Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Posts Mined For Courtroom Evidence
littlekorea writes "Defense lawyers are increasingly gaining permission from US courts to mine the private comments and postings on Facebook accounts to be used as evidence during trials. The first example — noted in Slashdot in September — has given way to an avalanche of new cases — and a worrying precedent that judges consider social networking content to be public data."
I dunno, regardless of where you post, I've been brought up to believe that anything you submit online should be considered no more secure than whispering it into someones ear...
How Now Brown Cow
Treat all information posted on social networks as public
It is anyway, after a court order, or a systems invasion, or a dodgy employer.
how long until
how is this different? Oh wait it isn't.
"As you can see your honour, the defendant is innocent.
This comment "I'm innocent" posted this morning has received 100 likes already.
I rest my case"
If you don't want some kind of information to be made public, don't post it on the Internet. Even if all your privacy settings are selected correctly in Facebook (so only friends can see your posts), there is no guarantee that one of your friends won't "re-tweet" (or whatever the kids are calling it these days) your personal information.
...but can they be used as evidence?
In a courtroom one must take an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The standards for a social network are considerably lower in regard to accuracy.
No, private comments aren't public data.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
Not in the European Union:
ARTICLE 8
1. Everyone has the right to the protection of personal data concerning him or her.
2. Such data must be processed fairly for specified purposes and on the basis of the consent of the person concerned or some other legitimate basis laid down by law. Everyone has the right of access to data which has been collected concerning him or her, and the right to have it rectified.
3. Compliance with these rules shall be subject to control by an independent authority.
Information wants to be expensive AND wants to be free. So you have Value vs. Cheap distribution fighting each other.
This isn't about publicly available information, it's about information you can't see unless you're on a person's friend list, or even private messages between two people. The defense attorneys are getting courts to compel the plaintiff to sign a form allowing them access, then attaching them to subpoenas. Still don't see what the big deal is, though, this is information that in online form you'd just get through a subpoena anyway.
Some might argue that sex is a social activity (especially if multiple partners are involved) but few would argue that this makes it public fare.
It is if you post the results on Facebook.
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
I have to wonder how daft some of these commenters and commentators are if they believe this is new. If you're a 15 year old girl and your little brother reads your diary and notices that you confessed to filing false rape charges against your neighbor, his defense counsel could seize the diary as evidence if the brother told them about it. There is no "right to privacy" under the constitution in this respect. You have a right to not incriminate yourself. You have a right to not be subjected to overly broad or general searches and seizures. You have no right to a special place where you can say and do anything you want and it's all off limits to the courts.
I'm all in favor of making it tough for the police to get initial access to the data. I can't believe anyone would be worried that this would happen in the middle of a trial in front of a jury.
Well,
I'd consider "private" comments behind logins and passwords and invite-only friends lists to be "private". I'd think it is the same category as when you're not supposed to be recording people's phone calls - Facebook is succeeding getting people to "open up" because it's "private".
If courts are going to go all miranda on your "private" posts, then there's another ratchet in the big engine of the police state.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Since when can the courts only use 'public' information as evidence? This whole thread is based on a flawed premise.
This was discussed before, and again there is a deep misunderstanding what is going on.
This is about people suing a company, for example after an accident, to get compensation. This turns into a court case, and in a court case we have discovery. In discovery, both sides have to turn over relevant information. Whether that information is private or not doesn't matter one bit. What matters is whether it is relevant to the case or not. If you went to a restaurant, and claimed that you became impotent after eating their food and sue them for damages, then some very, very private photos could be relevant to the case and would have to turn over.
If you claim that you are unable to walk because of an accident, then the company you sue can rightfully demand that you turn over private videos that show you playing beach volleyball in the nude after the accident because it is relevant to the case. That's when the evidence is in your possession. If the evidence is in someone else's possession, then they still can rightfully demand the evidence. You have the right to refuse to help them; in that case for example Facebook wouldn't turn over such evidence, and the court would assume that the evidence that you withheld would speak against you.
About a year ago I lived in an two-bedroom apartment with two other people. My first roommate let the second move in the downstairs living room without consulting me. Eventually I agreed under the condition that the new roommate would pay us $300/mo, of which I'd receive $150. The new roommate turned out to be a total degenerate psychopath, who routinely stole from us and never paid his rent. He was also disposed to episodes of violence, rationalizing his behavior as a type of entertainment at our expense. After about 6 months and a sequence of increasingly severe incidents, I eventually drove him out.
Both my original roommate and I decided from there that we would keep as far away from him as possible, despite having a number of mutual friends. As much as it would have been utter ecstasy to see him in jail, we came to the conclusion that he would eventually destroy himself without our help and left it at that.
Ever since then, said individual has posted numerous messages on Facebook explicitly threatening to murder us. This culminated in a particularly threatening message last week where he stated something to the affect of "we better watch out, he's coming for us." Both myself and my former roommate have decided that despite our desire to remove ourselves from the situation, we cannot ignore it any longer and have contacted a lawyer. Our lawyer has arranged a preliminary hearing next week where we and a number of friends will testify as character witnesses and using his Facebook posts as evidence hopefully can convince a judge to incarcerate him.
Did you think your friends could not be compelled to testify against you?
There's only 3 people you can talk to who can't be forced to recount the conversation in court: Your doctor, your priest and your spouse. Posting on Facebook never granted new privacy rights.
I don't know where you live, but in Canada, this constitutes uttering a death threat. This is a serious matter -- you call the police, they arrest him.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
You hit the nail on the head. When I graduated college and started looking for work, when HR people asked what my Myspace/FB/Twitter/LinkedIn accounts were, and I told them that I had none, I got told, "Why should we hire you? By not having a presence on social networks, you have shown yourself to be a fossil with no ability to adapt. No FB account is just as bad as not having an E-mail address." Even when I remarked that having an admin who doesn't spill his/her guts for the world to see if a good thing, I got the glazed-eyes look from the HR droid, and the "thank you for letting us interview you, don't call us; we'll call you" crap.
This happened during interviews for a few times until I created dummy profiles on the networks with a random article or two, so they didn't look blank.
So, unless one is getting a job as a door to door vacuum bed salesperson, a lot of employers I have personally encountered don't just want to know that you are on social networks, they actually ask your user IDs to see your public profile. A guy who graduated with me actually had to have his employer added onto followers/friends as a condition of employment. (Even though it technically is a TOS violation, he ended up keeping two sets of accounts, one under his name, one under his AKA.)
With job seekers essentially having to have a social media presence, it would be nice that some privacy laws other than, "if it is on the service, it is searchable and usable in criminal/civil courts" would apply. But realistically they don't, so one always has to remember that, when writing a post, assume there is someone there reading it who wants to stick handcuffs on someone, or sue into bankruptcy.
some other legitimate basis laid down by law
That's a legal loophole big enough to drive an articulated lorry through.
So many people here miss something very important. Almost anything, whether it is public or private, can be used as evidence in a trial, whether civil or criminal, if it is properly subpoenaed and collected.
Your diary, your Facebook postings, the contents of your computer and cell phone, and your mail, it doesn't matter what it is as long as it is properly subpoenaed and collected.
There is no story here. It has been like this for centuries. The court can order access to almost everything considered private.