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submitted 1 day ago by artyom@piefed.social to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

If you're not familiar with the LEGO scandal, the tl;dw is that this YouTuber Reckless Ben (Ben Schneider) has been investigating a stolen set of LEGO worth ~$100-200k (depending on who you ask) and the local police dept and criminal justice system has been colluding with the criminals (all members of the local Mormon church) to get him to STFU. The long version is, very long. You can check his channel for more.

Previously the local police dept managed to get a warrant to raid Ben's rental home with guns drawn and arrest him, based on what is clearly fabricated evidence. Here they appear to have done it again to get access to his Google account.

The linked video is mirrored on Peertube and timestamped to the relevant section.

Ben does also provide a copy of the subpoena in the video but I cannot vouch for its' validity, and he has used placeholder evidence before, but that's neither here nor there.

Anyway, the part that was relevant to this community was that in the course of their investigation they subpoenaed Google, and Google handed over basically his entire life to them. I'm sure this was very useful in their investigation.

I don't necessarily blame Google here for complying with a subpoena, but the moral of the story is to stop giving Google your data, because everything you say and do can and will be used against you in a court of law, with or without legitimate justification, and the more stuff you give them, the more ammunition you're providing the prosecutor.

This is also not exclusive to Google. Anything not local, self-hosted or encrypted a la Proton can be subpoenaed and the provider will have to comply. It just so happens that Google probably has more information about literally everyone in the world than any other particular entity.

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[-] Etterra@discuss.online -2 points 9 hours ago

I'm not entirely clear on why this guy stuck out his neck so far over a situation that was never his to deal with in the first place.

[-] DanceMomsSavedMe@lemmy.zip 11 points 8 hours ago

I mean just so you know this dude is making bucks off of YouTube views. Now, idk it its like a boatload of money but he is compensated for his time that way.

That said though imagine how bleak the world would be if no one stuck their neck out for anyone over something that didn't involve them. We should all try to help the common man if we can.

[-] Evotech@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago
[-] artyom@piefed.social 4 points 9 hours ago
this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2026
548 points (99.3% liked)

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