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Facebook Posts Mined For Courtroom Evidence

Posted by timothy on from the objection-relevance dept.

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."

14 of 191 comments (clear)

  1. Well Yea by satanicat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:Well Yea by csteinle · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If I send a SMS, the phone company doesn't keep a copy.

      Oh yes they do.

    2. Re:Well Yea by JWSmythe · · Score: 3, Funny

            It's more like, anything you post online is as private anything you write, photocopy, and send to a few hundred people.

            I posted on my Facebook wall a little while back, that anything I write online is disinformation. I know the information is datamined. It will, at some point, be shared with someone you don't want it exposed to. There is a chance something I post is factual. It's true, right down to where my location is.

          My fictional online persona has had me drifting around various government facilities and and other remote locations (Rachel, NV; McLean, VA; Fort Meade, Maryland; Wild Goose Chase, Woombah, New South Wales, Australia; etc). Then sometimes I give my real location. Most are virtually impossible to confirm. If I were were at the NSA headquarters, is there any expectation that a random person trying to find me could ask the guard "Is Mr. JW Smythe here?" The response would range from prolonged laughing, to detainment and questioning.

          It's not just what I say about myself either. Bouncing through various proxies around the world, if Facebook were subpoenaed for something as simple as the list of IP's that I accessed from, it would be a nonsensical pattern of locations. In a day, I may log in from Moscow, Beijing, London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, or Brasilia.

          If I already admitted that most of what I post online is a lie, and any of it was brought up in court to prove anything about me, the judge would would get tired of any line of questioning that related to my online statements, simply because I do, and frequently repeat, that many are complete works of fiction, dressed loosely as fact.

          So ya, when I go off on a government or alien conspiracy rant, it isn't because I necessarily believe it. Maybe I do. Maybe I don't. Maybe I've considered writing fictional books, and haven't had a real inspiration to sit down and write hundreds of pages of my best bullshit^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H fiction, to submit to publishing houses and receive the string of rejections, possibly followed by one acceptance, and then have my had word become a $9.95 paperback that I'll find in the $0.50 clearance bin in just a few years. Dejected because the publisher made so much money from me, and for all the hoops I jumped through, I only made a few thousand dollars. Sad and dejected, I sit in my beachfront shack in Cuba. I admire the waves rolling in, and beautiful women on the beach, hoping an approval letter finally comes in, while I churn out more pages of mediocre fiction, knowing that the cycle will repeat endlessly until I die in a few years, with my family not caring where I went, comfortable in the idea that I went with a smile on my face and a local prostitute riding me to my final moments...

          Or maybe, just maybe, a good bit of what I write is pure fiction. Data mine that!

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
  2. As you can see... by Haedrian · · Score: 5, Funny

    "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"

  3. Re:Well... by Abstrackt · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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
  4. Re:Well... by commodore6502 · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.
  5. Re:Well... by Lev13than · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
  6. A worrying precedent? by MikeRT · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  7. Re:Public they are by Richard_at_work · · Score: 4, Informative

    Forensic traces at a crime scene dont have to swear an oath either, and they can be used in court as evidence - you seem to be misconstruing testimony and evidence.

    Its quite simple - if the network in question can provide enough information to suggest "this account posted this text on this date from this address" and the lawyers can provide enough corroborating evidence to allow a reasonable person to accept that as a truth, then its good enough to be used in a court. If you dont want it used, dont post it - or dont allow a third party to hold it.

  8. Re:Public by TaoPhoenix · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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
  9. What does 'public' have to do with anything? by Nevo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Since when can the courts only use 'public' information as evidence? This whole thread is based on a flawed premise.

  10. I'm doing this right now by kronosopher · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  11. Why did you call a lawyer? by multipartmixed · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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()?
  12. This is not new nor is it news. by davev2.0 · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.