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Judge: Lawsuits Now Can Be Served Using Twitter (usnews.com)
Reader schwit1 writes: A Kuwaiti religious leader who allegedly raised money for jihadist rebels in Syria appears poised to become the first foreigner served a U.S. lawsuit via Twitter.
Hajjaj bin Fahd al-Ajmi has been a hard man to reach for a lawyer seeking compensation in a northern California federal court on behalf of hundreds of thousands of Assyrian Christians who own property in Iraq and Syria.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler, resolving the impasse, found al-Ajmi has "an active Twitter account and continues to use it," offering the "method of service most likely to reach" him to satisfy the service of process requirement for the case to move forward.
Al-Ajmi is accused by both the U.S. government and the U.N. Security Council of funneling money to armed terrorists.
Hajjaj bin Fahd al-Ajmi has been a hard man to reach for a lawyer seeking compensation in a northern California federal court on behalf of hundreds of thousands of Assyrian Christians who own property in Iraq and Syria.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler, resolving the impasse, found al-Ajmi has "an active Twitter account and continues to use it," offering the "method of service most likely to reach" him to satisfy the service of process requirement for the case to move forward.
Al-Ajmi is accused by both the U.S. government and the U.N. Security Council of funneling money to armed terrorists.
I have only read the summary but I think the title is misleading. This doesn't mean people can now use Twitter for serving, just that in this one case a judge signed off on it due to circumstances.
The law spells out how a person must be served, but if you can show the Court that you couldn't do it as prescribed, you can ask the Court for permission to do it another way which is what I think happened here. They presented the Court with an argument for why they needed to use an alternative means of serving, in this case using Twitter, and the Court approved the plan. If the defendant later wants to argue they were unaware of the suit then they can, but for now it is considered a valid serving since the Court gave it its stamp of approval.
Even better: G.W. Bush didn't dare comming to Switzerland because he could face arrest for war crimes in a war the Swiss never participated.
Not quite true.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.