for creating "dangerous conditions" in his district, and the politician is now "asking the City to review possible legal action."

[...]

In a new letter sent to the City Attorney’s Office, [Councilman David] Ryu formally asked Los Angeles’ top attorney to examine Waze’s behavior.

While Ryu said he supported "advances in technology," he decried Waze and its parent company, Google, for refusing "any responsibility for the traffic problems their app creates or the concerns of residents and City officials."

The city's government believes the traffic/mapping app has made Los Angeles' congestion worse. That the very body tasked with finding solutions to this omnipresent L.A. problem is looking to hold a private third party company responsible for its own shortcomings isn't surprising. If a third-party app can't create better traffic flow, what chance do city planners have? But beyond the buck-passing on congestion, the city may have a point about Waze making driving around Los Angeles a bit more hazardous.

For several months, it's been noted that Waze has been sending drivers careening down the steepest grade in the city -- Baxter Street. Drivers seeking routes around Glendale Ave. traffic choke points have been routed to a street with a 32% grade, increasing the number of accidents located there and generally resulting in barely-controlled mayhem. When any sort of precipitation falls from the sky, the city goes insane. Drivers bypassing Glendale are now hurtling down a steep, water-covered hill, compounding the problem.

It's become noticeable enough that the city government has approached Waze/Google in the recent past, asking for an algorithmic change to prevent drivers from being routed to Baxter. These efforts were met with a reasonable response from Google.

"Google Maps models the ever-changing real world by mapping for ground truth," the company said. "This means that our map reflects any measures taken by local agencies to protect their citizens—for example, blocking off a steep road, or implementing turn restrictions. Should the local agency decide to restrict Baxter Street, this change will be taken into account when routing drivers through the Los Angeles area."

The city finds this response -- one that says the city should do something about limiting access to Baxter Street if driving on it is inherently dangerous -- unreasonable. These are the words of Councilman Paul Krekorian.

"[Google has] not demonstrated any willingness to engage," he told Ars last week. "It goes to the heart of problems—that’s not [the] good corporate citizenship I expect."

Yes, but "engage" how? The city believes the algorithm can be rewritten to exclude Baxter Street from suggested routes without screwing things up elsewhere. Residents of Baxter Street want even more -- for it to be erased from Google's map.

This is nothing more than a city looking to offload problems of its own making. I suppose the addition of a cautionary note when rerouting to Baxter wouldn't be that much of a problem to implement, but that shouldn't even necessarily be something Google needs to handle. The Waze app allows drivers to add notes about streets, traffic, etc. so it's highly likely motorists are being warned about the steep grade but choosing to take their chances anyway.

I'm not sure where the city wants to go with this, but that hasn't stopped it from tasking its attorney from trying to find some way to punish Google for city's long-running congestion problems. Google isn't part of the city government, isn't asked to participate in city planning efforts, cannot control access to the city's streets, and has no way of forcing drivers to take only certain routes. This is all stuff only the city can address, and it's decided to make it someone else's problem.

Filed Under: blame, david ryu, google maps, los angeles, paul krekorian, traffic congestion, waze
Companies: google

Philly PD Releases One Document About Its Fake Google Car: The Journalist's Own Open Records Request Email

from the a-twist-in-the-fabric-of-transparency-where-your-request-becomes-a-loop dept

Earlier this year, computer science professor and cryptography expert Matt Blaze happened across a Pennsylvania state-owned vehicle attempting to d/b/a a Google Street View… um, SUV. Taking that info, local reporter Dustin Slaughter dug deeper into the origins of that fake Google Street View vehicle.

Multiple state agencies were contacted by Motherboard for clarification, but the site only received the normal obstruction government officials provide when there's no logical explanation for a thing that has happened under their purview.

The Pennsylvania State Police denied the vehicle belonged to it, suggesting it might belong to a different agency. The placard in the window identified it as state vehicle whose use was governed by the state's fleet manager, who suggested it was actually a city vehicle, but wouldn't narrow down which city agency the vehicle belonged to.

Google denied any involvement, surprising no one, as it was perfectly clear the SUV looked nothing like the tiny, fuel-efficient vehicles Google normally uses -- which are covered from bumper-to-bumper with Google branding, rather than just a couple of badly-printed window stickers.

After some more phone/email tag, the Philly Police Department finally stepped up and admitted the vehicle was theirs, and that it did not condone the sort of thing it hadn't prevented from happening.

In an emailed statement, a department spokesperson confirmed:

“We have been informed that this unmarked vehicle belongs to the police department; however, the placing of any particular decal on the vehicle was not approved through any chain of command. With that being said, once this was brought to our attention, it was ordered that the decals be removed immediately.”

[lol. "Unmarked."]

Motherboard turned to the next weapon in its arsenal: a public records request. It sent one to the Philly Police Department, hoping to find out how this sort of Google trade dress-up might have happened. The Philly PD rooted around in its files and found one responsive document it was willing to release.

On Tuesday, and after several delays, the police department provided access to one document: The original email reporter Dustin Slaughter had sent asking the agency for comment.

In addition to giving Motherboard a copy of a document it already had, the Philly PD suggested there were other documents related to its faux-Googling, but that it wouldn't be releasing those.

One of the explanations cited for withholding those apparent emails was that they reflect the “internal predecisional deliberations of an agency, its members, employees or officials,” which are protected from release under the Pennsylvania Right-To-Know Act.

Reading between the lines of the second-hand copy of Dustin Slaughter's original email and the response letter accompanying it, Joseph Cox of Motherboard was able to obtain an inadvertent confession that no one had approved the use of Google stickers on police vehicles and that this disguise fell outside of existing PD guidelines. However, this information -- unofficially released in the PD's denial of additional documents -- does little more than confirm the statement given to it by the department a couple of months ago.

As it stands now, all Motherboard has is a copy of its own public records request, albeit one that has been processed by the government's favorite document processing service, Dutch Angle Scanning.

Filed Under: fake google car, foia, google maps, philadelphia, philadelphia police, public records, surveillance

Philly Cops Tried To Disguise An SUV With License Plate Readers As A Google Maps Vehicle

from the can't-spell-'stupid'-with-an-Alphabet dept

Here's the sort of fun stuff law enforcement gets up to when it thinks no one's paying attention. It all started with Matt Blaze tweeting out a photo of a rather suspicious-looking Google Maps vehicle.

WTF? Pennsylvania State Police license plate reader SUV camouflaged as Google Street View vehicle. pic.twitter.com/0z4yo2rVoR

— matt blaze (@mattblaze) May 11, 2016

As anyone can clearly see, a crappy decal was slapped on the window of a huge SUV, presumably in an attempt to disguise the true purpose of the cameras mounted up front, which are high-powered automatic license plate readers.

Blaze also spotted a Pennsylvania State Police parking placard on the dash.

The Pennsylvania State Police quickly denied the vehicle belonged to it. But it did, at least, (sort of) confirm the cameras were license plate readers.

Matt, this is not a PSP vehicle. If this is LPR technology, other agencies and companies might make use of it.

Philadelphia resident/investigative reporter Dustin Slaughter tracked down the vehicle and shot photos of the parking placard, along with the other side of the vehicle, confirming the bogus Google Maps window stickers were on both sides of the vehicle.

The city's fleet manager denied the vehicle belonged to the State Police. However, he did not clarify which agency the faux Google vehicle belonged to.

“All city vehicles such as police, fire, streets etc.…are registered to the city. Quasi [public] agencies like PPA, Housing Authority, PGW and School District are registered to their respective agencies,” fleet manager Christopher Cocci wrote in an email to Motherboard after reviewing photos of the vehicle.

Google also denied any involvement.

“We can confirm that this is not a Google Maps car, and that we are currently looking into the matter,” Google spokesperson Susan Cadrecha wrote.

Google tends to use vehicles with lower profiles, better gas mileage, and very distinctive branding/camera setups.


A few hours later, another Philadelphia law enforcement agency stepped forward to take credit for the deceptive vehicle.

The Philadelphia Police Department admitted today that a mysterious unmarked license plate surveillance truck disguised as a Google Maps vehicle, which Motherboard first reported on this morning, is its own.

In an emailed statement, a department spokesperson confirmed:

“We have been informed that this unmarked vehicle belongs to the police department; however, the placing of any particular decal on the vehicle was not approved through any chain of command. With that being said, once this was brought to our attention, it was ordered that the decals be removed immediately.”

The spokesperson also claimed that an inquiry is forthcoming.

Well, we have a WHO. What we don't have is a WHY. Of what possible use was this crappy, little fakeout? Anyone stupid enough to believe a hulking SUV with a city parking permit was a Google Maps vehicle is also too stupid to know what the cameras mounted on it are actually used for. For everyone else above that level, the easiest conclusion to draw is that the Philly police are stupid enough to think this would work. If so, they've shorted the wrong set of collective IQ.

A more benign explanation is also possible, though. It could have just been a poorly thought out attempt at a joke. Who sports more cameras and hoovers up more photos than Google's mapping vehicles? This may have just been a few cops poking fun at themselves, co-opting Big Data's look for their Big Brother plate scanning: the Google Maps of law enforcement, making sure no obscure side road goes "unmapped."

Filed Under: alpr, disguise, google maps, matt blaze, philadelphia, philadelpia police

Japanese Court Orders Google To Remove Customer Reviews From Its Maps Service -- Globally

from the long-arm-of-the-law dept

The following story from Japan, reported by Techcrunch, might seem to be an everyday internet tale of privacy and freedom of speech interacting badly:

The Chiba District Court today issued a preliminary injunction forcing the U.S. internet company to remove two anonymous reviews for an undisclosed medical clinic in the country. While they document negative customer experiences at the clinic, neither review violates the policies that Google has in place for user generated content within the Maps service.

Nothing special there, you might think, but there's a sting in the tail:

The court ruled that Google not only removes the content in Japan, but across the entire globe too.

That's troubling, because it's yet another case of a local court asserting its right to affect what happens across the entire internet -- the best-known example being the EU's claim that its privacy regulations have to apply globally if they are to be effective. It's worrying to see a similar ruling from Japan, albeit only in a preliminary injunction, and one that Google is appealing against, because it risks normalizing that view, with serious consequences for the online world. Far from being a domain subject to no rules, as politicians love to claim, the internet would begin to turn into the one place that has to obey every country's laws.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: customer reviews, google maps, internet, japan, jurisdiction
Companies: google

Law Enforcement Wants Google To Cripple Waze Because It Lets The Mean Old Public 'Stalk' Police Officers

from the I-can-see-you-parked-right-there dept

If you've tinkered with Waze at all you know the app allows users to post road conditions, lane closures, police locations, and other pertinent driving hazards with a heavy emphasis on the gamification of that information (i.e., you get points for reporting accurate information). I generally find the feature to be marginally useful if not annoying. Police move positions so quickly I find that crowdsourcing isn't particularly effective. As such, I generally just stick to my long-standing practice of flirting with a speed that's around six to seven miles over the speed limit (I know, I'm an absolute wild man).

Eager to protect a revenue generator, law enforcement has long wanted speed trap warning disabled in the app, though as we've noted, warning others of speed traps (whether that's flashing your lights or otherwise) is effectively protected speech. With previous arguments not working so well, the latest claim by the law enforcement community is that Waze is dangerous for police because it effectively facilitates stalking of officers. Or at least that's the argument being pushed forth by the National Sheriffs Association in their quest to make Waze much less useful to motorists:

"Sheriff Mike Brown of Bedford County, Virginia, said the police-reporting feature, which he called the "police stalker,'' presents a danger to law enforcement. "The police community needs to coordinate an effort to have the owner, Google, act like the responsible corporate citizen they have always been and remove this feature from the application even before any litigation or statutory action,'' said Brown, who also serves as the chairman of the National Sheriffs Association technology committee."

Of course, the police officers being "stalked" are parked in obvious line of sight on public motorways, and if a mentally-unstable person did want to cause problems, it's not too hard to find an opportunity. At the same time, the citizens using the app are simply having a perfectly-legal conversation. Combined with the fact that the quoted officers can't be bothered to cite a single instance where this sort of technology has ever been a problem in this regard, that's a pretty feeble justification for crippling an application by any measure. Regardless, it appears Google has already been making concessions; when it started porting Waze data into Google Maps earlier this year, police reporting data was notably absent.

Whatever, just as long as we're not talking about how much Waze location data gets shared with the law enforcement and intelligence communities, right?

Filed Under: free speech, google maps, gps, information, law enforcement, navigation, police, stalking, waze
Companies: google, waze

Murder Case Prosecutors Claim 'National Security' To Stop Questions About FBI Examination Of Google Maps Search

from the coverups.gov dept

A Google Map search is seemingly the only piece of evidence tying former Cisco engineer Brad Cooper to the the murder of his wife, Nancy. According to his testimony, Cooper was at home with the couple's two daughters at the time his wife was strangled in a nearby park.

Nancy Cooper disappeared on July 12, 2008. That same day, Brad Cooper was questioned by local law enforcement. During the next couple of days, he consented to a search of his house and vehicle and turned over a pair of his wife's running shoes for dogs to track her scent. On July 14th, a body was discovered. This was confirmed to be Nancy Cooper the next day. Brad Cooper turned over the house to investigators that same day, moving out to "preserve" the house itself as evidence. He left behind his computer, which was still connected to the internet. This stayed on for 27 hours before investigators removed it.

Here's where it gets interesting. (An admittedly callous way to look at a situation where one person is dead, one is headed to jail and two kids are effectively parentless…)

The most damning evidence gathered by investigators (working with the FBI) was a Google search showing the exact spot where Nancy Cooper's body was discovered, supposedly performed by Brad Cooper the day before she was killed. This being the only evidence is a fact, rather than conjecture. It's acknowledged in the appeals court's decision which granted Cooper a new trial. [pdf link]

Prosecutors pressed hard with this discovery, coupling it with the fact that Cooper and his wife were observed arguing at a party the night before she vanished. The real story about this supposed search may never come out. Cooper pled guilty to reduced charges earlier this week, after being granted a new trial on appeal. Perhaps Cooper actually did murder his wife, but the key evidence being used against him was severely questionable, enough so that he was awarded another chance to fight the charge.

The 56-page opinion granting him a new trial details the previous court's unconstitutional "abuses," which led to a guilty verdict.

Cooper's defense attacked the supposedly damning search, alleging that it had been planted on the computer by investigators. Their first witness could likely have offered testimony indicating the search had been planted but the State called into question his expertise as a forensic expert and his testimony was prohibited by the court from covering this topic.

Cooper's defense tried to bring in another witness, one more specifically-trained to testify on the specifics the court was demanding. This last-minute replacement, who had reached the same conclusion as the previous expert (that the search had "been placed on the hard drive [and] could not have been the result of normal internet activity"), but was prevented from doing so when the State objected to this "violation" of discovery rules (i.e., witness and testimony were not presented to the prosecution before the trial began).

The appeals court disagreed with the previous court's dismissal of the first expert witness. It argued that this witness was specifically trained to discover computer tampering, something a planted search result would fall under.

The Google Map files recovered from Defendant's laptop were perhaps the most important pieces of evidence admitted in this trial. We hold that the trial court abused its discretion in excluding Ward from testifying, relying on the State's own evidence, to his opinion that the Google Map files recovered from Defendant's laptop had been tampered with.

[...]

We hold, whether the error was constitutional or not, that erroneously preventing Defendant from presenting expert testimony, challenging arguably the strongest piece of the State's evidence, constituted reversible error and requires a new trial…

The appeals court also found that excluding the second witness because of discovery violations was also unconstitutional, noting that using procedural issues to deny the defendant a chance to defend against the single, most important piece of evidence is a deprivation of due process.

In light of the lack of willful misconduct on the part of Defendant, the rational reason presented for failing to inform the State before trial that Defendant would be calling [the new witness], the role of the State in having this situation arise after the trial had commenced, the fundamental nature of the rights involved, the importance to the defense of the testimony excluded, and the minimal prejudice to the State had the trial court imposed a lesser sanction – such as continuance or recess, we hold that imposing the harsh sanction of excluding Masucci from testifying constituted an abuse of discretion.

The third key issue leading to Cooper being awarded the new trial is the most interesting -- a motion made to limit discovery with assistance from the FBI. Cooper's team tried to get the State to turn over information related to the means and methods used during its forensic search of Cooper's computer and found itself being denied on "national security" grounds.

The State filed a motion in opposition, arguing that there exists "a law enforcement sensitive qualified evidentiary privilege" which should act to prevent discovery of these items, "because such disclosure could lead to the development of countermeasures to FBI investigative techniques. Such countermeasures could defeat law enforcement's ability to obtain forensic data in criminal cases." The State also argues that this information was protected as "work product."

The trial court agreed.

The trial court found as fact "[t]hat the FBI's Standard Operating Procedures and policies are the same techniques and tools that are used in counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations[.]" The trial court concluded that "under the provisions of N.C. Gen. Stat. §15A-903, patterned after Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16, the disclosure of the information sought by... Defendant would be contrary to the public interest in the effective functioning of law enforcement[,]" and that "under the provisions of N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-908[,]" disclosure of the information would result in "substantial risk" of harm to "any person, including the citizens of this State, of physical harm."

As the appeals court pointed out, there was no reason to completely deny discovery. The documentation could have been reviewed in camera for any potential national security issues, or allowed certain redactions to be made. It also pointed out that even the FBI's stated national security concerns don't necessarily preclude discovery.

Even in the face of a compelling State interest in keeping records confidential, due process might compel discovery, depending on how material the records are to a defendant's defense.

In this case -- with the "sole piece of evidence" being a questionable Google Maps search -- discovery was extremely material and possibly exculpatory. But the trial court wouldn't even allow the defense to ask whether revealing the forensic method used to "recreate" the map search would have national security implications.

MR. KURTZ: Well, Judge, there is potentially a piece of information that exists on Mr. Cooper's computer that could say definitely that this material was planted, absolutely definitive. I may be wrong. Special Agent Johnson's testing may indeed be that it all has the exact same millisecond all the way across. I don't think I'm wrong. Now, one way or the other, whether it's having a -- a test done on a Vista machine now and seeing what it -- what it actually shows or giving us access to the original test data, which I don't believe has any national security ramifications since it deals with a Google Map test. One way or the other, we should be entitled to this information as it could be tremendously exculpatory.

THE COURT: Upon reconsidering this issue about this in-court test, pursuant to Rule 53-403, I'm going to sustain the objection and exclude any testing in Court because of the differences in the equipment and the statements made by this witness that this is not the appropriate place to do it. We need to bring the jury back in. And regarding the national security issue, that is a matter that we have already ruled on. It is something I have already dealt with.

MR. KURTZ: But, Your Honor, there is a witness on the stand that can answer specifically whether this is an issue of national security. And I'm not even going to be allowed to ask that question?

THE COURT: I believe I've already determined, because of the rules of the -- and the discovery process that you are not entitled to get those things.

MR. KURTZ: So my understanding is, the -- the rules and the discovery process, we're hiding behind national security on an issue where we could get a clear answer from a witness that this is not in fact a national security issue. And we're talking about a piece of information that could be exculpatory to Mr. Cooper.

Further on, Cooper's defense presses the issue further, veering into exasperated sarcasm, only to be shut down again.

THE COURT: It's the methodology that they used, I think, that falls under the security issue, but –

MR. KURTZ: But if I could ask Special Agent Johnson if he has any national security concerns related to that methodology, we might be able to determine that this one particular test is a legitimate one to be disclosed, that it will not actually disclose the missile codes.

[...]

THE COURT: The objection is sustained. I'm not going to allow further questioning in this line or any in-court testing of that computer.

This shut-down of discovery was the third factor prompting the decision to grant Cooper a new trial. Not that it matters. As stated earlier, Cooper has opted to plead guilty, perhaps because the lighter sentence could see him freed in another six years or so, as well as possibly give him the chance to be visited by his family members. It may also be that his new trial was being handled by a public defender who wasn't familiar with the details, rather than his previous legal team. There are a lot of factors to weigh, and even innocent people have been known to cop a plea rather than keep on fighting. It's been more than six years since Brad Cooper was arrested. He may spend less time in jail than he has fighting these charges.

None of the above is meant to imply that Cooper is definitely innocent, but the key piece of evidence is very questionable. Even without the FBI's "national security" intercession, the State has been very reluctant to turn over any information about its examination of Cooper's computer. An anonymous blogger who has been tracking this case notes that those who examined the computer made two different statements about the presence of a "cookie" verifying the Google Maps search.

Cooper's computer contained cookies for every day except the day the search was to alleged to have occurred. The forensic examination of the computer turned up no evidence of the cookie being deleted, as testified by the FBI's Agent Johnson. It simply wasn't there. The FBI could have subpoenaed Google for the information regarding this search but never did, even though it requested other information from the search giant.

Agent Chappell, on the other hand, offered up two different stories in court documents. In the report stating that the FBI had found no evidence that Cooper's computer had been tampered with, he says that "we have an index.history.dat file the week of 7/11 that corroborates the visit to maps.google.com and a cookie for the visit."

But in his testimony, he states the opposite. Chappell was unable to find the cookie corroborating the visit in "allocated or recovered deleted." In fact, Chappell could find "nothing from this side."

Futhermore, it appears law enforcement may have attempted to "wait out" Google's privacy policy, which states that information is only retained for 18 months.

In May ’09 …. 10 months after the crime, Howard Kurtz, Brad’s defense attorney contacted Agent Johnson and asked him if he could obtain a copy of the hard drive and Johnson informed him that he was finished and that he could pick up a copy that day. Hours later, Detective Daniels contacted Brad’s attorneys and informed them that ADA Howard Cummings would not release the hard drive to them. No reason was given, no timing was given. They wouldn’t receive it until after the privacy policy had expired, making it too late to ever verify the search through Google cookies.   Because they received the Defense “preservation of evidence” letter, the prosecution knew that they would miss this privacy deadline.

There's more. According to the defense's examination of the hard drive, dozens of files were altered during its stay with local law enforcement. A police officer charged with recovering information from Nancy Cooper's Blackberry destroyed it instead, possibly inadvertently. This happened nine days after the preservation order in 2008. The defense wasn't informed of this fact until shortly before the trial began in 2011.

But in the middle of it all is the FBI. While the FBI may not have tampered with Cooper's computer, the simple fact is that any law enforcement agency can ask for the FBI's help in matters like this and use the feds' "national security" shield to withhold certain information from the defense. The appeals court chastised the trial court for indulging the FBI's secrecy, but many, many courts will swiftly defer, even if it means the withholding of possibly exculpatory evidence. That's the very troubling side effect of the FBI's dalliance in national security, something it has focused more and more of its efforts on over the past several years. It can assist law enforcement, like it always has, and use its "higher calling" to shroud itself and those it helps in secrecy.

Filed Under: brad cooper, doj, evidence, fbi, google maps, murder, national security, search

Lithuania And Estonia Use Google Maps Street View To Catch Tax Cheats

from the small-pieces-loosely-joined dept

As we've noted before, the information captured by Google's Street View has been put to some surprising uses, and the Boston Globe has come across a further fascinating example from Lithuania:

Sitting in the comfort of their own offices, inspectors used the free Internet program for a virtual cruise around the streets of some of the Baltic country's big cities, uncovering dozens of alleged tax violations involving housing construction and property sales.

They identified 100 homeowners and 30 construction companies as suspected tax dodgers thanks to Street View, finding homes where they shouldn't be and other suspicious activity, Darius Buta, a spokesman for the State Tax Inspectorate, said Wednesday.

Ars Technica points out that Estonia is doing the same. This might lead to demands for houses to be blurred, as can be requested in Germany. But the Boston Globe article notes that it's not just Street View that tax authorities are mining for clues about people not paying all their taxes:

In the United States, the Internal Revenue Service has said it would be cross-referencing information from taxpayers' Facebook and Twitter accounts if their returns threw up any red flags.

In Britain, tax officials have revealed they are using Web crawling software to trawl auction websites for undeclared sales.

Authorities in Greece have been using satellite imagery to locate undeclared swimming pools in wealthy neighborhoods.

The ability to draw on the massive stores of data that are now publicly available means that even seemingly trivial information, when cross-referenced with more of the same, can allow governments and others to create surprisingly detailed profiles of people that may have far from trivial consequences.

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Filed Under: estonia, google maps, lithuania, tax cheats