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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.'
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."
This isn't about making a legal claim, at least not yet and it's certainly isn't an attack. This is an investigation into Facebook's dealings with a corporation who is paid to undermine democracy. 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.
Facebook only cares about Facebook and they are terrified that it's users will figure that out.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Every time a non-US government takes action against a predatory nominally US-based firm, dozens of "patriots" come out of the woodwork to decry how unfairly the foreigners are treating the nice US tech companies.
I don't know if these people are actually so deluded that they think Facebook holds any allegiance towards the USA (a company in which they pay virtually no tax, nor have any meaningful investment), if they are shills paid by FB, or if they are just bots meant to sow discord within the Western. But brace yourselves; here they come...
The US is competent at investigating. But they are more interested in settlements, and now under Trump, aren't interested in investigating anything. Fact is committing "mass fraud for mass profit" has been the de-facto business model of Wall Street for over 20 years now. It's all part of making the US look like it's not failing so that massive debt doesn't get the junk rating it deserves resulting in the collapse of the US economy and most the western economy along with it. Under Trump the Federal Gov't no longer gives a shit and has stopped investigations into the top companies and their corrupt and fraudulent practices, since it's pretty much public knowledge that the US is dead and will no longer lead the global economy after the 2020's, ceding the reins to China and the BRICS. Right now for the GOP and Wall Street it;s the last days and time for getting in as many cash grabs as possible. Hence the GOP Tax Scam and rolling back the financial reforms and regulations Obama put in place after the Housing Market Crises.
Says the astroturf troll.
I want them to gut Facebook like a fish, expose every crime and underhanded tactic the company has ever engaged in and fine them until it bankrupts the company.
Point of order:
The post you replied to was making a point about why the American Revolution was needed - because it supposedly prevents acts like this.
The problem with the grandparents point however is that this act can very easily fall within the bounds of the constitutional quote they highlight - the serjeant-at-arms was issued an order of seizure by a parliamentary committee, naming the class of documents or information and the individual required to disclose those items. It is, to all intent and purpose, a warrant issued by a proper authority under the UK parliamentary system, just as an equivalent order issued by a House or Senate committee would be.
I want them to gut Facebook like a fish, expose every crime and underhanded tactic the company has ever engaged in and fine them until it bankrupts the company.
I thought that, given Facebook is a legitimate threat to democracy (see USA, 2016) and that the cunt in charge of Facebook doesn't want to show up to answer the governments questions unless coerced, the government should have blocked Facebook from the country until the cunt showed up to be interrogated.
Yeah sure there's the VPN option for those who know how, but the average user would be bitching about losing their Facebook access because they don't know how to set up a VPN while Fuckerberg would be losing ad revenue from the regions where he's been blocked
Some of you might want to react to geo blocking as some sort of "big government" agenda that should be resisted, but this is already the norm when it comes to websites that enable piracy. Is enabling piracy a bigger threat than enabling attacks on democracy?
The post you replied to was making a point about why the American Revolution was needed
Let me get this clear, you hope that Facebook subscribers will rise up in revolution against the nations?
Oh, I see that one Facebook employee with mod points did rise up.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Oh look, someone else who is missing the point :D
Ok, as I seem to be in the minority of people who actually understood the grand parent posters point, let me take a moment to explain it.
They understand that this happened in the UK and not the US. Thats fundamental to their post.
They then suggest that the American Revolutionary War (1765-1783 - otherwise known as The War of Independence, in which the American colonies won their independence from the British crown) was justified precisely because of this act (see the grand parents post title).
They then quote the relevant portion of the Constitution of the United States of America, which was made possible by the independence gained during the American Revolutionary War - the quote they highlight suggests that they think that that part of the constitution would protect against the sort of seizure of documents or papers that occurred in TFA.
Its got nothing to do with the grand parent poster thinking the constitutional protection they highlighted applies in the UK.
Its got everything to do with the grant parent poster thinking that highlighted constitutional protection would prevent this sort of seizure in the US.
And that is why they think the American Revolutionary War was justified.
They are basically saying "And this is why we seceded from the British Crown and enshrined our constitutional rights in a document".
Ok? Everyone got it now? :)
Simple explanation: Facebook set their preferences to Seizure of Documents = No but when there was a change of Parliament that setting was defaulted back to Seizure of Documents = Yes to improve customer delight in the Visiting UK Experience.
The UK didn't break any UK laws.
If you don't like their laws, don't travel to their country.
Yeah, except that what happened here is basically the equivalent of a Senate committee or congressional hearing issuing a warrant for the disclosure of a document or information and someone enforcing that warrant.
Perfectly legal, perfectly within the powers of both bodies, just different names for the processes and people involved.
Nothing to get all het up about, nothing wrong happened here, there was no overstep of authority, no abuse of power or position etc.
US laws, rights, etc all finish at the US boarder.
I believe you meant "border".
But regardless, ask Julian Assange about those territorial limits to US law, never mind that what he and Wikileaks has done is essentially the same thing Daniel Ellsberg and the NYT did when they published the "Pentagon Papers".
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Robbing a business traveler under color of law is exactly why we've come to permanently mistrust you and your media allies.
Nobody was robbed, golubushka.
"Under color [sic] of law". This is a national legislature we're talking about—they ARE the law, idiota.
The media didn't do this. A nation's legislature grew weary of a foreign company's stonewalling (not to mention no small amount of arrogance on the part of its CEO), and went round it using the powers given it by the laws of said nation, zanudyen. If said foreign company doesn't like the country's laws and governmental institutions, it's free to take its business elsewhere, cupcake. (Sorry, I don't have a good translation for that off the top of my head other than "chashka torta" which I suspect doesn't have the desired effect.)
Just like the US House of Representatives is soon going to start exercising its investigative powers on the nest of criminals and traitors who've ensconced themselves in Washington.
You've got... about 6 weeks left. Enjoy your little party while it lasts, nyeuch.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The "computer definition" is a simple and obvious application of the "common definition" to computers.
And you are simply and obviously an idiot.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Actually, they started out fighting to secure their rights as Englishmen. The independence part came a little later.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The British public is entitled to a little rage, now that they've figured out that their Brexit vote was based on the lies of CA, which you'll note has conveniently disbanded in hopes of evading exposure and responsibility...
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
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.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
I don't know where this "it's from the Daily Mail" nonsense came from. The links are to the Guardian and CNet. The quotes are from the BBC.
Look, if a bad newspaper rips something off a good news source, that doesn't make it false. It means you should check a good news source.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
You could extend your argument to any law enforcement agency, and this would really expose the fallacy of your argument. This wasnâ(TM)t just any law enforcement agency though, but Parliament itself, and Parliament is supreme. The comments in the article about the San Mateo court are utterly farcical and hypocritical. The fact of the matter is that FB and CA have lied to Parliament, obstructed justice and if I were Mark Z. Iâ(TM)d now be careful about things like which Caribbean Island to holiday on.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
Treading the alleged rape as credible at this point involves as much willful stupidity as expecting Saddam's WMD's to surface any day now.....any day now. From being cleared to leave the country by the prosecutor who heard the women's request for an STD test, to Sweden refusing to promise they wont hand Assange over to the United States, to refusing to interview Assange remotely as they've done in dozens of other cases since he sought asylum, it just goes on and on.
So pull your head out of John Brennan's ass already - you disingenuous hack.
And none of the smarmy shitweasels in the mainstream press that have been shitting all over Assange seem to have any awareness of the precedent about to be set. Outfits like NYTimes, WaPo and the Guardian in particular were all happy to take classified information from Wikileaks and publish it, collecting money and rewards in the process. But now that they've hung Assange out to dry, they're asking to be prosecuted themselves the next time they publish classified information.
Pedantic distinction without a difference.
Not if you believe there's merit to the allegations and you're dealing with a foreign national that has made it clear he's about to leave the country. Then they release you from custody but keep your passport.
Do you comment on many subjects at length where you have a comical level of ignorance, or just this one? In 2001, Sweden arrested a couple of men and handed them over to the CIA to be tortured. That by itself makes Assange's fear of extradition a matter of common sense, not paranoia. Since then, Obama launched more prosecutions of whisteblowers than all previous presidents combined, had one tortured for eighteen months before finding her guilty in a kangaroo court. The current Secretary of State is a big fan of torture, and the current head of the CIA is a torturer.
Hell, not only is Assange in the right to want extradition to the US blocked, Sweden is actually required to do so as a signatory to the UN Convention Against Torture, which forbids countries from extraditing to regimes that practice it. Regimes like the United States. But Sweden has ignored that treaty before - thus Assange's more than reasonable request that Sweden go on the record that this really is just about getting him to answer questions about an alleged rape.
1) See above 2) see recent case where UK courts blocked the extradition of an accused hacker to the United States because of America's brutal prison system. The same prison system that saw Manning tortured and found guilty under unlawful command influence.
Obviously, it was throwing your BS back in your face. Obviously.
You think UK police spend millions of pounds on every bail jumping case? Assange has offered to answer questions via video chat or in person if Swedish investigators come to the embassy in London. Sweden has done just that in dozens of other cases since Assange was granted asylum, so neither they nor you have any excuse here. And Assange has offered to give up his asylum and return to Sweden if they promise not to hand him over to the United States. Even if you think Assange is bluffing, Ecuador would no longer have a reason to grant him asylum.
So the allegations are so serious as to swear out an INTERPOL warrant and for the UK to spend millions of pounds keeping Assange under siege, yet Sweden has refused to make a simple promise that would have seen Assange back in their custody in a matter of days. Which tells anyone with two functioning brain cells that this isn't about an alleged rape and never was.