Facebook wants right to challenge search warrants for user data

Should the social network be able to contest a search warrant on behalf of its users? That issue is now being debated in court.

Facebook is arguing in a New York court that it should be able to push back against search warrants, to protect the rights of its users.

Facebook is trying to convince a panel of judges that it should have the right to challenge search warrants that let law enforcement sweep up private user data, even of people not charged with a crime.

On Thursday, a group of five judges on the New York State appeals court started hearing arguments between Facebook and the Manhattan district attorney's office over a legal issue involving bulk search warrants. The case stems from warrants issued to the social network in 2013 that forced it to disclose the complete Facebook accounts of around 300 people not charged with an actual crime, The New York Times reported Friday.

Facebook was required to share private information of 381 different people in a case where prosecutors were trying to get indictments against police officers and other public employees for disability fraud, the Times said. But 302 of the people whose accounts were exposed were never charged with fraud.

The case involves the ongoing question of if and how someone's online but private information should be protected, and a ruling could affect not just Facebook but other social-media companies as well. Google, Twitter and LinkedIn have all filed briefs in support of Facebook's position, the Times reported.

The FBI has argued that it doesn't even need a search warrant to access a person's Facebook chats, emails and other private data. That goes against a 2010 ruling by an appeals court that law enforcement officials must secure warrants in order to obtain such information.

But in the case being considered by the panel of judges, known as "In Re 381 Search Warrants Directed to Facebook Inc.," the social network has contended that even the search warrants themselves were too wide in scope and because of that the company should have had the right to reject them.

Though the judges also seem to be bothered by the wide scope of the warrants, they've so far fallen back on the fact that state law prevents people from appealing search warrants. The Manhattan district attorney's office has emphasized that point, saying Facebook has no more right to reject a search warrant than the operator of a brick-and-mortar storage company does, the Times reported.

Facebook's attorney has countered that argument, saying the company had to take an active role in searching for the information and handing it over to the prosecutors. That makes these warrants "different from a typical search warrant where you stand aside and let the police come in with a box," attorney Thomas Dupree said in Facebook's court brief.

One of the judges asked if government requests for user information could be thought of as a subpoena or a mixture of a warrant and a subpoena. Such an approach would give Facebook the right to challenge them. And in a case that clearly is a difficult one for the court, that approach could provide the legal justification Facebook would need to back up its position.

When asked to comment, Facebook pointed to its legal brief, which includes the following statement about its position:

This case, of course, concerns Facebook--an online social networking service with more than one billion users. Many of these users treat Facebook as a digital home where they share personal and private information. They use Facebook to share photographs, videos, and communications of a personal nature, and they control the audience with whom they share this information. The Government's bulk warrants, which demand "all" communications and information in 24 broad categories from the 381 targeted accounts, are the digital equivalent of seizing everything in someone's home. Except here, it is not a single home but an entire neighborhood of nearly 400 homes. The vast scope of the Government's search and seizure here would be unthinkable in the physical world.

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Fear of Facebook: Thoughts On The Meaning of Social

Things aren’t getting any better in terms of privacy related fears. My friend @mauricioswg recently asked on twitter:

“Would Facebook revert to being more private with a massive movement of account cancellations?”

Great question. Facebook hasn’t needed to deal with that kind of churn so far. But look how fast myspace lost its mojo. The Social Network can be fickle.

Why did I start using Facebook? So I could communicate with business contacts. Then it suddenly became the one social network where I could share stuff with my wife and my niece. They opted in.

I prefer some kind of distinction between business and friends, though of course some people fall into both categories. But Facebook just sucks everybody into one service. It introduced a distinction between “real friends” and limited contacts, but that still feels kind of weird to me. Part of work/life balance is keeping things distinct.

Being social means accepting friction. That’s where good manners and etiquette come in. Being social without friction is a pathology. See the concerns about “over-friendly” or “over social” in Williams Syndrome.

Individuals with Williams syndrome have a very endearing personality. They have a unique strength in their expressive language skills, and are extremely polite. They are typically unafraid of strangers and show a greater interest in contact with adults than with their peers.

Call me old fashioned but I want to keep my real life friends and family in a context that allows for privacy. Pictures of my kids are not for general consumption- certainly not by a third party app.

I am still getting Facebook invites from business contacts. Sometimes I know these people but oftentimes only in a professional context- if so why aren’t they pinging me on Linkedin? Not only did it surprise me when Facebook became a place for my family, but to be honest I never expected Twitter to be a professional network.

All this stuff is hard, frankly. We’re still working it out. But it would be great if service providers could work with us on this stuff, letting us do the way-finding, rather than constantly encouraging us to open up and be more social.

Friction in social networks really isn’t weird – its human nature.

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Facebook revamps and reintroduces Questions

After an initial test run last year, Facebook's making an official go with its Questions application.

Facebook has relaunched its Questions application and turned it into a succinct, sleek, poll-taking machine. There’s nothing Quora-like about this feature: Facebook doesn’t want your personal diatribes about anything. Instead the application works like an addition to the user status and lets you ask your network their opinion and force them to vote for an answer or provide their own.

“We wanted to make questions easier and faster to answer. With the updated Questions you can agree with an existing answer with a single click, or you can add a different response,” writes Facebook staffer Adrian Graham.

Anytime Facebook introduces a new feature, there’s bound to be complaints. This time we think it might have something to do with the visibility of users’ Questions. In order to “cast a wider net,” Facebook has determined that not only your friends, but their friends, can respond to your queries. However, you’ll see your own friends answers first. From the initial look and sound of it, the application is intended to be used for quick poll taking – for example, advice on the best local burger, or quickest way to get to the airport.

And there’s a concrete difference between this and Quora, for anyone feeling like Facebook is taking advantage of the growing site’s niche: The Quora community is exclusive and the Facebook community is not. While users are more than welcome to ask whatever they like on Quora, its focus is definitely not on the trivial. And of course, Facebook is so heavily populated you are more likely to get real time answers from your friends (and their friends).

Questions will begin rolling out to all Facebook users today and available to all account holders soon.

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