[vitajex]

Dumb question here: How do they know what he googled? Is it a matter of serving Google with a warrant?

[phire]

People are overthinking things.

The court filing says they seized his laptop and phone, and seems to suggest all this information came from examining those devices. The google searches were probably just sitting in his browser history.

Oh, and then the idiot went and bought another laptop the very next day, despite explicit military orders not to. His opsec skills seem to be lacking.

[miffy900]

This is probably exactly what happened. I bet he used Chrome as well. It doesn't really help that Google Chrome keeps history basically forever (on the order of months), even without signing into a Google Account.

[tbrownaw]

Or they searched his computer and it was in the browser history.

[tdeck]

It's possible they could do it without a warrant

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter

[metadat]

Maybe they subpoenaed Google for the records of searches from his IP address.

Is that a thing? I don't trust incognito mode when communicating with google servers, that's for sure.

[Lich]

My understanding is that incognito mode just doesn’t save local browser history. Your ISP and google can still log what you search based on IP or login state.

[refurb]

Yes, it happens all the time.

[bloomingkales]

FISA. All that Patriot Act bullshit is still around most likely, including the secret courts to get secret warrants. It was supposed to be for terrorism, but just about everyone in history warned us over and over that these things get repurposed.

Guantanamo Bay is still around. The legacy of the Bush administration is for real.

[instagib]

Depending on who they worked for, they may sign a document that says you will be hacked and monitored for the rest of your life.

Far better than the gag for 40 years or death, whichever comes last document.

[Clubber]

Technically it's Google's data, so all they have to do is ask. If Google says no, then they get a warrant.

[jarsin]

Search "Snowden CIA google datacenter"