Hacker News Reader

Comment by BoysenberryPi | Hacker News Reader

>In this case, a third party would be provided evidence.

It's a pretty common thing for a completely unrelated store's surveillance cameras to have footage of a robbery of another store. That's why police ask every store in the area when one is robbed.

View on HN

Police asking, and a judge ordering are pretty different things.

"a judge says yes" is right there in the title on HN.

Depends on jurisdiction, but I think over here, the store owners give it routinely, firstly because it is in their best interests (to catch criminals in the area) and secondly, because if they wouldn't, a judge would anyway give the order.

The judge would give the order after ascertaining that the video was relevant to catching the criminal, and specific enough that it only included the time period when the criminal would have been likely to be captured and no longer, and that no unnecessary camera angles or other information be included in the order.

There is a difference between shop owners volunteering camera information and this case. This is closer to all shop owners in town being ordered to turn over the personal information of everyone who bought a shovel, because they found a body that had been buried.

>The judge would give the order after ascertaining that the video was relevant to catching the criminal, and specific enough that it only included the time period when the criminal would have been likely to be captured

Isn't that literally what is happening here? The police are asking Google who looked for this very specific thing in this very specific area at this very specific time period.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com