Meanwhile, this:
> “If Google is allowed or required to turn over information in this Colorado case, there is nothing to stop a court in a state that has outlawed abortion to also require Google to turn over information on that kind of keyword search.”
seems like it's of entirely different magnitude, far less amenable to such a narrow scope.
If the past has taught us anything it's that law enforcement will use any tool to the maximium of what is allowed and then beyond (e.g. coerced phone searches, racially motivated stop and search, drug dogs to force vehicle searches, privately sourced licence plate tracking and face recognition, criminal DNA testing from rape kits, forced biometric collection and more).
> no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized
Legally, the term is "particularity".
This whole system really highlights a flaw in using a 200 year old document as the basis of our legal system. Pervasive surveillance in the form of video cameras, photographs, audio, and now Google search requests wasn't really a thing at the time. I suspect with the present conditions, the authors of the 4th amendment would have put in an even stronger requirement for warrants regarding data from third parties and maybe even searches generally given how non-consensual consensual searches often feel to everyday citizens. Unfortunately, I think textualism is more in vogue with the current SCOTUS.
A fair point, but the controlling "document" isn't 200 years old. In fact, it's 46 years old[0] and is called the Third-Party Doctrine:
"The third-party doctrine is a United States legal doctrine that holds that people who voluntarily give information to third parties—such as banks, phone companies, internet service providers (ISPs), and e-mail servers—have "no reasonable expectation of privacy" in that information. A lack of privacy protection allows the United States government to obtain information from third parties without a legal warrant and without otherwise complying with the Fourth Amendment prohibition against search and seizure without probable cause and a judicial search warrant"
The tl;dr is that if you voluntarily give a third party (not the government and not you) information (e.g., web search requests), that information is not protected under the 4th Amendment.
As such, even though the police got a warrant, it wasn't necessary for them to do so unless Google balked at providing the information.