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Comment by legitster | Hacker News Reader

>While Google uses location data to target online ads, the company often turns over the data to law enforcement officials who obtain court orders, the Democrats wrote. "This includes dragnet 'geofence' orders demanding data about everyone who was near a particular location at a given time," they wrote, adding that "Google received 11,554 geofence warrants in 2020."

Okay, but like, if you are a lawmaker - why not focus on making these digital dragnet warrants harder to get? Especially since law enforcement can still get the location data from cell phone providers.

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> Okay, but like, if you are a lawmaker - why not focus on making these digital dragnet warrants harder to get?

Part of the point is the fact that the judiciary is being captured by right-wing nutjobs. Getting a warrant from a militant judge is not difficult, and if the system is rotten all the way to the Supreme Court, there will be no recourse.

Also, to get a law, you need to get it past the senate, which is also captured by right-wing nutjobs.

> Especially since law enforcement can still get the location data from cell phone providers.

Yes, that is another problem. And considering that the carriers are in bed with the right-wing nutjobs, good luck with solving it.

This is why you should protect peoples rights even when you disagree with their opinions because power structures always swing left and right

Indeed! It is also why it’s almost always a bad idea to weaken constitutional protections of all sorts. The guardrails that limit you one day, inconvenient as they are, might save the country once a proto-fascists gets elected.

It is also why we should be much more careful than we generally are about what data exactly all these companies keep.

It also highlight the importance of a functional legislative branch in the American system. You need impeachment procedures to be possible when another branch goes rogue. Which is exactly why one obstructionist party is very unlikely to become constructive in the near future, unless something like a profound constitutional crisis or a civil war of some sort happens.

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