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UK Parliament Seizes Cache of Facebook Internal Papers (theguardian.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader infolation writes: The UK Parliament has used its legal powers to seize internal Facebook documents in an extraordinary attempt to hold the US social media giant to account after chief executive Mark Zuckerberg repeatedly refused to answer MPs' questions. The documents are alleged to contain revelations on data and privacy controls that led to Cambridge Analytica scandal. Damian Collins, the chair of the culture, media and sport select committee, invoked a rare parliamentary mechanism to compel the founder of a US software company, Six4Three, to hand over the documents during a business trip to London.
Sunday Facebook's head of public policy told Parliament their actions were "entirely without merit," adding that they believed the move was "more about attacking our company than it is about a credible legal claim."
Sunday Facebook's head of public policy told Parliament their actions were "entirely without merit," adding that they believed the move was "more about attacking our company than it is about a credible legal claim."
Yeah, it's the Daily Mail...
But still, looks like Fuckerberg might be caught in a bald-faced lie.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6426219/Parliament-seizes-Facebook-internal-papers-Mark-Zuckerbergs-refusal-answer-questions.html
The secret cache is believed to include emails between Mark Zuckerberg and other executives that shows the firm knew about flaws in its privacy policy and allowed them to be actively exploited.
MPs discovered the documents were in the possession of an American software executive visiting London on a business trip and sent an official from the House of Commons to his hotel to retrieve them.
He was given two hours to hand them over to an appointee of Kamal El-Hajji, the House of Common's serjeant-at-arms, who is responsible for the security of the parliamentary estate.
However the executive refused, and was then hauled to Parliament and warned he could face imprisonment if he did not comply.
Damian Collins, chairman of the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee, told the BBC: 'We felt this [information] was highly relevant to the inquiry... and therefore we sent an order to Mr [Ted] Kramer through the serjeant at arms asking that these documents be supplied to us. Ultimately, that order was complied with.'
I don't blame the UK Parliament for unusual conduct in doing this considering the bullshit Facebook has pulled already with the EU. Facebook is telling everyone to trust them and when everything goes to shit they claim it's all fixed now when it's clearly not.
This is compounded by Zuckerberg assigning a powerless peon to tell the lies in his place and flipping off the committee's request for personal testimony. It's hard to see how this doesn't escalate. Zuckerberg seems to think that the nations in which Facebook does business have no power over foreign corporations. He is likely to be disabused of that fiction. He may be correct in thinking that the UK parliament has no legal power to compel the testimony of a foreign national outside UK territory, but there are other ways.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
The founder of an outside company had the documents because of discovery in a lawsuit he filed against Facebook. A California court said he wasn't allowed to share them. Is it a coincidence he brought them to the UK (where Parliament could force them over) and became known that they were in his possession?
His lawsuit seems to be that he lost $250k because of the Cambridge Analytica security holes, so he's probably upset about that.
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Nope the UK has a constitution, it is just not written down in a single document like other countries. That does not mean it does not exist. Perhaps you should speak to someone who knows what they are talking about (my source is my brother who used to teach constitutional law at the University of Law in the UK).
The UK parliamentary committee acted entirely within in the UK constitution. Under the UK constitution it is entitled to seize the documents it did, and the Sargent at Arms it is entitled to hold anyone refusing to comply till such time as they do. The UK courts have ruled in the past (a long time ago now but that is irrelevant) that they are constitutionally entitled to do what they did.
It does not usually go this far because most sensible people back down in advance because they realize they are on a hiding to nothing. I would point to Mike Ashley and Philip Green who both recently backed down about refusal to appear before Parliamentary select committees to illustrate my point.
Consequently it is a very rarely exercised power, but just because they don't need to exercise it often does not make the exercise of the power wrong in anyway.
Oh and finally neither courts or parliament are stealing documents that they force to be produced. You are only stealing when you are acting without the law and they where acting within the law.