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Facebook Private Info Increasingly Used In Court
Orome1 writes "Making the content of your Facebook account private can thwart the social network's plan to share as much information as possible with advertisers, but may not keep out lawyers looking for material that will contradict your statements in a court of law. US lawyers have been trying to gain permission to access the private parts of social network accounts for a while now, but it seems that only lately they have begun to be successful in their attempts. And this turn of events is another perfectly good reason to think twice about what you post online."
"it seems that only lately they have begun to be successful in their attempts"
All they needed to do was write a simple and silly app which requires all your user data and BAM, you have everything. You won't even need a court order for it.
A few weeks ago, after finding out that some big economic and political heavyweights invested in Facebook, I decided to cancel my account. Two weeks after I filed the request, I finally no longer have it. It seems to me that Facebook itself rose to prominence after MySpace became overpopulated and polluted with spam. It was a good social network for educational sources, but now -- it has become conglomerate of something that it does not even deserve to be. Facebook has become too mainstream, its login service is used by many websites and the private lives and information of people is willingly compromised. So, would anyone recommend a small but dedicated social network alternative that I could try and recommend to my friends. It must have a strong privacy emphasis, anti-spam features and simplicity.
The crap people say about themselves online is ridiculous.
People without sense to moderate themselves will no doubt end up paying for it one way or the other. Talk about your hard partying lifestyle all the time and get a divorce, or charged with drunk driving, or dismissed from a job... good luck keeping that to yourself at that point
I went to battle M.C. Escher, but drew a blank.
Isn't this similar, if not identical, to this story from a few days ago?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Facebook has always honored valid subpoenas, and lawyers have always been able to get them for this kind of info.
It's more that only now have lawyers started to catch up to the idea that it's a good source of info.
Look at the history of presentations at lawyer conferences, and you will see in the past year or so talks on what info you can gain from social network accounts, and e-discovery type stuff have started happening more and more.
So basically, it was just because lawyers are generally close to grandparents when it comes to the technology knowledge curve
I don't think this is surprising. I would have figured a court order would make Facebook give up your data to the court.
SSC
Subpoenas for all sorts of physical records and correspondence are par for the course. How is this any different than a subpoena for your diary or letters?
...in his Facebook profile, my client clearly states that his shlong is 20 inch long and always ready for action. This would make it impossible to be the person seen, and I quote: "running away from the heist carrying the stolen device". His anatomy would not allow rapid locomotion as witnessed, your Honour.
When one is involved in a court case, there is discovery where each party is allowed to investigate and examine the other party, including the other party's private documents such as diaries, for evidence. The court can issue a subpoena for said private documents. Facebook and other social networking sites fall under "private documents".
I have no idea why everyone is surprised at this. It has been like this literally for centuries.
I'd say the reverse is more true. The more you post online the more accurately you paint your alibi. If you've got a constant stream of "I just walked into this bar!" and "the bartender gave me her number!" and "I just had sex with her!" it's then easy to find witnesses and prove you didn't stab that hooker last night.
You would think that at least some of the smarter criminals would know by now that nothing that you put on Facebook is even remotely private. Even if you spent the time restricting all of your posts, photos, and comments so only your friends would see them, all it takes is for one of your friends to click on a rogue poll or Facebook application for them to pull a bunch of your so-called "personal" information through them. Not to mention that they're constantly changing the settings and adding new services for advertisers to grab your data on what seems to be a monthly basis.
Seriously, anybody who posts stuff on Facebook that they wouldn't want their mother or boss to read deserves to have that information used against them as a warning to rest of humanity.
It doesn’t necessarily mean that anything you put on facebook is factual or true. Its not like your facebook page is a legal declaration of the truth. You could I assume argue that whatever they find or claim was just made up. As long as you don’t claim to not know someone in your friend list that you added yourself. I don’t think you can tell who added who anyway.
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, sue.
Why should Facebook files be treated any differently than any other document? Is Zuckerman your doctor or lawyer or priest, to be given special privileges with respect to discovery? You can subpoena your opponent's private emails. Why should they not be able to subpoena your facebook files?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Posting unencrypted data on 3rd party corporate services exposes them to legal requirements! We never saw that coming!
Dude, where's my packet?
All of my information on Facebook, and much of the info my family and friends have on there is fake. They don't even know my real birthday, where I live, or my gender. 99% of the stuff I post on there is fake as well. What will the lawyers do, when the info they get from FB contradicts the other documented info?
Shiny. Let's be bad guys.
I know its against the spirit of Slashdot, but I RTFA. These are civil cases and the judge is making them sign a waiver to access the information. Sounds to me like a case of bad lawyering.
doesn't exist when you are a "criminal". It could be argued that no one really has privacy on facebook anymore. This is just becoming common knowledge, I am unpleasantly unsurprised.
In other words, if you are trying to swindle an insurance company, don't brag about it.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
But now a days there are so many companies providing host space, offline storage and backup, on line collaboration tools, even project planning tools on line. Many small businesses are using google cloud or microsoft office live cloud services. Now if some such small company is sued, and the lawyers ask for all documents saved in Microsoft Office Live servers with a proper subpoena would MS refuse? Would MS try to limit the discovery process to relevant documents? Would they do everything in the best interest of the defendant or in the best interest of the hosting company alone?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
is being cautioned here. If you claim your back was hurt in a slip n fall accident and you show recent pictures of yourself skiing or running a marathon on FB you may have an issue. I'd be more afraid of stalkers, identity thieves, scammers, and the like getting your data.
"If you want to know what happens to you when you die, go look at some dead stuff."
My mom is a family law attorney and uses facebook to consistently tear down
the defenses of liars on the witness stand.
Where are you getting oppression out of this story? The issue here if you read it is the DEFENSE requesting a subpoena for the Facebook pages to prove the the plaintiff is lying in a civil case. As in, this is only a problem for you if YOU are suing someone else for making your life so miserable you can't get out of the house while at the same time posting a bunch of photos from your recent marathon and kayaking trip on Facebook. This has nothing to do with the State or oppression it's all civil suits.
Yes there is. Society cannot function with too many stupid people. They need to be oppressed and suppressed. That's how we get awesome laws like Obama Care, we're too stupid to do it ourselves, we need to be forced into doing what is smart. /sarcasm
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
IANAL, but if emails are discoverable (and they are) I don't see why Facebook posts wouldn't be either.
Never put anything is writing your don't want somebody else's lawyer holding up in court.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
I imagine that smart criminals are somewhere in between not using Facebook at all and only using it in a limited context (say, for the social part of their lives, which they compartmentalize from the criminal part of their lives).
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Who said anything about crooks- that's just the tip of the iceberg there.
Open your mouth in the wrong way anywhere on the 'net and you could be facing the consequences of that act down the line. As an object lesson...I offer myself. I "opened my mouth" about a patent troll I used to work for on THIS forum about some of their activities in anger because of the nature of the company's laying people off and how it all could've been avoided. As a result, several years later I got the angry remarks flung back in my face by the attorney for the company when I was being deposed as an expert witness in one of their patent troll trials, in an attempt to impeach my testimony. It was NOT a fun experience, let me tell you, because part of what I'd mouthed off about was technically in violation of my employment agreement at the time, still in effect when I'd made the remarks. It's damned easy to get yourself in a deep dark crack with this stuff.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
then it's not private, I don't care what you think your "privacy" settings are keeping secret from other people.
True but the fact that you said it is a fact. Think of it with facebook out of the picture.
Q. Mr. Kaptink did say that you where going to buy a gun and shook Mr. Jones in the head?
A. Yes but I was just kidding.
Of course when they find Mr. Jones with a bullet hole in his head that looks very damming.
Same thing if you are are on probation for DUI and they find a picture of you in a car with a beer in your hand on face book dated the day before your hearing.
Yea it could be a fake but....
Really people guess what. Stupid hurts. Act stupid in public and there is a good chance it will bite you in the rear. BTW a party is still in public.
Is it so hard for people to understand this? Facebook is not now and never was "private" don't publish private information on it... You do know that publish means to make public right?
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Make your own website. Of course, that might be too much like work and you'll have a little harder time getting people to visit it (unless it's interesting). I have always regarded social networking sites (FB, MS, Linkedin, etc) to be little more than HTML for people without HTML abilities. Sure, you can go one place and access 500,000 people, but when all those people are doing is basically a great big attentionwhorefest, what's the point?
Oh yeah, Farmville. *groan*
Why do I M2 everything negatively?
Don't get a facebook account. I don't have one and never intend to.
...that I should avoid Facebook to make it easier for me to lie under oath? What exactly is the motivation here? It's not exactly new to have private information be used as evidence in a court of law.
Visit the
Your post is actually more accurate without the sarcasm tag.
If you break the law / do something sleazy and brag about it all around, you deserve what you get.
I know you're trolling, but I'll bite:
You tell this to your 19 year old daughter when her good friends post & tag a picture of her on Facebook. You know -- the one where she's puking in a toilet bowl. Oh but she can untag herself, eh? Not if she doesn't have a Facebook account or if they don't use her Facebook name.
/facebook should fall off the earth //so evil, it burns
Why do I M2 everything negatively?
Having worked for ambulance chas.....err, personal injury lawyers, I can attest that it's our stupid insurance laws that cause our overly litigous society--not some desire to "get rich quick".
When they say "tort reform" what they really mean is "insurance reform". If your mom comes over to visit (or comes down to the basement for some of you) and slips and gets injured, the only way she can get assistance with medical bills is not through her OWN insurance (unless you are the basement dweller), but through the insurance of the property owner (that makes you basement dwellers safe). If we could insure ourselves, when we get injured, our OWN insurance companies would have to pay. You know all those premiums they are taking from us that most of us will never use? Yeah, most of us see that as a way to pay for accidents, but insurance companies see that as profit that is being taken away.
Heh, just like my 12 year old who defriended us, but doesn't realize we can still read all the stuff he posts by going to his wall. I will never show him how to hide his posts and only make it available to friends. My intel is too good right now.
Well, if he only *shook* Mr. Jones, I imagine the charges could be dropped.
The things that courts will be interested in are not necessarily the the profile information or the friend list as a whole. They will be more interested in your activity. Whose wall do you post on frequently? Who have you been chatting with, and what about? If you use any location based services with a tie in to facebook, they can tell where you were or weren't at a given time. While you may be able to create some misleading information by having fake conversations and have other people use your account from your house while you're out robbing a bank, this would show a much higher level of sophistication. In fact, I would guess that any criminal sophisticated enough to go through the trouble of staging their facebook account would be sophisticated enough to not use facebook at all for fear that their profile could be used against them in court. I recently watched "The Facebook Obsession" on CNBC and they talked about how police departments are increasingly using Facebook to locate and bring in suspects. It has proven to be very effective, and that is without the need for a subpoena. This is all information that is publicly available. Again, any fugitive worth their salt would cut off all communication, change behavior patterns, and get out of Dodge; thus, negating any benefit to checking their facebook profile.
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." -- H. J. Simpson
Private information is always used in court. Facebook is not special.
Prosecutor: 'So you are admitting that you are a lying bastard?'
--- "When you gotta do something wrong. You gotta do it right. (Fighter)"
"In civil cases, one may not have a choice" - why is that?!? By the way, Matlock, in all cases referenced it is the plaintiff's testimony being impugned...
1: How can a judge force you to sign away your Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination to release this information? Just say no.
2: How is it so hard to argue that you have a reasonable expection of privacy in your comments rendering them inadmissible in court? After all, if they hadn't been private then the opposing lawyers wouldn't have needed court to force them to be revealed.
3: People lie in Facebook. Wow, that's news. People lie in real life too. It's all about keeping up appearances. Why isn't the case being made that what I said on FB was all lies intended towards keeping up appearances among my friends? Pictures? Yeah I can smile through the pain for a 1/60th of a second - so what?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Why don't you quit beating up on Sarah Palin to make your point? Not only does it make you look like an idiot, but Sarah Palin is one of the more savvy Facebook users around - making you look like a double-idiot.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Could you explain this tagging feature? I'd heard something of it, but thought it was ONLY something one member of FB could do to another person on FB. How do they tag it with personally identifiable info on a person without a FB account? It is then searchable...I didnt' think you could search on FB for someone that was NOT also a FB member?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
True but the fact that you said it is a fact.
Six months ago I don't remember posting:
"I AM THE WORLDS FLAMIEST HOMO!!!!!!!1!!!!!1!1!!!!"
Liking it, then commenting:
"Also I leave myself logged into facebook at internet cafes"
Kind of answered your own question didn't you? What chances do you think a plaintiff who refuses to testify has? Hopefully they are as close to zero as you can get.
When I had a Facebook account, I'd click the person in the picture and then type a name in the input field. If it didn't come up as one of your friends, you could still tag them in the picture but without the typically-associated hyperlink. As for searching for someone, speaking as someone who has had to deal with Facebook drama in the workplace, I am here to tell you more often than not these things are handed in as printouts instead of being shown online to someone in authority (anecdotal evidence is, however, anecdotal).
The point remains the same though: a picture of a somewhat drunk girl hanging over a bathtub looking rather... icky. With enough recognizable facial features combined with a name or a caption, you can draw all the conclusions you want.
Why do I M2 everything negatively?
The reason is that civil cases are civil, not criminal. There is no protection against self-incrimination in a civil case. If you substitute plaintiff for defendant in my statement above, it is still valid.
And if it comes to that hope that a jury believes that?
Not liking reality will not change it.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
You realize that telling the truth is a defense here? If you're being sued/charged, and your defense is that you don't drink, and there are pictures of you drinking on someone's Facebook account, that what you did is probably illegal?
This is not Facebook's fault.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
"Oh noes! When I make a statement on record it can be subpoenaed as evidence against me when I lie about it!"
This is not by any means new, or specific to Facebook. If you're planning to deceive somebody about something that could go to court, keep your records consistently on the message you're trying to pass off.
I really, really wish sites like net-security.org (the site the article is on) would run simple spell checkers on their articles. Admittedly, you have to run something smarter than wordpad, but heck, you could paste it into a Firefox text entry box and get nominal spelling dictionary support.
Preferably a syntax checker too... "could may well affect the outcome" indeed!
Its still a fact that, most of the time, what most people have on their wall is put there by themselves. That its not 100% is also true, but its really pretty close to that amount. This is why a judge and/or jury will be interpreting the evidence as a whole.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Probably a good bet. There are a number of people on my friends list that have that happen to them.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Except the stupid people don't cost enough to do your insurance any damage.
The real reason why your insurance goes up is the evil people--evil wealthy people. You get a scratch on your car, they tell you to buff it out. They get a scratch on their car, they want a new car. They want a new car, they go out and get a scratch on their car.
Billionaires creating their own problems to sue each other for millions upon millions, because they know they will charge it back to you anyway.
Some idiot checking into the hospital for $25k does not screw your insurance bill. The .com bust, and the Enron debacle, and other enormous investment scams are the financial problems which are statistically shuffled back to your auto insurance.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
Well, in reality, somewhere better than 97% (if I recall - been a while since I studied the stats in detail) of all civil cases are settled prior to trial, so no one testifies (which is not to say depositions don't take place). But in any case, Matlock said, "In civil cases, one may not have a choice [but to testify]", and that was what I was questioning. A defendant certainly can choose not to testify. So can a plaintiff (though practically speaking you're right: it doesn't tend to bode well). It's because of your point that I keep making the distinction between plaintiff and defendant - it's not for reasons of pendantry.
Matlock's comments are rather confused - it's rather apparent he's at about a high school level of understanding - but he seems to be saying that one cannot invoke the fifth amendment in a civil case. This is flat out incorrect. A person does indeed have the right against self-incrimination in civil trials. The difference is that a civil jury (or judge) can draw an inference from the invocation of the fifth amendment. In other words, pleading the fifth in a civil trial entitles the jury to believe "he must have something to hide".
In what jurisdiction are you claiming the protections against self-incriminations do not apply in a civil trial? Certainly not the US, because the fifth amendment to the US Constitution does indeed apply in civil cases. I direct your attention to the Supreme Court decision in Baxter v. Palmigiano (http://supreme.justia.com/us/425/308/case.html):
...the Fifth Amendment "not only protects the individual against being involuntarily called as a witness against himself in a criminal prosecution, but also privileges him not to answer official questions put to him in any other proceeding, civil or criminal, formal or informal, where the answers might incriminate him in future criminal proceedings."
In case you haven't gotten to that part yet in tenth grade law, the Supreme Court is the end of the line - once they rule, it's the law of the land and cannot be appealed. The only recourse is legislative.
"but it seems that only lately they have begun to be successful in their attempts"
Only recently? Subpoenas have routinely been granted for MySpace accounts in divorce cases for awhile now. This isn't anything new, or recent.
OK, libretard, I see you have never been involved in an actual civil trial. What is it like being a lying moron?
But, it does not protect one from answering a question that may result in losing the civil case in question, LibTard. Are you really such as stupid fuck? You must be, because you keep trying to change the discussion which is the sign of a stupid mind unable to argue the question at hand.
I'm pretty sure the smarter crooks DON'T post evidence on FB. But you don't read about them; you just read about the dumb ones that DO.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
I appreciate it is hard being a teenager. There are a lot of things going on in your body and brain which can lead to a lot of confusion. Urges to inappropriately assert yourself spring up often. An inability to cogently argue a point, or to admit an error, is a common symptom. Letting emotion get the better of you is extremely common. But sit tight: this all will pass, and before you know it, you'll be an adult, in full possession of your faculties, and capable of seeing the folly of your false bravado. You'll have a laugh about it then, as you somewhat sheepishly reflect back on moments like these.
In the meantime, when you make statements like, "There is no protection against self-incrimination in a civil case", I assume you mean, "There is no protection against self-incrimination in a civil case". That is clearly my mistake, and I hereby apologize - it was quite dumb of me to take your statement at face value!
When you speak with grand authority about things which quite clearly you have difficulty understanding, but which you like to project an aura of authority about, I realize it makes you think that you are coming across as semi-intelligent; in reality it makes you come across as small, and desperately seeking credibility.
Now, how about sharing with us which jurisdiction you reside in, because the only excuse I can fathom for your consistent misunderstandings is that you do not reside in the US and the laws in your jurisdiction are quite significantly different.
Look behind you!
A three headed monkey!
"Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world. " - Asimov.