Can A Judge Force A Juror To Reveal Facebook Account Info?

Privacy

from the we-may-soon-find-out dept

And here we go with yet another case about courts struggling with the idea that jurors use social networking tools. In the latest in a long line of such cases, a juror in a case about a gang beating, named Arturo Ramirez, has been ordered to turn over information from his Facebook account, after another juror claimed that Ramirez had broken the rules by mentioning the case on Facebook. Apparently Ramirez’s big violation was to wonder if the case could “get any more BORING” on his Facebook account. Rather than just respond to that issue, the defense attorneys in the case sent a subpoena to Facebook asking for Ramirez’ full account info. Facebook noted that giving out such info would clearly violate both the Stored Communications Act and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The judge, in attempting to get around those laws, has ordered Ramirez to sign a consent form allowing Facebook to hand over the info… or face contempt of court charges.

While I agree that it wasn’t the smartest move by Ramirez to mention the case on Facebook, the reaction seems to go way beyond reasonable. In particular, having the judge basically force Ramirez to give up the rights granted by the SCA and ECPA seems to go way over the line. Ramirez is planing to appeal the order, as it clearly seems to go against the basic structure of those two laws to then force someone to give up those protections or risk a contempt of court claim. And, honestly, given that Facebook communications tend to be the sort of thing you say to your friends, when you step back and think about it, imagine if Ramirez had simply made the same point to a friend one day during the case. Would the court really go to such extreme lengths in such a scenario?

Filed Under: ecpa, juries, privacy, social networks, stored communications act
Companies: facebook

Ex-Employer Has To Pay Former Employees $4,000 For Email Snooping

Email

from the watch-where-you-snoop dept

We’ve discussed a bunch of cases lately involving employers and the legality of reading emails of employees. The latest one is a bit strange. It involves the owner of a gym, who had two ex-employees set up a competing gym. Somewhere along the way, she became aware of some emails they wrote while still employed by her, planning out their new gym. It appears that this is because they accessed their private email accounts via the gym’s computers, but left their accounts logged in. After a variety of back-and-forth maneuverings, the employer has been forced to pay $4,000 to the ex-employees for snooping on their emails, in violation of the Stored Communications Act. Of course, what’s most interesting is that if the employer had wanted to get access to those emails legally, she could have probably used the normal discovery process during a lawsuit — but by snooping, she ended up not being able to use those emails in her own lawsuit, and owing those ex-employees a few thousand dollars.

Filed Under: email, snooping, stored communications act