_{_{https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/10/google-refuses-to-remove-police-brutality-videos/247462/}}

Raleigh North Carolina Police convinced a County Judge to give them a warrant to order Google to handle over account identities on every single cell phone that went through a 17-acre area surrounding the crime scene. The search includes both residential and commercial targets.

Two of the cases involved a fatal shooting in which one party was seen on security cameras leaving the scene using a cell phone. The police were unsuccessful in breaking either case and turned to Google to provide bulk information on anyone passing through a large radius of the crime scene. Google was ordered to remain silent for months after the release of the information.

"From an average smartphone user's perspective, it's a little surprising once you start to learn the full scope of information about our locations and whereabouts and activities that companies like Google hold,"

_{Nathan Freed Wessler, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project.}

Google is forced to time-stamped location coordinates for mobile devices entering and leaving the areas surrounding the crime scene. Detectives then will require additional information outside of the surrounding area for potential suspects. A final request will be made for the usernames, date of birth, and other identifying information on this list of suspects.

"We're not getting text messages or emails or phone calls without having to go through a different process and having additional information that might lead us to a specific individual,"

_{Wake County District Attorney}

This type of mass information gather has been used four times in the last year by the Raleigh Police department. This is becoming the norm for police departments all over the United States. These warrants are mass blanket wide information gathering efforts. When specific targets are identified, far more information is released to law enforcement, frequently without notifying the suspect or public.

A lot more information regarding these cases can be found on WRAL.com.