Comment by sillysaurus3 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sillysaurus3 | Hacker News Reader

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"Hey, we're not just going to give you everything on this user. In fact, we'll notify the user unless you provide more justification or background on the reason for your request,"

It seems like it isn't necessarily a good idea to let companies decide whether an individual request is justified. Suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. It's up to our society to remember that they are indeed innocent unless proven otherwise, and there's no way at that point for the investigator to prove anything.

Imagine that an investigator comes to Facebook and asks them for information regarding one of Facebook's employees. Facebook asks why, and the investigator responds that they suspect they're involved in something like what you've mentioned. At that point there's a chance FB might become extremely uncomfortable retaining the services of that employee, even though nothing has actually been proven yet. Accusations like that can ruin lives.

You make some good points, and it might be good to have more open communication between law enforcement and companies. It just seems a little dangerous. There are some unexpected ways that it could turn out to be a bad thing.

You make some good points as well, and I admit there's not a clear answer here. However, Facebook can very quickly look at the suspect's messages to the victim for example and see clearly if the s/he is a real threat before notifying anyone.

"More open communication between law enforcement and companies" as you said is the key, especially at the state and local level.

Facebook can very quickly look at the suspect's messages to the victim for example and see clearly if the s/he is a real threat before notifying anyone.

The thing is, at that point we'll have to concede that it's normal and proper for companies to be examining private communications. It's equivalent to a phone company keeping a log of all phone conversations transmitted on their network, then listening to them on a case-by-case basis. It strikes me as odd that it's illegal to do that for voice conversations but not illegal to do that for text conversations.

Facebook can very quickly look at the suspect's messages to the victim for example and see clearly if the s/he is a real threat before notifying anyone.

This is a Pandora's Box that I can pretty much guarantee Facebook does not want to open unless legislation is passed against their ever having civil or legal liability for doing so. Just speculate to the next school shooting where a parent/politician/newsperson asks "Why didn't Facebook tell us what was in their messages?"

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