Court downplayed privacy risks to uphold cops’ keyword warrant, experts say

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On Monday, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Google search data evidence retrieved by Denver police using a controversial keyword search warrant can be used to prosecute a teenager who has been charged with deadly arson.

Gavin Seymour, the teenager accused of arson, had moved to suppress the evidence, asking the court to consider whether keyword warrants violate constitutional rights protecting against unlawful, overly broad searches and seizures.

This was the first constitutional challenge to the legitimacy of keyword warrants—which operate in the complete opposite manner of traditional warrants and do not require police to first identify a suspect before conducting a search—but the judge writing the majority opinion, William W. Hood, declined to definitively decide whether keyword search warrants are unconstitutional.