zlacker

My understanding of mass surveillance is, that masses are surveilled. :) But here its a court, that allows extracting log data for a specific case and it happened after the fact.

I make a difference between leaving loggable traces of living (which we leave all the time, no matter what) and sometimes filtering to recapture the past.

>>okr+(OP)
That's right even if the sample size N=30,000, it is still a one-time point event controlled/approved by the proper legal authority. There will be an audit trail of said approval and the process will be documented.

In contrast mass surveillance is just "oh, we have a BIG database, and we query whenever for whatever purpose, and nobody knows who searched for what and when and why, and nobody EXTERNAL TO THE AGENCY needs to approve it (lack of control). And today, Bob, who works for the police, background-searched his new girlfriend as well."

>>okr+(OP)
emphasis on "Specific". This doesn't feel specific at all. Mass surveillance or not, this feels like a failure of the warrant itself passing.