In Court? Be Careful What You Post On Facebook 147
mbone writes "Going to court? Seeking damages for injuries? Be careful what you post on Facebook (and, presumably, elsewhere). In the first case of its kind (analyzed in the Courtroom Strategy blog), a Suffolk County, NY Judge allowed a defendant in a personal injury lawsuit to obtain access to the Facebook profile of the plaintiff suing them, saying 'Plaintiff has no legitimate reasonable expectation of privacy.' You have been warned. I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice, but I would expect this to become common." Readers might be reminded of the Canadian case reported last year of a woman whose cheerful Facebook pictures led an insurance company to yank coverage.
if you dont want anyone on the internet to know (Score:5, Insightful)
then stop posting shit on the internet.
Re:if you dont want anyone on the internet to know (Score:5, Funny)
What we have is a can of worms (Score:3, Interesting)
I do not have a Facebook account, and for a variety of reasons never will, but I often wonder how I would convince a court of that, given that I can find half a dozen individuals there who share the same name as myself.
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I'd imagine it'd be up to the plaintiff to prove to a reasonable extent that the posts are yours - perhaps including a subpoena or two sent to facebook, and forensic analysis of the computers you use.
Facebook really should close allow an option for people to validate themselves. Right now there's a kind of crude web of trust model, but this doesn't really work unless the people inviting you are already connected and known to people you already know and trust. I think some other companies have validated iden
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They are not looking for posts that say "Omg I am suing the insurance company for moneyz!" but rather photos that dispute your story (like a "disabled" worker spending their workmans comp frolicking in the waves on the beach).
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bullshit (Score:4, Funny)
Of course he has a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Unless the person was on his friend's list and permitted to see particular posts, the ONLY thing the court should be able to see are things that are viewable by everyone - everything else is SPECIFICALLY set up to be private by way of the passwords and permissions system inherent in having a Facebook account.
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Re:bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
If i ask the court to look as i feel the plaintiff feels contrary to the suit IRL. So I ask the court to look on facebook to see if he/she has been posting contrary to their position on court. The court looks at my reasons for wanting that information, and in this case decided to let me "discover" what is there. Seems fine to me. Don't be claiming you are injured in court and then brag that you are sueing some guy in court over your paper cut on FB.
Re:bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a personal injury case. The plaintiff has put their health at issue. By going to the courthouse and claiming that your health was injured you've put your health at issue and the opposing side is given more power to find out about your health.
These slashdot stories about the screwed up law are often the real bullshit here. If we had a story about someone on facebook sending messages suggesting that she wasn't really injured, and then the court didn't allow that evidence into a personal injury hearing, then you'd all be screaming about how stupid the court is.
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I do not think the defendant should have been allowed this for completely different reasons.
By refusing to pay they are essentially implying that the claimant has committed insurance fraud and filed a fraudulent claim. That is a felony in nearly any jurisdiction. So they should put their money where their mouth is on this one and sue her accordingly or at least countersue her immediately after she filed a lawsuit.
Then they can subpoena access to her facebook account and a whole lot of other stuff. That is t
Re:bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
Uh no.
If I tell all my friends that I'm faking my injury, and the person or company I'm suing hears of it, they can put my friend on the stand and my friend has to tell the court what I said, or risk being charged for perjury.
The company can even hire a PI and can submit photos of you doing activities that you wouldn't be able to do if you were uninjured, as long os the PI doesn't break any laws in getting them.
The courts have always been able to do this, and they've always been able to subpoena things like phone records and emails. Why should it be any different for facebook?
Bottom line, don't sue someone for personal injury if you're not really injured.
Re:bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh no.
If I tell all my friends that I'm faking my injury, and the person or company I'm suing hears of it, they can put my friend on the stand and my friend has to tell the court what I said, or risk being charged for perjury.
The company can even hire a PI and can submit photos of you doing activities that you wouldn't be able to do if you were uninjured, as long os the PI doesn't break any laws in getting them.
The courts have always been able to do this, and they've always been able to subpoena things like phone records and emails. Why should it be any different for facebook?
Bottom line, don't sue someone for personal injury if you're not really injured.
I always find it amusing whenever there's a story that sums to "social networking sites are like everything else you have ever experienced in your life -- irresponsible/thoughtless use can bite you in the ass" and the people involved seem shocked to discover this.
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"I always find it amusing whenever there's a story that sums to "social networking sites are like everything else you have ever experienced in your life -- irresponsible/thoughtless use can bite you in the ass" and the people involved seem shocked to discover this."
that reminds me of something i read lately. Stephen king/peter straub novel 'black house' ISBN 0-375-50439-7 something about 'the fisherman' and bitten asses..
Re:bullshit (Score:5, Interesting)
In the 80s, a good friend of mine retired from police work and went into PI work for insurance companies. He related one of his early close calls to me...
He went out into the woods a bit to videotape a man who was collecting worker's comp for a back injury for a few years. He taped him for a half hour chopping wood in his backyard. After a moment's break looking around (it was deer hunting season), the subject put down the axe, walkd over and picked up his rifle, and looked to be sighting a deer.
My friend is still taping, and he zooms in for a moment, sighting right down the scope. He can see the subject's eye in the scope.
The first round hit 2 feet to his right. He moved out.
The subject spent the next two weeks looking for my friend. At the next administrative hearing, he got to see the tape. My friend is a patient and kind man. He offered to refuse to testify at a trial for attempted murder if the subject gave up his claim and went back to work. Sadly, the subject balked, and went to jail for aggravated assault. And this cost him his job. Apparently, at the nearing, he railed on about how the PI was trespassing. He was filmed from a public logging road.
BJ went on a long career catching people doing all kinds of bad things. His PI work turned his opinion of people sour much more than his police work did. He was even more disappointed at the things people would do for just money, and not very much at that.
Discovery sucks, but being guilty sucks more.
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He should be in the grave. I know I can shoot better than that.
But for the subject, losing his comp AND his job was punishment enough. There is the question of leaving a person free who was willing to commit murder, but it is also very possible he meant off scare off BJ. Mind you, that's still assault at least.
Our man is down. (Score:2)
He should be in the grave. I know I can shoot better than that.
The insurance investigator has a boss.
Surevillance operations are planned. When the investigator doesn't phone in his report on time the boss will ask questions. He will call the police - and he can tell them exactly where to start looking.
Your insurance fraud has escalated to Murder 1 and the chances that you will escape conviction on the capital charge are nill.
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Hmmm. As I recall, Comp cases back then were pretty much private companies underwriting employers. In this case the employer was a multinational before that was cool.
I have no doubt BJ gave all the details. There was a complaint to the county attorney, and it the case was dropped by them. Back then, someone would probably count it as severe distress and let it go. Today, he would be up on charges in hours. We are not so innocent anymore.
Yes, standards change. There was a time that divorce cases would
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Most of my field shots were 50yds, but I scored well with the 6X scope on the Springfield we had for long shots. BJ says he was 200yds out, and the video sort of supports that. 30x zoom on those old cameras was really awful, but it was obvious the guy was chopping wood. His comment about the scope was, to me, something like seeing the lenses flare, but he liked to tell the eye story better. Of course, he could have misjudged the distance, but I think the subject was shooting a .308 scoped, and I'm not a
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The key distinction being that your friend did indeed have access to your profile. The general public did not.
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The Fifth Amendment only says you can't be compelled to testify against YOURSELF. There is no 'right not to answer' for any other reason.
Court doesn't work like that... (Score:4, Interesting)
You can get access to a huge amount of non-public data about the other party. It's called "discovery," and in civil cases you are supposed to turn over even things that will clearly make the other side win. (Nothing like the fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination applies).
That being said, the discovery requests theoretically are supposed to have something to do with the case. Depending on the case, FB information may or may not be relevant. But keep in mind that Judge's also don't *Want* to get involved in fights over discovery, as a rule, so if the lawyers can't work it out he might just rule against the party that is being the most stubborn.
Incidentally, discovery is a huge part of the reason our justice system is as bad as it is. It has advantages--makes it easier to go after a corporation that has done something evil, for example--but it makes going to court *a LOT* more expensive, which makes the courts less accessible to small and medium-sized businesses and to individuals.
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Discovery makes a justice system bad? Discovery is nothing more than how we deal with the fact that people are people. If people were completely honest, and fair, then yeah, discovery wouldn't be necessary, but then neither would be a court of law.
Even if somebody isn't lying deliberately, people are more than capable of distorting the truth just because they are biased in favor of their own interests.
I don't know what problem you think Discovery causes, but the lack of it would be far far worse.
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> I don't know what problem you think Discovery causes, but the lack of it would be far far worse.
The lack of it in *every* case might be bad, but in most cases, a very very limited discovery would be sufficient. Notably, in most business disputes, everyone has good records and all of the paperwork. In most other disputes, everyone already *knows* what happened, otherwise they wouldn't be in court. Adding discovery just makes the trial longer and more expensive, which increases the transaction costs o
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"Notably, in most business disputes, everyone has good records and all of the paperwork."
Mod parent FUNNY. Please.
In suits against corporations, records and evidence are always the first thing to be destroyed. Just as you would perhaps delete and burn the photos of your drunken partying if faced with a DWI, corporations might not hesitate to destroy or'lose' documentation. If that's too hard, they will bury you in mountains of unrelated records, make you ask specifically for things you are not sure even
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Even today you give corporations too much credit, I think. Many do not properly evalute risk, even in relatively minor issues. And some, especially some in the news lately, seem to think they can in fact get away with anything.
History would show you this is more true than you are willing to admit to.
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So how many does it take?
Your sample seems lacking also. Trust?
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Endless discovery is what allows huge corporations to bury people who have done nothing wrong. It is what allowed Montsanto to bankrupt unknown numbers of farmers, seed cleaners, and other people who likely did nothing wrong, because it's discover that allowed Montsanto to keep dragging these people to pointless depositions, one after the other. And because the judges in the USA don't usually interest themselves in this process unless someone objects, and since you need a lawyer to do that, it means that
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"Discovery is nothing more than how we deal with the fact that people are people. If people were completely honest, and fair, then yeah, discovery wouldn't be necessary, but then neither would be a court of law."
once i thought the same was true. then i realized stuff i dont want to post to the internet.
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Yeah, Facebook is basically e-mails that are posted on a webpage.
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You have to be kidding. From Facebook's TOS:
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You have to be kidding. From Facebook's TOS:
Does that look like Facebook gives a damn about your rights or your privacy?
A site specifically designed to appeal to petty exhibitionists who need attention, by its very nature, is not going to attract people who have their own best interests at heart and are willing to act accordingly with regard to privacy. This is true for all of the same reasons that there are a lot of alcoholics at AA meetings. If Facebook doesn't give a damn about privacy it's because they have discovered something: you can be a big-name site and attract millions of users without giving a damn about privac
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Re:bullshit (Score:4, Informative)
Just subpoena the people on tfriends list (Score:3, Insightful)
The information will come out, it's just how much extra effort people have to go to, to get it. This seems to me like an efficient way of finding out what the truth (yes, yes I know: what's truth got to do with the law?) is.
p.s. I'm constantly surprised that anyone thinks anything they post anywhere on the internet ha
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That's exactly right. People make their profiles private so only their friends can see them. It's one thing when a court of law orders my friend testify, but the notion there's generally no reasonable e
Privacy Policy? (Score:2)
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It seems to me that this completely nullifies any privacy policy in force on any website. If you have no "legitimate reasonable expectation of privacy" with a privacy policy in force, than how can an employee of the website in question, or the management themselves, get in trouble for violating said policy? Judges really need to be careful what garbage they spew out, lest they set the wrong precedent.
Had you read the article, you'd have seen where the court actually referenced the privacy policy. From that thing you didn't read:
Supreme Court Judge Allen Spinner reasoned -I think completely correctly – that social networking sites are not private lockboxes where you store your most intimate secrets; in fact their privacy policies tell you that they are public spaces. Therefore he said:
“Plaintiff has no legitimate reasonable expectation of privacy.”
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Re:Privacy Policy? (Score:4, Insightful)
I did read the article. The courts can get a search warrant to come into my home and take whatever they want, but I doubt that any judge would ever say about my home that I have "no legitimate reasonable expectation of privacy.” If you have a profile, and you set it to private, than there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. There is not now, nor has there ever been, any privacy against the actions of the courts. Maybe I'm arguing semantics, I just think it was poorly phrased on the part of the judge.
Another user did a good job of summing up [slashdot.org] why the court made this decision. That agreement makes it clear that you lose control over any data you submit to Facebook. Even if they provide privacy controls, they apparently have no obligation to make sure they work as the user intended since the data submitted now belongs to Facebook. Personally, I find the arrangement unappealing in the extreme; that's why I don't use Facebook.
The idea that anything you post to a social networking site is going to remain confidential and private is a false one, of which it seems many need to be disabused. The common sense rule still applies: don't ever post anything that you wouldn't want to be fully public. I never understood what was so difficult about this that motivates people to keep trying to find ways around it.
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That's a technicality. A person's expectation of privacy depends more on the natur
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That's a technicality. A person's expectation of privacy depends more on the nature of the service (such as the fact that it has privacy controls) than on the contents of a document most people never read. While I don't think there's any problem in allowing access to private data when it's legally warranted, the notion that my Facebook profile is public even when I've made it private is not at all reasonable.
The legal agreement under which you use the site is more than a "technicality", as this judge has reiterated. You can downplay that fact because you don't like it, but that won't change the reality. Personally, I don't like it either, but it makes no sense to me at all to use the site under that agreement and then complain about the agreement. That'd be ridiculous, sort of like ordering salmon at a restaurant and then, when the waiter comes back with it, complaining that I don't like salmon. If I don't
Re:Privacy Policy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, you are just arguing semantics.
An "expectation of privacy" has a context, and in this case, the context for that "expectation of privacy" is posts made on Facebook. Given FB's privacy policy, it is not reasonable to assume that your data on FB is private, because FB makes it quite clear that your data isn't really "private," though they "make efforts to keep it private," but specifically call out that it may be disclosed accidentally, or by friends, FB applications, or to properly-constructed and applicable legal requests (subpoenas, etc.)
If your bank offered "social features" that allowed you to link your accounts with a bunch of your friends' accounts, and said "We can't promise other people won't find out how much money you have"... would you bank there? I sure wouldn't, because I want my financial information to be private and secure - and so I wouldn't put my money into a bank that shared my financial info with others.
(And even with a "reasonable expectation of privacy" from a bank... that information is still subject to subpoena and other discovery methods.)
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The Privacy Policy is between you and Facebook. There is no privacy policy between you and everyone in the world.
If an employee of Facebook violates the privacy policy between you and Facebook then they can be sued. If Facebook gets a subpoena requesting information from their servers then they have to comply or the judge can throw them in jail. You cannot sue Facebook for complying with a subpoena. Because not complying with a subpoena would be against the law. Contracts cannot compel someone to break the
hmmm (Score:2)
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Pro tip: If you're trying to hide your diabetes from your insurance company, don't tag pictures of yourself on Facebook titled, "HERE I AM IN DIABETIC SHOCK - DON'T TELL BLUE CROSS LOL!"
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And nothing of value was lost.
Fixed that for you.
So, Facebook provides opportunities for stupid people to shoot themselves in the foot. Unlike say, driving, said stupid people are unlikely to harm someone other than themselves while proceeding to apply a metaphorical firearm to their foot. This is bad? Why?
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stupid people are unlikely to harm someone other than themselves while proceeding to apply a metaphorical firearm to their foot. This is bad? Why?
Because it's only a metaphorical firearm?
It's worse than you think (Score:2)
If there's a single insurance company lawyer who doesn't have several fake profiles up on Facebook so they can track plaintiffs to whatever extent they can get away with, I'd be very surprised.
This could also be used in reverse (Score:3, Interesting)
What if I decide to commit a crime and I 'arrange' a nice alibi with pictures and well timed postings on my FB page?
Could I use that to defend myself in court?
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What if I decide to commit a crime and I 'arrange' a nice alibi with pictures and well timed postings on my FB page? Could I use that to defend myself in court?
It'd be up to the prosecution to prove that your alibi is not valid. The fact that the pictures were posted to Facebook doesn't change anything.
Sort of like the way fraud is not some strange new crime requiring new laws merely because a computer was involved (think phishing scam) instead of a telephone or a face-to-face con man.
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What if I decide to commit a crime and I 'arrange' a nice alibi with pictures and well timed postings on my FB page?
Could I use that to defend myself in court?
You could try.
But, on the record, I would argue the geek doesn't have it in him to lie in a way that will persuade a jury.
He over-complicates things. His notions of plausibility are nuts.
Stupidity tax (Score:2)
This is called a stupidity tax. There are many different kinds of stupidity taxes. This is just one of them.
Consider This... (Score:2)
But...
Suppose the plaintiff claimed even worse injury in FB. Would that count in their favor in the court, or would they now simply be accused of lying on FB?
Seems to me that the defense wanted the most favorable picture that they could get and whatever was posted on FB (not under oath) weighed more heavily than court testimony (that was und
Reasonable expectation of privacy (Score:2)
Nope, don't need that anymore, that is so 1990's.
Muahahahaha! (Score:2)
Heh, twitter is ready-made for bolstering my future fraudulent claim for ass-whiplash. 'OMG my ass hurts', 'Cripes a blimey, i cannot sleep for ass pain', 'Golly gosh, those rotters at whatever inc were so negligent. I hope the lovely court system can help me. Ow! Ow!'
(Better post this as AC)
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Oh noes! My fraudulent $millions, jeopardised! :-(
Back to the pants-collecting scheme, then.
Wait what? (Score:2)
"Plaintiff has no legitimate reasonable expectation of privacy"
Why?
I assume that it means that Facebook is not really private, but if that was true then you would not need a court order to get access to it.
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It really doesn't have much to do with Facebook, or how difficult the information is to get. It has more to do with the legal definition of expectation of privacy. In everyday usage, people think of something as being public (if everyone has access to it) or private (if only a few people know it). The legal definition is much stricter. For something to be considered legally private only one person must have the information - you (there are a few notable exceptions to this). If something is legally priv
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That is a horrible definition of privacy.
and if their are exceptions, why not others.
Why would you not be able to tell your mother or other trusted confidants.
Also you should be able to expect the lvl of privacy that you use.
if you tell X people, and the opposition finds out what you told them then, sure they can use that information.
but if you tell trustworthy people and you have a reasonable expectation of privacy and the opposition cannot find out what you said then that proved the point that you have a
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The exceptions are there because our society thinks they are worth it. In order for a lawyer to represent his client the best he can, he needs all the information - even that which is detrimental to his client. If a lawyer could be compelled to testify against his own client the client would be deprived of good representation. In order to have a healthy (mentally and physically) population, people must not be afraid to go to the doctor. In order to have a healthy marriage it is important that the spouse
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And can an argument not be made that you need to tell parents everything to have a healthy relationship or the same for a close confidant/friend.
and if it is so important that the opposition has information why not just make it so that even if he has told no one that he is still legally required to tell the court.
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An argument COULD be made for parent/child privilege (and it seems some people in Massachusetts are trying to do that, but it is not currently the law, so it has no effect on this case. As for confidant or friend, no that makes no sense at all. There is no legal relationship called 'friend' or 'confidant'. What would the test be?
The Fifth Amendment (a person can not be compelled to testify against himself) is the reason he can not be legally required to tell the court even if he told no-one else.
Bottom
hmmm (Score:2)
I really hope they people are smart enough to challenge these rulings.
While I can understand giving up proof of stuff at court orders, this totally sounds like they are fishing.
We don't know what you posted, but it probably has something to do with the case, so we are going to allow the defendant to have access to your personal info to see if there's a problem.
Re:The Plaintiff? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah its almost as is the Defendant was trying to defend himself by proving the Plaintiff wasn't really injured.
Re:The Plaintiff? (Score:5, Informative)
I've tried to look into the details of this and this is what I've come up with.
A woman named "Romano" is suing Steelcase Inc for some kind of personal injury and is seeking damages to pay her for "loss of enjoyment of life". The judge granted Steelcase Inc the ability to look into Romano's personal files to show that she's not telling the truth in her claims of injury "especially her claims for loss of enjoyment of life". Here's the court order. [state.ny.us]
The present application was brought on by Order to Show Cause. The Court has reviewed the submissions both in favor of and in opposition to the relief sought, as well as the applicable federal statutory law, specifically the Stored [*2]Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. 2701 et seq., which prohibits an entity, such as Facebook and MySpace from disclosing such information without the consent of the owner of the account (see, 18 U.S.C. 2702(b)(3); Flagg v City of Detroit, 252 FRD 352 [ED Mich 2008]).
In the "Stored Communications Act 18 U.S.C section 2701 subsection (a) article (1) basically says you can't go snooping around in other people's facebook/myspace/emails but subsection (c) article (3) says section 2703 shows some exceptions. Here's 2701. [cornell.edu]
Hop over to section 2703 and in subsection (b) article (1) subsection (B) subsection (ii) says you can get a court order as long as you follow article 2703 subsection (d) which give the rules for a court order. Basically if the plaintiff “specific and articulable facts showing that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the contents of a wire or electronic communication, or the records or other information sought, are relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation” then they can go for it.
Now the only thing that I can see that can derail this is if this isn’t a criminal investigation. Otherwise this isn’t a revolutionary ruling and it’s completely within the bounds of the letter of the law.
Here's 2703. [cornell.edu]
If you’re going to sue someone for personal injury don’t post things online that contradict what you’re claiming in court. Not that hard to figure that out.
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Hop over to section 2703 and in subsection (b) article (1) subsection (B) subsection (ii) says you can get a court order as long as you follow article 2703 subsection (d)
No, at this point you give up and ask a lawyer. Wanna bet there's another text somewhere that further qualifies this?
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That line is from the poster, not the judge. The judge said what in the quotes.
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In most parts of the US judges are elected in a lot of situations and otherwise appointed. Their qualifications need to be acceptable to the appointer and nobody else.
Judges that are elected also do not need to be lawyers - they just need to be elected in an election.
Basically, anyone can be a judge as long as people think you are judge material.
Refactor the Law (Score:2)
Yep, laws are pretty gross. And will continue to be as long as lawyers write the laws, make money off of disputes over interpretations of the laws written, and have no negative feedback for spawning dependency hell.
How much do you want to bet that if you take the full document and drill down through the referenced documents, eventually you find both circular references and missing references (i.e. references to documents that have been lost through time, or repealed?)
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Uh, the fact that it's not a criminal investigation is pretty significant, since there's likely no other justification for this action on the books.
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"Yeah its almost as is the Defendant was trying to defend himself by proving the Plaintiff wasn't really injured."
Odd, I thought it was "innocent until proven guilty." Shouldn't the plaintiff be the one who proves that the defendant injured them? The defendant shouldn't have to prove that they didn't injure them.
Re:The Plaintiff? (Score:4, Interesting)
Regardless, if you're being charged with permanently injuring someone, while the onus of proof is on them to show that you did it, it may well be quicker, cheaper easier to show that they're not, in fact, injured, than it would be to wait for them to produce some sort of evidence and then rebut that evidence.
Excellent Precedent For My Lawsuit (Score:2)
I've been suing my friends because they wouldn't accept my friend requests.
Now, I can expect that the judge will rule that they are legally obligated to friend me, giving me legal access to their profiles.
Rejecting friend requests causes appreciable stress and harm!
Re:This is a disaster (Score:4, Informative)
Additionally, email providers and other sites of similar purpose typically include language to allow themselves to provide your information in response to lawfully granted subpoenas.
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No, it's not. If I lock down my profile so only my friends can see it, it's really no different than only allowing my friends into my home. Unless your profile is open to the public, there doubtless exists a reasonable expectation of privacy. That doesn't mean the court should not allow access to a person's private profile in cases where it's legally warranted, but the standard should be as high as with any other case where priva
Re:This is a disaster (Score:5, Insightful)
Facebook's privacy policy specifically states the following:
Further on, in the context of "when we might share your data:"
And still further down:
In other words: If it's a secret and needs to remain so, you don't share it with your 20 closest Facebook friends on the Internet, because you have no reasonable expectation that those people (or others who manage to get elevated access privileges) will keep your secret safe. The court's reasoning is entirely consistent with the privacy policy Facebook has laid out. As far as "if you put it online, even for only one person to see," yes, and that's always been the case. A subpoena can (and often will) result in this information being disclosed, and anybody who thinks that Facebook is magically exempt from subpoenas because "it's a social network with a privacy policy and stuff," is foolish.
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The court's reasoning is entirely consistent with the privacy policy Facebook has laid out.
Since when do we rely on a website's privacy policy or ToS to set public policy?
Re:This is a disaster (Score:5, Insightful)
Who's "setting public policy"?
The court is looking at the facts of the matter before it: The plaintiff posted some stuff on Facebook, and the defendant has requested access to that stuff, claiming that it is relevant to the case. This request might be denied if there were sufficient privacy concerns to show that the request would violate the defendant's reasonable expectation of privacy.
The court looks at the type of service (social networking, a public space where people connect with one another); the privacy policy of the site (which states that FB "cannot control the actions of other users [ . . . and . . . ] cannot ensure that information you share on FB will not become publicly available"); From this, he draws a conclusion that you have no reasonable expectation of privacy for posts made on Facebook.
Please explain why you WOULD have a *reasonable expectation* of privacy, in light of the fact that Facebook specifically tells you that anything you post could be revealed to the public? You may have a deep *desire* for privacy... you may wish very hard for it, in fact, but Facebook specifically and completely disavows any responsibility for keeping your secrets.
You: "I really want someplace online where I can store my deepest darkest secrets, and I think Facebook is the place to do it."
Facebook: "Well, anything you post here could be revealed to the public."
You: "But you have these privacy controls!"
Facebook: "Yes, but they're not guaranteed to work properly, and besides, if you share your secrets with friends, they can share them with anybody else without your permission."
You: "I don't care. I want to poke people."
Facebook: "Okay... but just so long as you're clear that everything you say or post could end up being revealed to the public."
You: "Yeah yeah, I know, everything I say is private."
Facebook: "No, that's not what we said at all. That's completely the opposite of what we said, in fact."
You: "LOL FARMVILLE!"
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I have a reasonable expectation of privacy due to the fact that access to my profile is limited to those who are authorized to see it. As for Faceb
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You are wrong. You have an unreasonable *wish* for privacy. Facebook's privacy policy does not prevent a subpoena of records, nor do they make any guarantees against disclosure of your data. Their policy tells you up front that your data *may* be disclosed to the public, and that they WILL cooperate with legal requests they consider to be "good faith".
If you can read those
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No, I'm not. I do not merely wish for privacy, I actually know that the info on my profile cannot be seen by people who are not on my friends list unless thos
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I say again: read their privacy policy which you agree to when you sign up for their service.
They clearly state in there that your data should not be considered safe from public disclosure, and that it may be disclosed to others.
On what do you base your "expectation" of privacy, when Facebook, the provider of the service, explicitly states that your data should not be considered secure and private?
Here's a car analogy: my car is fairly well made, and has so far been quite reliable for the nearly-4-years I
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If it's a secret and needs to remain so, you don't share it with your 20 closest Facebook friends on the Internet
You are absolutely right, but I'd go further and say "If it's a secret and needs to remain so, you don't put it on Facebook." Even if you don't share it with anyone, Facebook is a public website run by a company that makes absolutely no guarantees and enters into no contracts with you to ensure that your information is private or protected. You have no reasonable expectation that Facebook will keep your secret safe.
Putting something on Facebook is the equivalent of leaving it lying on the sidewalk. Setting
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I'm not sure I can agree with you.
The most important elements of this decision seem to me to be:
-The public portion of the respondent's FB profile shows her smiling outside her house, which would appear to contradict her claim that she has lost all enjoyment in life and cannot leave the house
-It is likely based on this that further relevant evidence is contained in the private section of her FB account
-It would be against the interests of justice to allow a respondent to hide relevant evidence behind self-a
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Except that, unlike a physical object that is relinquished to another, a person's Facebook profile remains under that person's control.
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Except that, unlike a physical object that is relinquished to another, a person's Facebook profile remains under that person's control.
Sorry, I perhaps should have explained the point more fully. An example often given is that of a letter: you prima facie have no right to privacy regarding the contents of a letter since you have placed the information in someone else's control, and that person might choose to divulge it. The situation here is analogous: by putting the photographs or information on her Facebook profile the woman accepted that any one of her Facebook friends might then distribute them, which suggests that she did not conside
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Legally, you only have an expectation of privacy if you are keeping something private - if you share it with anyone, it's not private anymore. There is no "private except for this bunch of people", the legal system isn't some minutely customizable panel of privacy settings.
Think of how you'd react if one of your friends publicly distributed online but restricted-access pictures of your chil
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The end result of this case is that if you put it online, even for only one person to see, it is fair game for discovery.
The whole point of discovery is to expose as much evidence as possible. The ideal outcome is not the expense of a trial but a settlement based on what both sides know to be true - or at least what both sides know can be proven.
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That makes about as much sense as saying that my medical records are public information because doctors at the hospital have access to them. Access to a restricted group of people (administrators, doctors, etc) does not in any way imply the in
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If the data isn't public, then it's private.
Certainly. On the other hand, that a document lacks such protection does not automatically nullify any e
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See, the problem with that is that hacking into a computer system is a violation of the law. Facebook responding to a subpoena during the discovery phase of a lawsuit is not.
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Why not spend the weekend studying the law - go to law school, pass the bar, become a judge, and then you can subpoena records legally... no need for all that messy and illegal hacking. :)
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