Fighting Bulk Search Warrants In Court

Our goal is to protect people’s information on Facebook, so when a government requests data, it’s a big deal to us. We have strict policies in place for law enforcement requests and have published these procedures publicly for anyone to review.

Our team scrutinizes each request we receive individually and checks for legally valid and complete documentation from law enforcement. We regularly push back on requests that are vague or overly broad.

Of the 381 people whose accounts were the subject of these warrants, 62 were later charged in a disability fraud case. This means that no charges will be brought against more than 300 people whose data was sought by the government without prior notice to the people affected.

The government also obtained gag orders that prohibited us from discussing this case and notifying any of the affected people until now.

We’ve gone to court and repeatedly asserted that these overly broad warrants -- which contain no date restrictions and allow the government to keep the seized data indefinitely -- violate the privacy rights of the people on Facebook and ignore Fourth Amendment safeguards against unreasonable searches and seizures.

We fought forcefully against these 381 requests and were told by a lower court that as an online service provider we didn’t even have the legal standing to contest the warrants. We complied only after the appeals court denied our application to stay this ruling, and after the prosecutor filed a motion to find us in criminal contempt.

[Sonderby is Facebook Deputy General Counsel