The warrants, which applied to 381 users' photos, private messages and other account information, could only be challenged by individual defendants after prosecutors gathered evidence, the Manhattan-based court unanimously ruled.
Facebook was backed in the case by a group of large Internet companies including Google Inc and Microsoft Corp, which argued the case could set a troubling precedent giving prosecutors access to all kinds of digital information....
July 22, 2015
"Facebook Inc cannot challenge search warrants New York prosecutors used to get information from its site on hundreds of users suspected of Social Security fraud..."
The intermediate appellate court in Manhattan said yesterday.
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giving prosecutors access to all kinds of digital information....
Information foolish people willingly put out there. But how interesting that the legal ownership of it still rests with the individuals and not the FB overlords.
Don't worry. Prosecutors would never use their position to get private information for anything but honorable intentions, e.g. going after "real" criminals.
Such bad acts as prosecutors going after information for political reasons rarely, if ever, happens.
I think the Travis County DA is readying subpoenas for all Facebook information of all Republican office holders as we speak.
Legislatures need to reassert themselves vigorously.
Whoa, wait. Can a storage rental company protest officers searching my boxes, or do I have to be the one to resist that?
"could only be challenged by individual defendants after prosecutors gathered evidence"
Why do they need to subpoena Facebook in the first place? If the information is public then they can just go view it themselves. If it's privacy restricted, then they should be required to subpoena the users. How else would the users effectively challenge the search, or even know that any of this is happening?
@Matthew Sablan, LOL, they (company) will go through your stuff anyway unknown to you. It is theirs until it is not.
Are those Chinese prosecutors or Russian prosecutors?
"How else would the users effectively challenge the search, or even know that any of this is happening?"
-- Can police officers "catfish" people's data by putting up a fake user that's a hot college co-ed allegedly interested in the people they want data on and ask for full access to their page? I'd wonder how different that is to going under cover.
Also, I think it'd be an interesting episode of Law & Order.
could only be challenged by individual defendants after prosecutors gathered evidence
They can only cry about the milk AFTER it has been spilled, apparently.
Also, I think it'd be an interesting episode of Law & Order.
Those terms are contradictory.
Interesting Law & Order? Nope.
'Why do they need to subpoena Facebook in the first place? If the information is public then they can just go view it themselves."
Without getting into this too deeply, they may need a subpoened rep from Facebook as a records witness depending on what you want to introduce into evidence at trial. Facebook posts just don't walk themselves into the courtroom and become self-authenticating.
'Why do they need to subpoena Facebook in the first place? If the information is public then they can just go view it themselves."
Not everyone can see it if the FB user has wisely restricted access. But usually relatives & frenemies can see and they talk too.
I don't trust the authorities too much when it comes to personal data. I try to share as little as possible but still maintain a presence for relevant purposes.
However, Facebook wants to have it both ways — leader of a data economy that wants to use their user's information as they see fit for marketing purposes, but can't abide having it used by others like prosecutors.
It's always a huge surprise to me when the courts find a way to support big government and still appear to be for individual rights. Almost never happens, right?
Why would Facebook have someone's SSAN? Ah, that's not what this is about.
I haven't read the decision, but it does not seem amiss. Search warrants are always issued ex parte. The whole point is not to give notice to the defendant or target that the gov't would like certain evidence or information, lest it gets destroyed first. The defendants will have a chance to challenge the warrant before trial, just as they do in thousands of other cases. I don't see how Facebook has standing to challenge the search warrant, anymore than a bank or a landlord could. The prosecutors should be applauded for using a search warrant, which requires judicial approval, rather than some other means of obtaining potential evidence such as a subpoena (which does not) or trying to conjure up some exception to the warrant requirement.
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