New York Judge Rules Against Facebook In Search Warrant Case 157
itwbennett writes: Last year, Facebook appealed a court decision requiring it to hand over data, including photos and private messages, relating to 381 user accounts. (Google, Microsoft, and Twitter, among other companies backed Facebook in the dispute). On Tuesday, Judge Dianne Renwick of the New York State Supreme Court ruled against Facebook, saying that Facebook has no legal standing to challenge the constitutionality of search warrants served on its users.
Isn't all that info (Score:3)
Re:Isn't all that info (Score:5, Funny)
Damn straight, and those government moochers wanted it for free!
Re: (Score:1)
Facebook = your info for sale?
No, you're thinking of Google+
Six of one, half a dozen of the other?
Personally, I feel a little less uncomfortable about Google. Never trusted facebook at all, actually.
Principle (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Which is what this story is about, Facebook believes that the search warrant is invalid and is fighting it. The government DID get a search warrant.
Re: (Score:1)
Nonsense law still can't be ignored (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Nonsense law still can't be ignored (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean the 4th amendment ?
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Re: (Score:3)
Except that is bollocks. (Score:1)
If that were the case, then there is no such thing as private information. Even government spy info is "out there" since the spy is a third party to the NSA.
If the information is "out there" then there's no need to make a third party give it up, go get it yourself.
Re:Nonsense law still can't be ignored (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why minimal interpretation of rights leads to not having any. The very idea that Party A is holding information about Party B, and the government can execute a search warrant now, claiming to be "served on B" but really, searching the effects fo party A.
Its BULLSHIT. If a warrant is being served to search facebook servers, it is ON FACEBOOK. Not their user. The very idea that someone or some entitity can be searched while having no standing to challenge it *IS* tyranny.
Re:Nonsense law still can't be ignored (Score:5, Insightful)
It is no more "bullshit" than a bank being required to open a safety deposit box when a warrant is presented against whoever is leasing the safety deposit box. That search is happening on bank property, but the bank does not have legal standing to challenge the warrant.
We do NOT need internet-enabled corporations running rampant over the law as if they had no legal responsibilities nor limitations on the scope on what they're allowed to do. There are often CLEAR examples of similar situations with physical property, but the weasels in the "new" digital world would like to claim that they're above those precedents.
Re: (Score:2)
All you have done is restated the situation. I see no reason why the party whose property is subject to search should ever not have standing to challenge. In fact, I really thing the entire concept of standing to challenge needs to be broadened. They are impacted, they should have some say.
What about the case where lies or deception is used to claim that a third party's property exists? No loophole there eh? "Oh we are going to search you now, but we are really searching that guy over there so you have the
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I am not even addressing that; I think it is utter bullshit that just because one is not the stated subject of a search means one is not the subject when its their property being searched. If your property is being searched you ARE the subject of the search.
Re: (Score:2)
The crux of my problem though...
> As for your hypothetical, material found incriminating someone not listed on the warrant would be
> found inadmissible in court and would be specifically barred from use in any later criminal trial. It
> could be a potentially great result for the third party as any bad evidence against them would now
> legally not exist.
I object to the assertion that "you can't be prosecuted" is the be all and end all of harm you or others could be exposed to. A violation of priva
Anyone involved should have standing (Score:3)
It is no more "bullshit" than a bank being required to open a safety deposit box when a warrant is presented against whoever is leasing the safety deposit box. That search is happening on bank property, but the bank does not have legal standing to challenge the warrant.
The bank absolutely should have standing to challenge the warrant if they feel the need. Their challenge can be denied AFTER due process but any party that is involved should by default have standing regardless of whether they are the target of the investigation.
We do NOT need internet-enabled corporations running rampant over the law as if they had no legal responsibilities nor limitations on the scope on what they're allowed to do.
Facebook is a company I don't especially trust but in this case they very much appear to be doing the right thing in standing up for their right to challenge a warrant. They are being asked to hand over information about their users which is the c
Re: (Score:1)
Facebook wanted to lose this case for a number of reasons. The two most important are that it looks good (they pretend to care) and that it sets a precedent so they need not be obligated to fight such in the future. Also, I can think of no reason to treat online data any different than physical goods. In each case a warrant should be required, be specific, and only cover those things which they have probable cause to expect will provide evidence of wrong-doing. In all cases warrants should adhere to strict
Re:Nonsense law still can't be ignored (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, denying Facebook the standing to challenge the constitutionality of warrants on behalf of its users is a really bad precedent.
This means that the court didn't allow the constitutionality of the warrants to be considered, and instead of having the ability to have blanket protections based on "you're not allowed to do that", now it's a "serve unconstitutional warrant now and let each affected party resolve this later".
Basically this gives the government the ability to use general warrants, or otherwise specious legal arguments to claim any old damned thing ... and Facebook (and now nobody else) can say "hey, wait a minute, you can't do that".
This isn't corporations running rampant over the law, this is the law running rampant over your rights and then leaving you on the hook to fix it later. It's a shoot first and ask questions later interpretation where even if law enforcement comes in with a blatantly illegal search warrant Facebook and others can't challenge it.
This is a terrible fucking idea, especially since law enforcement has increasingly decided they don't really give a damn about the constitutionality of anything they do.
Do you want to live in a society in which the government gets to break the law first and then leave it up to individual defense lawyers to resolve that?
Re: (Score:1)
No, but I also don't want to live in a world where people can temporarily stop a warrant and clean up their mess.
That is a complaint of this Iraq deal -- spot inspections can be stopped and as much as 24 days elapse before all objections expire and they invoke the wrath of restored sanctions.
Saddam used to do that all the time. Indeed, it can be expected as a regular practice precisely so that, when it really counts and they need to hide stuff, the delays won't seem unusual.
Re: (Score:1)
Iran deal.
Re: (Score:2)
> Saddam used to do that all the time. Indeed, it can be expected as a regular practice precisely so
> that, when it really counts and they need to hide stuff, the delays won't seem unusual.
Except, in proper hindsight its pretty clear that the regular practice was precisely to LOOK LIKE he had capabilities that he didn't have.
It doesn't really take much to see why he would want to do that either; from his perspective he probably calculated that appearing to possibly have a nuclear program and chemical
Re: (Score:2)
Right everyone blames the intelligence agencies and sure they could have been more conservative and and skeptical but they and the administration chose to err on the side of a false positive rather than a false negative. Which actually seems somewhat reasonable in the context of "does this known lunatic have a nuclear or biological weapon?"
Saddam could easily have suddenly cooperated with inspectors. He could said wait wait stop while those conversations were happening at the UN. "No seriously guys I hav
Re: (Score:2)
Nah put the blame where it belongs, in the private hands of the Bush Family. their partners, and their generations long business arrangements with the Saudis which have been allowed to pervert our national interest for half a century. They created their own bogeyman.
> Saddam could easily have suddenly cooperated with inspectors. He could said wait wait stop while those conversations were happening at the UN.
Right except, as I remember it, we gave an ultimatum, he hemmed and hawed and finally agreed, and
Re: (Score:1)
When a warrant is challenged there is usually an injunction that prevents tampering or deleting data and doing so is a criminal act. You can't just challenge a warrant and use that time to get rid of the evidence. No company is going to take on the legal risks of doing so on behalf of an end-user nor are they going to allow an end-user access to the content to make changes or delete it.
Re: (Score:3)
This is particularly bad in consideration of the fact the the (right wing of) Supreme Court has severely weakened the 'Fruit of the Poisoned Tree' Doctrine.
I obtained this evidence illegally, but this evidence pointed to evidence I could have found legally, can I use *this* Evidence?
The answer used to be a flat 'No'. However Several cases of late have shift that to a 'Well, did you have a good faith belief it was obtained legally?' (Because it turns out Ignorance of the Law *is* an excuse, if you're a profe
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't want some corporation arbitrarily interfering in investigations. I don't want some corporation acting as judge, jury, and executioner deciding what is valid and what is not. Those decisions are up to the judge signing the warrants.
Re: (Score:2)
Here's how it works:
Court decrees Facebook doesn't have standing to challenge the warrant, because even though they're going through Facebook's stuff the warrant is for a specific person.
Court decrees the person who was targeted by the search warrant doesn't have standing to challenge the warrant, because they can't prove that they were even served the warrant because Facebook was also given a gag order.
Re: (Score:2)
The idea is that, in legal proceedings, the person targeted can challenge the warrant, and therefore the validity of evidence proceeding from that warrant. Unfortunately, this fails in the case of parallel construction, lax enforcement of the "fruit of the poisoned tree" doctrine, and any use of the information to the detriment of the targeted person that doesn't result in an actual trial.
Re: (Score:2)
It is no more "bullshit" than a bank being required to open a safety deposit box when a warrant is presented against whoever is leasing the safety deposit box. That search is happening on bank property, but the bank does not have legal standing to challenge the warrant.
We do NOT need internet-enabled corporations running rampant over the law as if they had no legal responsibilities nor limitations on the scope on what they're allowed to do. There are often CLEAR examples of similar situations with physical property, but the weasels in the "new" digital world would like to claim that they're above those precedents.
When I upload pictures or make a post on Facebook I am conveying Facebook certain rights to that content through their terms of service and that is what should give them standing. Facebook isn't merely holding some information for me like a storage provider or "safety deposit box". They are creating information about their transactions with me. They are hosting content which I have conveyed some ownership rights to. These are business records owned in some way by the business. Companies don't have stan
Re: (Score:1)
The safe deposit box at the bank I use requires only one single fancy key. The bank has a duplicate of this key (and it is very fancy and expensive to replace) but they do not have a second key for the individual lock boxes. The second key, in this case, is a door that is time-locked and the whole room is a walk-in safe. In fact, I have never had a safe deposit box that required a second key to open beyond the door to the safe or a gate within the safe itself. Perhaps you have watched too many movies or you
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
It's understood by pretty much everyone including judges in New York that rights of individuals are intended to be interpreted expansively and that the role of government is to be interpreted in a restrictive manner.
There's even some explicit legal language to that effect.
Re: (Score:2)
government of the people, by the people, for the people
The real problem is current governments wants everyone to believe everything they do is eccentric and not egocentric. Like: "hey we gon' take this info so u can be protected from yo'self man. Trust"
Re: (Score:2)
The Fourth doesn't apply in this case. It protects people from "unreasonable" searches, and any search with a warrant is considered reasonable for those purposes. If the police have the appropriate search warrants, they can search anywhere the warrant says. The question here is who has standing to challenge a warrant, not whether a warranted search can be unreasonable.
Re: (Score:2)
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects
I highly doubt any part of the 4th was written taking into account the characteristics of digital data. Even "effects" is not enough a concept to include the complex digital data concept. Some data has no effect at all. Some data is test data. Some data is not even created by the user. NO DATA CAN BE PROVEN TO BE CREATED BY THE USER, only its PC, account, IP Address, etc. It would be much like adding "...effects... and thoughts" to the original lis
Re: (Score:2)
"unreasonable" is the key word. If you are a suspect in an investigation, checking the contents of that person's facebook account for evidence is reasonable.
Re: Nonsense law still can't be ignored (Score:1)
You do realize the 4th amazement gives the government the ability to obtain information from the company if they can prove their case in court?
Re:Nonsense law still can't be ignored (Score:5, Insightful)
This case has nothing to do with "nonsensical legislation." It is straightforward rules of evidence and criminal procedure. The judge didn't say the warrant was OK, she just said that:
1) an invalid warrant "on a computer" is the same as an invalid warrant i.r.l. Meaning that a properly issued warrant gets served, then the thing the prosecutor wants to search gets searched, then if the defendant has reason to believe that the warrant was improperly issued or the search was done improperly, then those issues get brought up at trial to determine the admissibility of the evidence obtained from the search. It's what you see in courtroom dramas when evidence gets thrown out at trial - note that it is getting thrown out at trial, not being prevented from being found in the first place.
2) Even if the warrant was improper, Facebook isn't the defendant here and isn't the right person to challenge it anyways. Let's say the prosecutors suspect that you used rat poison bought at the local mom & pop general store to poison somebody. And the mom & pop store doesn't have any computers - you paid cash and they just took an old fashioned carbon copy imprint of your credit card. So they get a warrant to go through all those paper receipts to prove that you bought the rat poison. The mom & pop store isn't in the position to challenge that warrant, only you are. This case with Facebook is the same thing just "on a computer"
If we want to hold that "on a computer" isn't anything unique or different for patent purposes, we can't argue that "on a computer" has a different meaning for rules of evidence in a criminal proceeding.
Re: (Score:2)
2) Even if the warrant was improper, Facebook isn't the defendant here and isn't the right person to challenge it anyways. Let's say the prosecutors suspect that you used rat poison bought at the local mom & pop general store to poison somebody. And the mom & pop store doesn't have any computers - you paid cash and they just took an old fashioned carbon copy imprint of your credit card. So they get a warrant to go through all those paper receipts to prove that you bought the rat poison. The mom & pop store isn't in the position to challenge that warrant, only you are. This case with Facebook is the same thing just "on a computer"
This might be case law, but is entirely at odds with the plain language of the 4th amendment. You might be searching for information about the suspects, but you are searching the papers and effects of the mom & pop to do so! What about THEIR legal protections? Coupled with wonderful things like the good faith doctrine, and the above is, frankly, terrifying since the police could use anything they find against Mom & Pop, because they weren't searching for it when they found it.
It is apparent that th
Re: (Score:2)
Fourth Amendment:
[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
This is not something new at all, and not at all at odds with the 4th amendment. The 4th amendment protects you from "unreasonable searches" - not *all* searches, and they can't issue the warrant in the first place without probable cause (as determined by a judge who signs the warrant). Lastly, the place to be searched (Facebook) and the things to be seized (photos and comments) are well specified. Where is the 4th amendment violation?
If you lived at any time since the founding of this g
Re: (Score:2)
This is not something new at all, and not at all at odds with the 4th amendment. The 4th amendment protects you from "unreasonable searches" - not *all* searches, and they can't issue the warrant in the first place without probable cause (as determined by a judge who signs the warrant). Lastly, the place to be searched (Facebook) and the things to be seized (photos and comments) are well specified. Where is the 4th amendment violation?
In the situation we are discussing, Facebook cannot argue that the search is unreasonable, because they lack standing. I agree completely that the government has the power to search (when properly sanctioned by the courts) but when an argument hinges on what is, or is not, reasonable, how you can say this protection is not violated by the prevention of the argument? The government has further ensured a situation where there is no one to argue the point, since the target of the warrant is not informed, eith
Re: (Score:3)
The points that you (and AC) raise are legitimate concerns, and the way that they have been addressed is by giving ex ante review by the courts on probable cause and ex post review as to the admissibility of the evidence. Of course one can always say that these reviews are insufficient, but the whole point of a warrant is for the state to acquire specific evidence of a crime, and the proper time for the target to challenge it and have it reviewed is ex post. If targets were able to challenge warrants before
Re: (Score:1)
The people are waiting for you to go first.
Double Standard? (Score:3)
Did the judge also rule that Facebook need not comply with a search warrant issued to its users? How can a rational person state that Facebook is required to act on the warrant and simultaneously not have standing to challenge the warrant?
Re: (Score:1)
I returned to the top to type this. This is a small novella and you have been warned. I figured I would add this to the beginning instead of at the end.
TL;DR - If it is too long for you to read then your opinion is not valid. Some things are more complicated than that which can fit on a bumper sticker. Failure to comprehend or unwillingness to do so is a direct cause of the failings we have in the system. Life and rights are more complicated than a blurb from a politician or pundit.
-----------
Evidence colle
Re: (Score:2)
I never that wasn't reasonable. What's unreasonable is to claim the landlord has no standing to contest the warrant.
Re: (Score:2)
Given the state of forfeiture laws in this country, landlords certainly have an interest in preserving their own rights in such cases.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
MS USA isn't forcing MS Ireland to provide information, but rather accessing the information in the normal way. The question here is not whether the information is itself in another country, where a US court would not have jurisdiction, but whether MS USA could get the information. A US court can tell a US individual or company to hand over whatever that individual or company has direct access to.
In the SCO vs. Novell case, the court didn't try to interfere with the German court. It ordered a US-based
Makes sense to me (Score:3)
It would be the defendant/accused (i.e. the user) who could raise an issue of constitutionality of the search warrant. For an internet service provider to raise the issue is just wrong-headed. They're required to respond to warrants; they're not being charged under the warrants.
Of course, if Facebook et. al. would like to assume responsibility for the content posted by users, then they'd have a reason to raise defense-style arguments. But until and unless they want to do so, they need to STFU and obey the law.
Re:Makes sense to me (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that the defendant/accused isn't informed of the search warrant.
Effectively, this ruling says that NOBODY can challenge search warrants.
Re:Makes sense to me (Score:5, Insightful)
That is the fundamental problem.
The only party served the warrant is judged to have no standing to contest it and the party that the warrant is about is never informed about the warrant.
It should be completely unconstitutional but in the end the world runs by might makes right and the constitution is just a piece of paper they pay lip service to.
Judges will not support the average person over their government and corporate interests.
Secret search warrants should not be allowed but I don't see any actual way to stop them. After the Citizen's United ruling any candidate that tries to run on the basis of trying to clean this kind of stuff up is going to get stomped by the other side since the other side will have nearly unlimited funds.
In the end money decides politics and politics are explicitly for sale to the highest bidder now. The supreme court even declared it is not bribery and we all know that it is. The system is corrupt from top to bottom and baked in. European countries are not any better with that either.
Re: (Score:3)
Well, a warrant could only be challenged if you were charged and challenging the validity of the evidence in court.
But I agree: The US has some seriously messed up legal procedures when they can use evidence provided by such a warrant without even presenting the evidence in court nor explaining how they came to acquire it. That sounds more like Chinese Law than that of a free nation...
Re: Makes sense to me (Score:5, Informative)
You're talking about something completely different. I'm talking about when you have the opportunity to challenge the validity of a warrant. If you're never charged and never defending yourself, I don't believe you have an opportunity to challenge the validity of a warrant.
But your argument is specious at best. There have been numerous examples of government agencies using information obtained by the secret warrants, only to claim it was a "traffic stop" instead of a targeted drug search. The abuse of information obtained by secret warrants is a known fact and not up for discussion just because you're a government shill.
Re: (Score:3)
The abuse of information obtained by secret warrants is a known fact and not up for discussion just because you're a government shill.
I agree wholeheartedly with your general points, but the above is simply unhelpful. People can have legitimate differences of opinion on a topic--or be ignorant of certain facts--and not be a "shill" for either side. Simply claiming that anyone you disagree with is involved in some conspiracy on the other side is not the way to win an argument.
Re: (Score:2)
They just use the clues/data to backtrack alternative paths to the clues/data and claim the clues/data was obtained through those means. The original search warrant need never be mentioned in court, even though the clues/data are used.
Re: (Score:2)
They just use the clues/data to backtrack alternative paths to the clues/data and claim the clues/data was obtained through those means. The original search warrant need never be mentioned in court, even though the clues/data are used.
[Samuel Jackson voice]
"It's a (government) thug life bitch, we're takin' that shit and you keep your motherfucking mouth shut or I swear to God I'll pop a cap in your motherfucking ass, motherfucker!
Say 'what' again. Say 'what' again, I dare you, I double dare you motherfucker, say 'what' one more Goddamn time!"
[/Samuel Jackson voice]
Word!
Strat
Re: (Score:2)
If a warrant allowed the police to enter your property when you weren't present then in theory you'd only if you could see something had changed when you got back. If that is acceptable, then I really don't see why digital records should be any different. That said, I would hope that Facebook would be allowed to tell you that your data had been accessed. My understa
Re: (Score:3)
A key difference between physicial and digital searches is the scale. This case revolved around 381 user accounts. Imagine how a judge would respond to a request to search 381 individual houses in what amounts to a dragnet search.
Re: (Score:2)
I have nothing against the principal of subjects of warrants only finding out after the warrant is executed, as long as the system for issuing a warrant is robust and transparent. I don't even have an issue with a warrant being 'secret' but again this would require even m
Re:Makes sense to me (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the point was that the real world equivalent of the digital search would not be allowed. It would be considered a vast overstepping of bounds to search 381 houses and do it in such a way that the people that live there did not know that the police broke in and searched it.
I am not saying that real world warrants should be held to the same absurd standards as digital ones. I am saying it should be the other way around.
Digital warrants should be held to the same standard as real world ones. You should need all the same legal standards for each person you want to do a search on and each place you want to search. If searching hundreds of homes is not viable in the real world you should not be giving warrants for that in the digital world just because it is easier.
Terrorism is so rare that it should be handled as an exceptional event within the law and require a justification every time. The information should also be made public after a set period of time to prevent abuse. However, right now the police seem to see a lot of people as terrorists for things that don't involve terrorism at all.
Bad analogy (Score:3)
If a warrant allowed the police to enter your property when you weren't present then in theory you'd only if you could see something had changed when you got back. If that is acceptable, then I really don't see why digital records should be any different.
Your analogy is poorly chosen I think. Facebook in this case would be something akin to a landlord for the property. The fact that you are not home does not mean the caretaker should not be allowed to challenge the search if they feel the challenge is justified since it involves their property too. There are necessarily two parties involved here and the rights of both need to be considered for any search. The challenge can be denied after due process but it doesn't logically follow that the parties invo
Re: (Score:2)
If they didn't inform you, no problem, they never charged you either. There might be other issues with it, but not ones that the person not charged would have standing to deal with.
They are actually allowed to do a search, find out what they were looking for wasn't there, and not charge you. There is no reporting requirement for a DA to NOT charge you with a crime. But if they want a Jury to be told about how awful whatever they found was, you will in fact be told.
Re: (Score:1)
You do not really challenge a warrant. You challenge the validity of the evidence collected through an effected warrant. In other words, a warrant happens without any argument - unlike what you see on Law and Order. The issued warrant is then served and the search is conducted. The material is collected. Later that material is, potentially, submitted as evidence. This is often done at an evidentiary hearing where it is out of site and out of mind for jury members. This is where it the validity of the warran
Re:Makes sense to me (Score:4, Informative)
Except society has no rights.
The government also has not rights. It has a limited number of powers that are restricted by the constitution.
Modern pop culture has this flipped where government gets to do anything they want and it's individuals that are stuck on an ever shrinking island of rights that must be explicitly stated.
Re: (Score:1)
It used to be that the Constitution was interpreted as a list of what the government could do:
"The 4th Amendment does not give us the ability to do that..."
Then the interpretation became things the government could not do:
"The 4th Amendment does not expressly prohibit us from doing that..."
And that is where the difference lies. That is what is wrong, or one of the things wrong, and that attitude is what needs to change. It could also be argued that the entire interpretation has changed yet again -- the Cons
Re: (Score:1)
You know that the Olmstead ruling was overturned, right?
Re: (Score:2)
For an internet service provider to raise the issue is just wrong-headed.
Without getting into the fairness of allowing warrants to issue to a third part that is not implicated in any crime, I can't agree with the no standing assessment.
The execution of the warrant creates a real and tangible burden on the business either in the form of employee time to assist in gathering the data or in disruptions to their business in terms of potentially being required to remove or take equipment offline for forensic quality duplication.
I think the concepts of standing are being widely abuse
Re: (Score:1)
It could be said that a business is an entity only by grace of the law, it is the law that allows the business to exist. Without such they are just people. As such they are subjected to the burden of having to fulfill certain legal obligations. One of those obligations is accepting that they are subjected to warrants just like any other third party. If a judge decides to grant a warrant subjecting you, personally, and the basis is concerning my criminal acts then you have no say, have never had a say, and a
Makes no sense at all (Score:2)
It would be the defendant/accused (i.e. the user) who could raise an issue of constitutionality of the search warrant. For an internet service provider to raise the issue is just wrong-headed. They're required to respond to warrants; they're not being charged under the warrants.
The warrant isn't being executed on the defendant. It is being executed on Facebook. It involves Facebook's property, resources and creates non-trivial problems for them. If Facebook doesn't have standing to challenge then effectively nobody does because the defendant isn't in a position to challenge or possibly even know about the existence of the warrant.
Facebook shouldn't be required to challenge the warrant but they absolutely ought to have standing to do so. Otherwise this is an end run around the
Re: (Score:2)
This is a big problem in general. Many laws are written ostensibly with the purpose of protecting individuals or consumers but individuals have no standing under the law to pursue violations.
This is the kind of crap that leads to only megacorps being able to sue other companies for blatantly false advertising or blatantly false labeling.
Re: (Score:1)
Except that when the user (defendant) hears and tries to protest they are told that they don't have standing because they don't own the servers that have the information and that because the information is housed on a third party computer it's not theirs, it belongs to the company - who was just told they don't have standing because the information belongs to the user. It's a rigged game to prevent ANYONE from having standing to make the government follow its own laws.
Time to break out the woodchippers.
Sorry coward, you made that part up. Just because you don't know how trials work, doesn't mean you don't have standing to challenge evidence at trial.
It isn't the system that is rigged, it is your own brain that is rigged to feel oppressed and hopeless.
Re: (Score:2)
The system is rigged, but not that way. The time to challenge the search warrant is in court, I believe in a pre-trial hearing where the judge will rule on admissibility of evidence. However, LEOs have been getting away with parallel construction (essentially lying about when an investigation started and how it proceeded), and Federal prosecutors in particular have been exerting a lot of pressure for a defendant to plead guilty to a lesser charge and avoid the trial and its protections entirely.
Re: (Score:2)
But they leave ownership of the posts and content the responsibility of the user. In fact they explicitly deny responsibility for content in their TOS.
There is a world of difference between claiming ownership/copyright over something and claiming you have permission to use something. And that difference is key in this ruling. The content targeted by the warrants is the property of the user, not Facebook.
Therefore Facebook has no more legal standing in the issue than someone who leases a storage lock
Re: (Score:1)
I think a lot of the confusion is that people are conflating the terms subpoena and warrant. As you seem to know, they are not even remotely the same. One does not, for instance, fight a warrant. A valid warrant is a valid warrant and comes with a threat of immediate force as warrants are often served by firearm wielding police officers. You can argue a subpoena before the fact. Warrants do not, as you know, get argued after the fact if and when the material collected is submitted as evidence in court.
I fig
So basically noone can challenge it, right? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
You understand it correctly, Now tell me how this is different than any other case and why you have a problem with it... Note that judges must follow the constitution when handing out warrants. Note that warrants have not, nor have they ever been, something that you argue against. That is the judges job. The state petitions the court for a warrant and the judge decides if their request meets the burdens set out in the constitution and then issues or refuses a warrant. You, a third party, or anyone in the co
What!? (Score:3)
So Facebook is receiving the warrant, it is for information on their systems, they are legally obligated to fulfill it and yet they don't have "standing" to challenge it. This judge must have failed most of her coherent arguments classes back in law school, this decision is just plain idiotic.
Re: (Score:2)
This judge must have failed most of her coherent arguments classes back in law school,
Wrong. She failed morality and ethics. Oh, wait, you don't have to show that you're moral or ethical to become a liar^Wlawyer.
Re: (Score:2)
If you ever make it into law school, you'll learn the difference between morals and ethics, and which one you're supposed to use in making a decision.
If a decision fails both morally and ethically, you're actually implying that the decision has poor ethics because it was a moral decision. I know, I know, it isn't what you meant to say. But that is what it means in a legal setting.
An ethically and morally correct decision would imply that it was morally neutral. If you want to insult a judge, you'd need to a
Re: (Score:2)
Judges aren't supposed to really utilize either of those, at least not directly. Their job is supposed to be accurately and independently apply the law. The only way in which they exercise morality and ethics is to make sure they don't have a conflict of interest. In this case she seems to be using the most insane interpretation possible, that no one has the ability to challenge these "warrants" (they appear to function much like subpoenas). Which was probably the intent all along, to try to find a loop
"Secure in their ... papers" (Score:3)
So let me see if I understand this. Alice gives me a letter, and asks me to read it and to give it to Bob. (We are all three parties to it.) The government, wishing to investigate Alice or Bob, can serve me a warrant for the letter, and demand all other of my papers that I have relating to the two? And I have no standing to contest the warrant, because it's served "against" Alice and Bob even though it's going after papers that are in my possession and of interest to me?
Is this what the Framers meant by "papers" in the phrase "Persons, Papers and Effects"?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
So let me see if I understand this. Alice gives me a letter, and asks me to read it and to give it to Bob. (We are all three parties to it.) The government, wishing to investigate Alice or Bob, can serve me a warrant for the letter, and demand all other of my papers that I have relating to the two? And I have no standing to contest the warrant, because it's served "against" Alice and Bob even though it's going after papers that are in my possession and of interest to me?
Is this what the Framers meant by "papers" in the phrase "Persons, Papers and Effects"?
My advice, watch less cable news. They're not teaching you about the Constitution or the Framers, they're filling your mind with infotainment.
The 4th Amendment does not protect you from actually being searched. It protects you from searches that were done without correct process being used as evidence of crimes. The purpose of the process is to require the government to state the reasons for searching and places to be searched, so that those reasons are available to the political discourse. It was never bel
Re: (Score:1)
It would appear that there is an "I am not smart enough to understand my rights and obligations and think the constitution means something other than what it means -1 mod." I did not know that was an option. It is statistically certain that stupid people will get mod points.
Fishing operation: 2015 edition (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Pretense: Find or create some kind of probable cause for a warrant. Doesn't in any way have to be related to what you're really looking for or anything you think he's really doing, just plausible enough to get rubber stamped by a friendly judge.
2. Fishing: Search through third parties like cell phone records, bank records, email records, social media records etc. under NDA, since the person won't know he can't challenge them.
3. Parallel construction: Using the information gathered above, find some law they're actually breaking and "randomly" catch them in the act. Preferably one that'll let you go through the rest of their belongings.
4. Fine tooth comb: Most people break the law in many small ways, just hit them with all of them. And even ones that won't stick, just to get the total and the defense burden high.
5. Buy high, sell low: Have the prosecution offer you a "deal" where you can either take 10% of a ridiculous figure or try it in full court, knowing a few of the lesser charges will stick so the prosecution won't look like a total sham,
Only 62 of 381 in the Facebook case were ever charged with any crime. The remaining 300+ are still totally unaware the government has seen through everything they've done on Facebook, since it's all under NDA. You can't challenge or suppress a warrant until the government tries to use it against you in a criminal case. This reminds me of the NSA wiretaps, since they've officially never admitted to wiretapping anybody there's nobody with standing to sue. It's a nice end-run around the constitution, that's for sure.
Re: (Score:3)
US based brands now have the interesting legal complexity of user data flowing to the US gov in the US.
Options?
Become more of a multinational and move US based big data to Ireland or other parts of the EU?
The NSA and GCHQ needed network access but the brands had to keep the freedom front up. If the press keeps on reporting on US big brands court issues inte
Re: (Score:2)
Parallel construction is usually legal. It is actually what they are supposed to do if they can't use some evidence for a technical reason; find another path to evidence that is legit. The principle is "the tree of the poison fruit," not "the forest that had a tree with poison fruit."
If you don't learn what they can do, how can you hope to stop them from doing what they're not supposed to be able to do?
The government could always do a search, find nothing, and not charge anybody. What legal or civic princip
Respect my authoritah! (Score:2)
Kangaroo Court rules no one is allowed to challenge the diktats of Kangaroo Court. Surprise surprise.
Whatever else (Score:2)
Whatever else the judge is, he's a fucking fascist.
Facebook's business model is a fault here (Score:2)
What if Facebook's truthful statement would have been:
"We can give you access to all information the user chose not to declare as private. Anything else is private indeed, since it's encrypted and we do not have the decryption keys, sorry. You will have to serve the user with a warrant and if your case is good enough a judge will decide in a public trial that user will have to hand over the decryption keys."
But then, I guess, Facebook wouldn't be in business in the first place.
Re: (Score:2)
Why would Facebook have encrypted stuff and not have the key? Such information is completely useless to Facebook, since they have no way of using it. Encryption with a user key is for data storage, and nothing more.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)