> This sounds like a very targeted request for information.
To me it sounds like the exact opposite. A targeted request would look like this:
We'd like the search history for ip address 212.55.12.23 between Sept. 16 2016 1 am and Sept. 21 2016 9 am related to 'name'.
That's a specific request. The present one is a fishing expedition where the police is not confirming something they already know but are looking for someone they theorize might exist.
What I mean is that this is much more targeted than the headline makes it sound. At first glance the police department wants access to the entire search history of everyone in some town. In reality they are asking for something much more specific than that.
I wasn't responding to the headline, but to the article. The headline is inaccurate, but that is not something that should surprise any of us.
The 'much more specific' is that they theorize that such a search query must exist. If they had a suspect they would have raided that persons computer, if the computer was encrypted or erased they they could have used google's search data + the IP address they already had to confirm (not discover) that such a search had indeed been made which would serve as corroborating evidence absent the search history on the computer.
Essentially the police is looking for something that they hope exists and will implicate someone who is currently not on their radar and who could very well be innocent.
This case is one of the ones I have studied in a bit more detail:
To me it sounds like the exact opposite. A targeted request would look like this:
We'd like the search history for ip address 212.55.12.23 between Sept. 16 2016 1 am and Sept. 21 2016 9 am related to 'name'.
That's a specific request. The present one is a fishing expedition where the police is not confirming something they already know but are looking for someone they theorize might exist.