I want to preface this post by telling everyone that I am in Canada and my conversation with the person noted below involves Canadian law and LE, but interesting nonetheless as it may relate to Mackenzie's case.
I had the opportunity to chat at great length with a friend who is a Police Officer (Forensics), who for the past 5 years, has been involved in investigating child *advertiser censored*. His job specifically involves digital forensics and putting people "at the computer/phone/ipad" etc. and building the cases. He has been a Police Officer for 30 years, spending the last 15 in Forensics. He has seen an awful lot in his years.
I usually don't speak to him about this stuff because it's "work" for him and quite frankly, I don't want to know what he knows.
Yesterday, I told him about this case. All of it.
I was specifically interested in the whole getting warrants process with respect to MacKenzie's phone, social media etc.
In Canada, depending on circumstances, LE can access a missing person's digital information without a warrant however, there must be an immediacy to the request. For example, had Mackenzie shown up in the park, walked over to other car and was grabbed and pulled into the vehicle, LE could have accessed her phone records immediately. On the other hand, the fact that, according to the Lyft driver, she was expecting the car to be there, seemed happy that the car was there and willingly went to the car and got in, then you have a different situation and would need a warrant.
Here's the other thing; in the minds of LE, the SD/SB link and her willingness to meet whoever she met at 3:00 am in the morning could potentially lead LE down a different path in the early going in the investigation. My friend understood perfectly how LE may not have jumped all over Mackenzie's disappearance in the early going. He also said that it would take a lot of convincing to get a Judge to sign off on a warrant in the early goings based on the information that LE had regarding the disappearance. LE would really need to have a lot more information that would convince a judge that a warrant was truly needed and that this wasn't a case of someone going off the grid with someone.
My friend also expressed exasperation, as a Police Officer, of having his hands tied a lot of the time due to privacy laws. You want to investigate. You want to get that information from someone's digital footprint, but you can't. Sometimes the "idea" of privacy vs. the reality of what it really means when something like Mackenzie's situation arises, handcuffs the very people who are trying to save you. Just a philosophical conversation all around and interesting to get an LE perspective.
Finally, my friend showed me how they get information off computers, phones etc. and the computer programs they use to do this work. Absolutely fascinating. My big take away.....you know all those saved passwords and logins we all have? Here's a tip, if you ever plan on doing something bad you might want to stop saving those. It makes it real easy to get into everything you've ever looked at. LOL