Could Cops Use Google As Pre-Cogs?

theodp writes "Remember the Pre-Cogs in Minority Report? Slate's Will Oremus does, and wonders if Google could similarly help the police apprehend criminals based on foreknowledge collected from searches. Oremus writes: 'At around 3:45 a.m. on March 24, someone in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., used a mobile phone to Google "chemicals to passout a person." Then the person searched Ask.com for "making people faint." Then Google again, for "ways to kill people in their sleep," "how to suffocate someone," and "how to poison someone." The phone belonged to 23-year-old Nicole Okrzesik. Later that morning, police allege, she and her boyfriend strangled 19-year-old Juliana Mensch as she slept on the floor of their apartment.' In theory, Oremus muses, Google or Ask.com could have flagged Okrzesik's search queries as suspicious and dispatched cops to the scene before Mensch's assailants had the chance to do her in." I bet you're already thinking of just a few reasons why this might not such a good idea.

What happens if

[Compaqt]

you google "people who google 'chemicals to passout a person'"?

Re:Just the other day

[Talderas]

Showing results for How to Rap
Search instead for How to Rape

Dirty Honda

[Anonymous Coward]

How do I clean all this blood out of the front seat of my Honda?

Re:No.

[Sarten-X]

"Let's find out," the officer cheerfully replies, as he picks up the radio and calls the dispatcher. "Can I get some assistance at the corner of 3rd and main? There's some wacko here who says he comes from the Internet on a quest for knowledge and troll skins. Could be a mental patient."

Re:Unreasonable to expect privacy

[WormholeFiend]

I do not want anyone to know about the sort of pornography that I search for

FREEZE! Drop the box of kleenex on the floor NOW!

Re:Help

[Anonymous Coward]

ALL CAPS IS THE MOST READABLE TEXT, at least according to Microsoft.

Stupid caps filters.

Re:bad idea

[zill]

I was about to google map "police station" to get the directions, but then I remember doing that search would make me a cop-killing police-station-bombing terrorist.

So now I'm caught in a catch-22: if I don't look up its location I'm a fugitive on the run. If I look up its location I would be plotting a terrorist attack.