Eegore
Serious Thumper
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SuzukiSavage.com Rocks!
Posts: 8397
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It’s not the same as getting threatening phone calls. Internet search by somebody does not interfere with you directly. You don’t know its happening, but you know when somebody calls your house and makes threats. That’s not a valid example.
Murder interferes with you directly, so my intended comparison is murder to threatening phone calls. If we can check caller data pools to see who called you, why can't they check internet searches to see who was looking up your address and how to hide a body?
"Two thoughts. Number one, hypotheticals like this are difficult because in real world situation actual emotions come in to play. Just like there’s no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole, if police are investigating a murder of a close family member, whatever thoughts you have about constitutional privacy get thrown out the window. This is a case of being too close to the situation."
I see your point so maybe I should have presented it as somebody else's family.
"We should not allow government authorities to do a broad investigation into Internet searches looking for suspicious searches and then based on that, prying into someone’s personal life. That’s not law-enforcement.
If you want to do that, simply suspend the fourth amendment and get rid of maybe 75% of all crime."
Ok that answers my question. I think if a human is killed, it is ok to search for people who might have done it, which to me includes internet searches. If they went to the local Courthouse and did it there I imagine the video footage, witness accounts etc. would be admissible, but for some reason that exact searching behavior online is different.
Physical searching by driving around is somehow different than doing it from your phone.
"As a follow up, are you in favor of the IRS scanning through bank records of transactions over $600 looking for patterns of tax fraud and then launching an investigation?"
I do think the $600 is too low of a number, other than that I am indifferent to it as I don't cheat on my taxes. If the IRS wants to investigate people who do not claim reportable and only the word reportable with the exemption of all other know words - "Reportable income" and exclusively reportable income and not imagined scenarios of taxing losses, then go ahead.
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