The content of a suspect’s Google searches were used in a murder trial. Story here, Slashdot ponders here. From that post:
Will police in the future simply serve a subpoena to Google to find out what you’ve been thinking about? While this use of that information makes sense, at what point does your privacy give way to public concerns? Should police be able to search through your search history for “questionable” searches before you’ve been arrested for a crime, and what effect would this have on the health of society?”
From the story:
Robert Petrick searched for the words “neck,” “snap,” “break” and “hold” on an Internet search engine before his wife died, according to prosecutors Wednesday.
Reminds me of that Tom Cruise movie a while back – “The Minority Report”, where “cogs” could predict the future and the police were able to arrest the perpetrator even before the crime happens. I suppose there are patterns in the query behavior of criminals. Terrorist too. Would we submit to having our queries monitored if it were to prevent another 9/11?
Even if it were to prevent terrorists, it is going a little too far…not that I want criminals or terrorists going free.