Judge Demands Email and Facebook Passwords From Women In Sexual Harassment Case

An anonymous reader writes "Back in September, a U.S. judge ruled that a school district violated the First Amendment (freedom of speech) and Fourth Amendment (unreasonable search and seizure) rights of a 12-year-old student by forcing her to hand over her Facebook password to school officials who in turn used it to search for messages they deemed inappropriate. This month, another U.S. judge has ordered that women suing their employer for sexual harassment must hand over cell phones, passwords to their email accounts, blogs, as well as to Facebook and other social networks."

Comments

Lets split it

[synapse7]

I propose /. split into two sites, one featuring litigation and the other focuses on news for nerds.

Duh, it's evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

A judge is perfectly permitted to require the defense access to potentially usable evidence given probable cause that the evidence is there. School officials, on the other hand, are not judges or part of the legal system.

Complete non-story by some muckraker. Naturally, /. posts it.

Re:Duh, it's evidence

[kubernet3s]

These are civil suits, not criminal cases. The insidious implication of this ruling is that there is likely to be evidence in someone's Facebook or email. that pertains to a sexual harassment case, sight unseen. This ruling seems to do nothing but pave the way for "fishing expeditions," as another commenter put it, on behalf of judges, who can then go "Oh, a smiley face at the end of a WORK RELATED email, looks like you were leading him on pretty hard."

If, on the other hand, the defense wishes to use the email records as a defense, and the plaintiff disputes the veracity of these records, I can see the judge ordering access to the records to check on their veracity. If the plaintiff fails to provide these, then toss the case out: I have no problem with that. However, requiring a priori access to a person's correspondence at the outset of a case for no reason than to provide a judge with evidence outside the context of the court seems downright unconscionable.

Re:Duh, it's evidence

[blueg3]

I'm shocked that Facebook (& friends) don't have some type of "legal request mechanism" that would work as a "backdoor" for this type of thing. They can reset passwords and such, so it's hard to believe they don't have a mechanism to handle requests from legal systems for a history of posts, images, etc.

You shouldn't be shocked; they do, of course, have such a mechanism. You might be shocked that in this case it wasn't used.

Re:Duh, it's evidence

[Old97]

Excuse me? It is the judge who rule what is or is not admissible, not the plaintiff or the defense. You mentioned an exception "Unless the Facebook contains the phrase ..." - an admission that it is possible that relevant evidence is there to be found. So how are we to know whether her Facebook page does nor does not contain that phrase? How are we to know whether or not she has posted comments about her love for this supervisor or bragged about her sex life with him or whatever? Who should determine whether or not there is something admissible and relevant if not the judge? Certainly not the plaintiff. False allegations are made all the time. The defense has the right to demand all relevant evidence that may help it. Its the duty of the judge to be fair to both.

Re:Duh, it's evidence

[shutdown -p now]

A shirt with the word "CUNT" on it clearly has no bearing

It does when you're suing someone over them calling you a cunt...

Not quite the same thing being compared here

[DrEnter]

There is a BIG difference between a judge ordering someone to disclose their facebook password to collect evidence and a school teacher or principal doing it. Also, the person in question here is the plaintiff. The defense generally does have a lot of latitude when it comes to evidence collection. My only complaint here is that the plaintiff's sexual behavior outside of work should not be relevant or admissible, but it looks like from some of the statements that the defense is going to push to get that stuff admitted. The judge should put pretty strict criteria on what evidence may be collected and presented to the jury. We aren't really getting those details here, though.

Re:What do you have to hide?

[Safety Cap]

Go ahead and post your social security number.

And your mother's maden name

And your date of birth

You have nothing to hide? Prove it.

Re:Do as a I say...

[sexconker]

I fail to see how a subpoena to Facebook and her mail provider couldn't accomplish the same thing without having to give out passwords.

Because it involves a third party and makes thing even more complicated than it should be. It is a waste of time and could be money (process fees). The plaintiff is the one who wants to use it for the suit, why not simply give the real sources. Over complicate a process often times is not a good solution but cost more on both time and money.

The DEFENDANT is the one that wants the info. They're claiming that on the internets you can find the plaintiffs:

Wearing a shirt with the word CUNT on it (one plaintiff claims the word cunt was used around her or in reference to her, and that that offends her and she needs lots of money for it)
Discussing their financial situation after being fired
Discussing their job prospects after being fired
Discussing their interactions with the defendants
Discussing the suit in general

Passwords must be given (just change it to something random and hand it to the court) so the court can appoint a reviewer to select which info is pertinent to the case. The reviewer then hands it off to the owner of the account (the plaintiffs) and they block/redact any info they say is private or unrelated. The reviewer then presents the evidence to the court (both plaintiff and defendant) and tells the judge if he thinks the owner of the account chose to block / redact any pertinent information.