Avoiding Keyword Warrants

As 2025 promises danger, no matter what the election brings ...

I just noticed this report about Google receiving “keyword warrants”

This particular instance involved a hit and run death, but similar tactics have been used in Texas for women’s reproductive care. If the Supreme Court mullahs do contrive to make Catholic Shariah Integralism the law of the land, everybody is going to be at risk in the inevitable inquisition.

Attention Conservation Notice:

What is crazypants paranoia in mid-2024 will be conventional wisdom a year from now. All of you could do better when it comes to leaving fewer traces. I debated making this a Tool Time post, but I think it needs to be seen broadly.

Google Exposure:

If you use Google products (I do) and that includes using their search engine (who doesn’t?) then you’re leaving tracks all over the place. And let’s not have any foolishness regarding alternate search engines. I gave up on DuckDuckGo because 90% of the time I had to manually Google. Microsoft Bing has some utility in certain circumstances, but as a general Google replacement? Here’s a recent example on what that’s not such a good idea.

So Google is ubiquitous … how do you protect yourself?

Compartmentalization:

Google searches are associated with your Google ID, so you simply need to break that connection. I’m going to assume that simply using the guest option with your browser isn’t a good idea, because it’ll share the origin IP with your other stuff.

The simplest way to do this is a virtual machine and a fail closed VPN. If you’re not comfortable with Linux command line you can get the quite functional fail closed featured with Mullvad’s $5/month VPN service. If you are comfortable, every ProtonMail account comes with a free low speed VPN, and their low speed is plenty fast for just nosing around.

I have written at length about deeper cover, which involves the $40 acquisition cost and $30/month to have a burner phone that provides hotspot. Regarding Your Ass has a detailed exposition on this. Briefly, keep the phone completely off your home/office network, use that old laptop you’ve held on to for access, or spend the time to figure out how to use the USB tether function to provide a VM access to the phone’s network.

Obstruction:

You must be familiar with USC 18 § 1512(c)(1)

c)Whoever corruptly—

(1)

alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or

Doing something simple minded, like wiping your browser’s history after you become aware of potential trouble would be a violation of this statute. Being a sneaky asshole who doesn’t leave a trace would get editorialized by a prosecutor during trial, they’d pitch it as mens rea, but if you’re keeping things neat there won’t BE a trial, because they won’t even get to first base.

There’s a little picture “not leaving an incriminating mess” in your browser history, but there’s a bigger picture to that. Let’s say you’ve failed to read and deeply appreciate Informantspotting, so you’re in some group hug type chat, talking about how you’re too slick to get caught, intimating that you’ve been involved in whatever, and in general handing that lurking informant a bunch of stuff that’s going to read well before a grand jury …

DON’T DO THAT.

It really is just that simple. The tradecraft I describe herein could be employed in all sorts of illicit ways. You will not find any talk of that here, the focus is exercising your civil liberties in times of trouble. You won’t find a legitimate chat room screen shot of me suggesting such things. In act, in this era of shunning walk on talent, you don’t find chat room screen shots of me at all, unless I’m releasing them myself.

Conclusion:

As Winston Churchill so famously intoned “The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.”

Consequences are imminent for us, one and all. One of the themes of such times is the material found in Paranoia: Pathological Or Professional. You need to harden your presence against those consequences. And then be mindful of the signs you need a break, which I mentioned in Sounds Of Silence and again in Silent Lucidity. If you don’t learn to recognize the warning signs, instead of a week or two off, as I’ve recently done, recovery will require a year or two.

Be careful out there. The dash of the day will be won by the swift, but multi-year marathons are won by those who are patient and prepared.