there is sort of a sliding scale. they have to start with the least intrusive method possible to conduct an investigation, which it sounds like they did here doing database searches. the gentleman you were just speaking with did exactly the right thing. that's what we want people to do, but in the united states we can't go straight to electronic surveillance of a youtube account, for example. there is something the fbi has used and i've used in my investigations where you can go to a provider and serve them with an emergency disclosure letter where if you have some type of credible information that could stop a threat and save lives, sometimes, and again, it's up to the individual company, it's not actual legal process, but they can decide whether or not to provide that information to you. i know from experience it is an extremely high bar, and something like this that we saw, someone saying i want to be a school shooter i don't think would pass that threshold in order to get the information without some type of court