In George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, he wrote about “thought police” who arrested people based on their suspected thoughts. In the film Minority Report, law enforcement used a trio of “precognitives” with psychic impressions of pending homicides, leading to the arrest of individuals before they could commit the crimes. In both the novel and the film, a person’s thoughts could lead to significant criminal consequences.

While such scenarios seem fictional, modern surveillance technology and law enforcement practices edge ever closer to this reality. One major source of government insights into our thoughts is keyword search warrants. These warrants compel search engines like Google to provide information about users who search for specific terms, allowing the government to identify who is thinking about certain sensitive topics.

Perhaps you’re an author trying to understand how poisonings are carried out as you write your murder mystery. Perhaps you search about the process for manufacturing meth because you became curious after watching the show Breaking Bad. Perhaps you search how to obtain an abortion while you reside in a state where it is illegal, whether because you need one or you know someone else who might. In any of these cases, keyword search warrants could help the government to identify you as someone who thinks dangerous thoughts, to your potential detriment.

This Article examinees the largely obscured practice of keyword search warrants in American jurisprudence. Section I describes how these warrants function. Section II outlines some of the few documented examples of their use by law enforcement. Section III provides the necessary historical framework for constitutional analysis of these warrants. Section IV discusses Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, including recent developments relating to digital privacy. Section V evaluates the constitutional concerns these warrants raise, and concludes that these warrants are illegal general warrants, with insufficient particularity and unconstitutional overbreadth. Most critically, this section explores the implications of government surveillance of search engine usage, where the mere act of seeking information may become grounds for suspicion.