Facebook Has 25 People Dedicated To Handling Gov't Info Requests

nonprofiteer writes "A profile of Facebook's CSO reveals that his 70-person security team includes 25 people dedicated solely to handling information requests from law enforcement. They get thousands of calls and e-mails from authorities each week, though Facebook requires police to get a warrant for anything beyond a subscriber's name, email and IP address. CSO Joe Sullivan says that some government agency tried to push Facebook to start collecting more information about their users for the benefit of authorities: 'Recently a government agency wanted us to start logging information we don't log. We told them we wouldn't start logging that piece of data because we don't need it to provide a good product. We talked to our general counsel. The law is not black-and-white. That agency thinks they can compel us to. We told them to go to court. They haven't done that yet.'"

FB's actual guidelines

[mr100percent]

How about Facebook's Actual Law Enforcement Contact page [facebook.com] with guidelines. It seems facebook does waive these requirements sometimes, such as when "responding to a matter involving imminent harm to a child or risk of death or serious physical injury to any person and requiring disclosure of information without delay."

Re:Maybe they wouldn't need all 25 people

[Chuckstar]

Paragraph (c)(2) at the following link:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2703 [cornell.edu]

"(2) A provider of electronic communication service or remote computing service shall disclose to a governmental entity the—

(A) name;
(B) address;
(C) local and long distance telephone connection records, or records of session times and durations;
(D) length of service (including start date) and types of service utilized;
(E) telephone or instrument number or other subscriber number or identity, including any temporarily assigned network address; and
(F) means and source of payment for such service (including any credit card or bank account number),

of a subscriber to or customer of such service when the governmental entity uses an administrative subpoena authorized by a Federal or State statute or a Federal or State grand jury or trial subpoena or any means available under paragraph (1)."

Paragraph (1) provides for broader disclosure under certain circumstances (but still requires a real warrant for disclosure of contents of communications). This is the same statute that lets the cops get access to your phone records without a warrant. An "administrative subpoena", does not require judicial review. Processes vary, but basically it amounts to getting a superior to sign off that you have a legitimate law enforcement reason to get the info (helps keep people from searching their spouses phone records, but does nothing to keep the cops from looking in anyone's records if they are in any way suspected of a crime).