Facebook loses in court to block New York search warrants

Reuters reported that the warrants for 381 users’s photos, private messages and other data could only be challenged by the users themselves after prosecutors gained the evidence.

A New York state court ruled Tuesday that Facebook must comply with search warrants from New York prosecutors for information on 381 users.

The warrants were issued for 400 suspects in an ongoing criminal investigation as other social media companies, civil libertarian interest groups, and prosecutors were watching the case’s unfolding events.

The world’s biggest online social network turned the records over to prosecutors previous year after a state judge threw out its claim that the warrants violated users’ Fourth Amendment rights, but it also went ahead with an appeal. Individual defendants can challenge a warrant and move for their data to be suppressed by the court, but only after prosecutors receive the evidence.

A Facebook spokesman said the company was considering whether to appeal the decision.

“In many cases, evidence on their Facebook accounts directly contradicted the lies the defendants told to the Social Security Administration” about being too psychologically devastated to work, district attorney’s office spokeswoman Joan Vollero said Tuesday. Law enforcement agents have been able to use Facebook photos to show public employees riding jet skis, performing martial arts and playing golf to disprove the defendants’s claims of physical disabilities.

“Our holding today does not mean that we do not appreciate Facebook’s concerns about the scope of the bulk warrants issued here or about the district attorney’s alleged right to indefinitely retain the seized accounts of the uncharged Facebook users”, the court said.

“To date, 108 people – including four ringleaders – have pleaded guilty to felony charges for their roles in this massive disability fraud scheme”.

A Facebook spokesperson said that their reluctance to grant the government such extensive search warrants where they get to indefinitely keep the account information of hundreds of people comes from considering them unconstitutional.