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last month, Ministry of Justice More than 3 million documents have been issued relating to sexual offenders Jeffrey Epstein. While the dumps highlight Epstein’s character Social circle and ActivitiesThey also provide a rare window into the inner workings of the federal investigation, including how technology companies like Google responded to government requests for information.
WIRED found several grand jury subpoenas directed at Google in the latest DOJ release, along with files that appear to be Google data produced about specific users and messages on Google’s header responding to specific subpoena requests.
Google declined to comment on the specific documents included in the dumps, but spokeswoman Caitlin Jabbari said in a written statement that “the company’s processes for handling law enforcement requests are designed to protect users’ privacy while meeting our legal obligations. We review all legal claims for legal validity, and we fight those that are broad, including disputing some in their entirety.”
The documents show how much the government will sometimes try to obtain without a judge’s approval, how Google counters requests that it says go beyond what the law requires, and what types of information the company has handed over about its users.
Secret by design
Subpoenas are usually shrouded in secrecy. A 2019 message Signed by the then U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and addressed to Google’s legal department, the company is prohibited by law from disclosing the existence of the letter to Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, the subject of the subpoena, for 180 days from the date of the subpoena. The letter also asked Google to alert prosecutors if it plans to inform Maxwell of the existence of the order after 180 days, “in the event the investigation continues and the order becomes necessary.”
Even when not required by law, plaintiffs asked for Google’s silence. A 2018 message It directed Google to preserve all emails (including those in Draft and Trash folders) and Google Drive content associated with four Gmail accounts, and also asked Google not to disclose the existence of the message to anyone, including people who own the accounts. The letter also asked Google to notify federal prosecutors if the company intends to disclose information, so prosecutors can “obtain a nondisclosure order if necessary.”
It’s not clear whether Google notified account holders of redacted emails after the 180-day period described in the 2019 letter expired. Google Privacy & Terms He says When it receives a request from a government entity, it will email the subject of that request before disclosing that information, unless prohibited by law.
Back to basics
Many of the files included in Epstein’s dumps were titled “GOOGLE SUBSCRIBER INFORMATION” and contained the account name, recovery email address, phone numbers, Google services the account had access to, when the account was created, an IP TERMS OF SERVICE header, and a history of the IP address’s activity.
Subscriber information requires the lowest legal barrier for the government to access under the border law, says Mario Trujillo, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Stored Communications Acta law dating back to the 1980s that sets a lot of rules regarding the type of information the government can access from electronic service providers like Google.
While some types of information, such as e-mail contentrequires a search warrant by law, “On the other end of that is basic subscriber information,” Trujillo says. The law explicitly allows the government to obtain this information merely by subpoena, which does not necessarily require judicial approval.