Could Cops Scan Suspicious Web Search Terms for Pre-Crime Prevention?
21 replies, posted
[QUOTE]Might the death of Juliana Mensch have been predicted, and perhaps prevented? The people accused of strangling the 19-year-old in Fort Lauderdale this spring apparently Googled how to do it, according to newspaper reports. What if the police had been alerted to these searches, and the location of the cell phone used to conduct them?
Over at Slate, Will Oremus recounts the use of 23-year-old Nicole Okrzesik’s phone on the early morning of March 24. At 3:45 a.m., someone Googled “chemicals to passout a person.” Then someone searched Ask.com for “making people faint,” and then Google again for phrases like “ways to kill people in their sleep.”
These messages came to light last week as the investigation against Okrzesik progresses in Broward County. But it raises an interesting question: Could police have used this data to anticipate crime?
Crime prediction and preemptive action is not a new idea. In Santa Cruz, police are using sophisticated data mining techniques to forecast future crimes, both their possible locations and their timing. We learned all about this technique, called “predictive policing,” in our special Data issue last fall.
But this Florida case raises another possibility: Mining external data, like web searches, for crime prediction and prevention. We must once again reference the film “Minority Report,” which appears pretty frequently in these pages, because this is at the center of its plot: Predicting crimes and arresting their would-be perpetrators before anything happens.
In theory, the search engine companies could conceivably alert authorities when someone types in “how to suffocate someone,” which was another one of the search items in this case. The companies could provide the searcher’s IP address, which could conceivably be enough for a search warrant. Then the cops could show up and maybe prevent anything from happening.
In reality, this is a legal morass, as Slate’s article points out.
[url=http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/06/nicole_okrzesik_juliana_mensch_could_cops_use_google_to_prevent_murder_.single.html]Head over there for the full rundown.[/url][/QUOTE]
Source: [url]http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-06/can-cops-use-suspects-web-search-history-pre-crime-prevention[/url]
No, no, a thousands times no. This is just horrible. For one you've got kids just dicking around searching for things like how to make a bomb or whatever. Then what's to stop someone for just searching shit like "how to make a bomb for allah" and "how to get a gun past the tsa" on someone else's computer? Not to mention that IPs are awful to go by. Warranting a search over a fucking search is the most god damn idiotic, inconceivable thing I've ever heard of. It's also in a sense no fun allowed. You know very well that a majority of people search those things just for fun. Someone could also be searching it for research on a paper or whatever. It's too many variables to warrant a search over.
Why do you need to google how to suffocate someone? Seems pretty simple.
worst idea ever
no fuck off
hey maybe they should also watch for which wikipedia pages people end up on after aimlessly browsing it for an hour or so
surely that will also tell us if any of them are future terrorists
[QUOTE=Uber|nooB;36239797]hey maybe they should also watch for which wikipedia pages people end up on after aimlessly browsing it for an hour or so
surely that will also tell us if any of them are future terrorists[/QUOTE]
The things that come up when I'm bored and click "Random Page"....
Oh god I'm fucked
If they do this, everyone should search how to make bombs and shit. Overload their systems.
Uh. Yeah. I've googled methods of killing people before that I've seen on tv/in movies just because I was curious on if it was plausible or if the show/movie was full of bullshit. I'd be pretty pissed if the cops showed up everytime I watched CSI or NCIS.
[QUOTE=Intoxicated Spy;36239812]If they do this, everyone should search how to make bombs and shit. Overload their systems.[/QUOTE]
I have a feeling they would start arresting and searching even if it were overloaded.
how would this even work? People do this to past time because they're bored and are curious to see what pops up.
I doubt this would ever work
This reminds me of that one Futurama where the cops arrest people who will commit crimes in the future, and arrest them for it before they get a chance to commit the crime.
[QUOTE=Blazyd;36239877]This reminds me of that one Futurama where the cops arrest people who will commit crimes in the future, and arrest them for it before they get a chance to commit the crime.[/QUOTE]
Minority Report
Couldn't you bypass this by just using https and private browsing/icongito?
[QUOTE=Ericson666;36239773]Why do you need to google how to suffocate someone? Seems pretty simple.[/QUOTE]The education system doesn't teach kids anything these days.
This sort of breaches my rights guaranteed to by the constitution?
Thought crimes are the worst crimes.
Fuck every single person that agrees with this, and doubly fuck everyone who thought of the idea.
