Facebook has always been in question for its privacy issues, with many users worried that the social network might have been peaking into their private information to target relevant advertisers.
What was not made too public, however, is how Facebook has been battling a year-long legal tussle against a court in New York in its attempt to question a search warrant that ordered the access to accounts of hundreds of users embroiled or under investigation over a disabilities-benefits fraud case with the Social Security system.
“Since last summer, we’ve been fighting hard against a set of sweeping search warrants issued by a court in New York that demanded we turn over nearly all data from the accounts of 381 people who use our service, including photos, private messages and other information,” Facebook deputy general counsel Chris Sonderby says in a statement.
Sonderby admits the request is the largest the company ever received so far. Since the start, the company already argued that the warrant was unconstitutional, that the prosecutors violated Facebook users’ constitutional right that is to be free of unreasonable searches or seizures as stated in the Fourth Amendment. The search warrants did not even contain restrictions on date or for how long the government can keep the data requested.
According to the blog post, the NY court told Facebook doesn’t have legal standing to question the warrants served, being an online service provider. The judge and district attorney in Manhattan insisted the warrants were legal and reasonable.
Facebook could do nothing but comply with the order, following a denial of its application to stop the ruling and a motion by the prosecutor to find the social network in possible criminal contempt.
Sonderby also reveals fling the company's appellate brief last Friday to support Facebook’s continuing efforts in invalidating the hundreds of warrants as well as to push the government to bring back data it accessed and kept.
“Immediately after we filed our appeal, the government moved to unseal the warrants and all court filings, which has allowed us to finally notify the people whose accounts were affected about the warrants and our ongoing legal efforts,” Sonderby says.
Sonderby also expresses that Facebook recognizes the responsibility of law enforcement authorities to conduct investigation of possible crimes and request for data that may support the case, but believes that data requests of the government “must be narrowly tailored, proportionate to the case, and subject to strict judicial oversight.”
Of the 381 individuals whose Facebook accounts were seized, the district attorney in New York indicted 62.
