Facebook spooked after MPs seize documents for privacy breach probe
theregister.co.uk
theregister.co.uk
Were they so deluded to think Europe actually caring about privacy wouldn't one day come back to bite them?
It is their only business model, what else they can do?
Unfortunately, we have plenty of that in Europe, too.
I was working at perhaps the biggest iOS shop in the country at this time in Seattle. And I was regularly invited and attended the developer poker / presentation night events at FB’s Seattle office.
At the time facebook had an open position for a mobile czar that continued to go unfilled for a long time. I know because I applied and watched it.
This was when Facebook was refusing to build a native app—insisting the mobile web was a good enough experience.
I was boots on the ground as so many big companies were embracing iOS, so there was no doubt Facebook was willfully ignoring mobile.
Whether that failure required a coverup is a big leap though, so it would be very interesting if these documents included discussions suggesting this was the case.
It was at least a year, perhaps more before the app was usable. It would take minutes for a single page to load in the app. People hated it with the intensity of a thousand suns.
I think you dodged a bullet not getting on board that train wreck.
My guess is that Facebook only decided to go mobile-first when it realized that a phone is a much better personal data slurping device than a stationary desktop computer.
>I think you dodged a bullet not getting on board that train wreck.
Maybe you're right. I did end up heading to the valley and applying to YC and eventually getting a couple companies funded, but hard to know. I am not fond of Facebook the product or its business these days but back then I thought it was cool and built apps on it very early.
> My guess is that Facebook only decided to go mobile-first when it realized that a phone is a much better personal data slurping device than a stationary desktop computer.
You may be right, but I think they also realized that mobile ads converted. I can't remember but someone could probably write a book about Facebook's move to Mobile on its own.
Speaking of mobile privacy, I also remember that we were all aware of how messed up permissions on iOS were--in that you could read full contact list data silently. Not long after we had Path-Gate: http://technologyfront.com/journalism/2012/02/17.html
They'd know he had access to them from public information about his job and the relevant court proceeding.
Given the threat to use similar process on Zuck should he travel to the UK, I would assume that the Parliamentary committee involved has a way to get that kind of travel info about people of interest from the government, who, after all, works for and is answerable to the Parliament.
If you want a humour free version of the article, checkout the link to The Guardian article cited. Brace yourself for lots of speling mistakes however.
However given the weariness derived from seeing the same kind of tech issues/fails/corruption reported ad infinitum, I happily welcome an attempt at a bit of humour to lighten the mood a little.
They actually just did a great piece on Congresspeople sleeping in their offices because they can't afford two houses.
Still get a "tabloids are bad" rap. A shame.
It's the new M$ / Micro$oft.
Childish and appealing to a small minority.
Maybe. It depends on your taste. If it's not your taste, don't read it.
and appealing to a small minority.
My guess is that The Register knows its audience better than you do. If that audience is a minority of the population, it's their decision to target it, not yours.
It's almost literally unprecedented, and is a signal that Parliament is very, very angry about this,
Fast forward: A California court has zero jurisdiction over the English parliament.
About the funniest is the following statement by a Facebook spokesperson:
“The materials obtained by the DCMS committee are subject to a protective order of the San Mateo Superior Court restricting their disclosure. We have asked the DCMS committee to refrain from reviewing them and to return them to counsel or to Facebook. We have no further comment.”
I dare say that the fucks that Mr. Collins gives on the order of the San Mateo Superior Court can be counted with zero hands.
Yeah, Mark; Karma really is a bitch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serjeant-at-Arms_of_the_House_...
From the Wikipedia article.
So the Facebook employee was in fact under compulsion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serjeant-at-arms#/media/File:M...
I'd definitely not want to be bonked on the head with that. Fortunately, as the article you link to says, they can call the police to do the dirty job. "Fortunately", as in, the combined threat from the mace and the cops should suffice to convince most people.
If you have a suspicion that a company is breaking the law, you ask a judge for permission to inspect them. If permission is granted, you show up at the main office and do your investigation.
If a judge won't grant you permission do do that inspection, you drop the case entirely. None of this 'we used sneaky laws from centuries ago to take documents from a third party'.
Also, one minute you're talking about the law and order approach then you're complaining that they used the law as it exists.
The lesson of the day, don't go playing funny buggers with governments.
The method used here (physically detaining a non Facebook actor who is not a UK citizen who had access to the docs under a protective order and threatening them until they caved) is so far beyond unacceptable it's hard to fathom.
As I said in the other thread, the only reason this could ever be acceptable of because of hate of Facebook, seen quite well I'm this thread.
(As I also said in the other thread it is also hard to believe it was anything other than a deliberate deal between the UK land and sixfourthree)
But that's not what happened here! The documents were obtained from someone who was essentially a third party, that just happened to have access to them. Facebook was not willingly doing business with this person.
It's acceptable because it's perfectly legal in the UK. The world is not America. Other countries have different laws and systems of government.
While the world is not America, Congress has the legal power to do the exact same thing to a UK executive traveling in the US with information sealed by a UK court.
Each House or Congress has its own Sergeants-at-Arms, with deputies, and the authority to deploy them the same way, and even, IIRC, it's own (long disused) detention facility should it elect to use it's arrewt powers.
(Let's please go beyond the hacker news slapback and cite a real source)
It's not actually legal in the UK, and even the person who did it admits it is "uncharted territory".
The parliament's own publications state what I told you. A simple google about what the UK parliament has the power to compel will give you these results.
They can summon people and papers in the jurisdiction of the UK.
So it would totally be legal to summon them and do what you want if the person was a UK citizen, or compel the papers if they were in the UK.
However, the person in question is not. They were certainly under the jurisdiction of the UK, so you theoretically could compel them to a hearing (though even this is arguable if you read parliament's own publications. They've addressed it before, and the answer is "probably not")
Also, since they are a US citizen traveling abroad, international treaties/law between US and UK would have given him the right to refuse and be compelled through legal process.
In any case, the compulsion was to produce the papers, and there is simply no viable argument i've seen that the papers were under the jurisdiction of the UK.
So if you believe there is some power that makes it magically legal, please, by all means, cite it!
All articles, advice, etc, i can find suggests precisely the opposite - they knew this was not okay to do.
He was in the jurisdiction of the UK? Being in the jurisdiction is literally a land matter, being in the UK means you're in their jurisdiction. It's not like you can ignore UK laws because you're American. So your own statement says it was legal. They can compel people to give them evidence. That is what they've done.
I did this google search. It just says "They have powers to compel people (but not Members of either House) or organisations (but not the Government) to give evidence, but these are rarely invoked: the information asked for is usually provided voluntarily." Basically, Facebook being non-compliant thinking "We're US based and we keep those documents in the US and don't give UK folk access, there is nothing you can do." And they've responded.
> Also, since they are a US citizen traveling abroad, international treaties/law between US and UK would have given him the right to refuse and be compelled through legal process.
He could have gone that route, that would have involved sitting in jail while some judges decided what was what. And it seems like since it was Parliament that did it, it would have to go EU courts or Supreme court which both take a while to get to.
Again, they did not compel facebook.
What facebook did or not do is irrelevant since they didn't order facebook to do anything.
That would, again, have been perfectly legal.
The last case this really came to bear was around rupert murdoch, and the conclusion was "they could not actually compel him".
I do not believe you read the publications or articles you are citing, so here's a shorter one for you:
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/contempt-witn...
"If he does disregard the summons, the committee will have the option of making a report to the House arguing that he has committed ‘a contempt’"
Note that unlike what you say (the committee cannot enforce it itself), the committee's power is actually limited to making a report and asking the broader body to find them in contempt.
"What is more, if any committee were to report to the House that it believed a contempt had been committed, and the House agreed, it remains unclear what sanctions it would have at its disposal. Historically, those found guilty of contempts could be fined or imprisoned, but those sanctions have not been used by the Commons since 1666 and 1880 respectively. For all sorts of practical, legal and constitutional reasons, it is highly doubtful that the modern House would seriously consider this."
Also note: It's almost certain they didn't release the documents to the public because they didn't feel their legal position was very good.
They would definitely be immune from any repercussions from the publication itself due to privilege, so the only reason not to publish is to avoid legal embarrassment over how they acquired them in the first place.
1. He claims he "panicked"
2. He never asked for, consulted, etc, his lawyers when he was detained
3. He was there to meet with a reporter about the case
4. Various members of parliament somehow knew exactly where he was at what times.
5. It all magically goes down a few days before facebook is about to be questioned.
...
https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/26/tech/uk-parliament-facebook-s...
It's like the British government have some sort of organisation to find things out.
They are the government, and they have the right to documents and information.
What criteria, exactly, are you using to distinguish between "laws" and "sneaky laws"?
An example of this is that, until recently, their "supreme court" was a committee in one of the houses of parliament:
It seems the facebook seizure was not ordered by Theresa May's government, but instead by parliament itself exerting its powers directly.
It's an unusual move and that is what makes this particularly interesting.
I'm not sure why so many people have replied to me trying to insist that government and parliament mean the same thing. They do not.
Parliament refers to the entire body of the houses of commons and lords.
Gorverment refers to the executive (prime minister, cabinet & other ministers) which is can include people who are not members of parliament.
Also, if you define the executive as the PM, cabinet, and other ministers, then they are all members of parliament even when they aren't Members of Parliament (MPs). The ones who aren't members of the House of Commons (MPs) are members of the House of Lords, which is part of Parliament. There are rare cases of people not in either house being brought into the Cabinet, but that hasn't happened since the First World War, I believe.
Edit: Upon reflection, this whole conversation revolves around whether we say "government" or "Government". We're both right. I'm describing the "government". You're describing the "Government".
I'm not "pettifogging" and your G/g distinction is not accurate. It is common in Britain to use small g. For example this news article which also an example of the proper usage, and clear distinction between, the terms parliament and government.
> [Phillip Hammond] said if the government loses the vote in parliament on 11 December, it would be in “uncharted political territory”. More than half of backbench Tory MPs who are not on the government payroll have committed to voting down the deal.
> Hammond said cabinet ministers would examine the reasons why MPs had voted against the deal and then try to forge consensus. “We will then have to sit down as a cabinet and a government and decide where to go on the basis of the vote, what we’ve seen in the vote and who has voted in which way because clearly we live in a democracy, parliament is sovereign,” he said." [1]
1: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/nov/28/chancellor-...
"For the first time in my political memory, parliament is operating like a shadow government. It has taken effective charge of the process surrounding Brexit through the Grieve amendment, ensuring that all options can be voted upon. It has asserted itself with a vigour and clarity of purpose frankly missing from the actual government. It is articulating the different outcomes with a blatant disregard for the government mantra that it is this deal or no deal.
I am heartily thankful that parliament is doing so. There is as much leadership on the back benches as on the front. At a moment of supreme importance for the nation, with so much at stake and such bitter divisions in the population, they’re doing what I always hoped they would do: behave like leaders, recognising that at this time, party whips can’t matter more than genuine appreciation of where the national interest lies."
1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_sovereignty#Unit...
I'll see your link and raise you this one.
https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/role/parliament-governme...
"Parliament and the Government are different. They have different roles and do different things."
In the common parliamentary-democracy sense of “government”, the UK government is an entity subordinate to the UK Parliament.
Now, I'm not totally certain of the precise legal position, but because of its sovereignty, Parliament can act in a quasi-judicial way, so in effect, FB's actions can be seen as roughly equivalent to refusing a subpoena.
FB's refusal authorised Parliament to seize the evidence they needed while the exec was on UK soil. FB have only themselves to blame.
Please realize that other states are taking notes at this situation. They are waiting for US/UK/etc exec to visit and make the same excuse.
Other states aren't waiting for this at all; least of all the US. In the past when UK based executives of online gambling firms have travelled in transit via the US they have been arrested even before going through customs, in effect in international law it is somewhat akin to piracy, USG sanctioned piracy. This sort of creative use of laws to acquire information and/or people by various governments world wide has been happening for a very very long time.
No, arresting people who are not subject to any privilege against arrest in international law, who are on your territory, whether or not they have passed through customs, is not, in international law, in even the slightest way “akin to piracy.”
The US Congress can and has compelled appearance of non-US parties, and, while it may not have had occasion to resort to this for a non-US person (and hasn't used it's arrest power since 1935, relying instead on executive enforcement bodies and criminal statutes instead of it's recognized contempt and arrest powers), absolutely does have the legal power to send the Sergeants-at-Arms of each House to enforce such compulsory summons with force, to bring either materials or persons before the chamber.
If I refuse to appear in court, I can be arrested and charged with contempt of court. Is that normalising a "violent response to a nonviolent action"?
Justice would be impotent in such a setup.
The only potential exception is diplomatic immunity, and that is only granted to the few people who are directly employed to represent a foreign nation. (And even then, such immunity is voluntarily granted by the UK government.)
Didn't the U.S. arrest a Volkswagen exec wanted in connection with the emissions scandal, when he visited?
So while it would be newsworthy for Congress to do this, what the Parliament did here is not something Congress could not legally do to a visiting exec in possession of information sealed by a foreign court.
Uh, no. The only person the UK Parliament asks for permission for anything is the monarch, and that's almost entirely a formality.
And, absent a US-style Constitution, what is there to ask a court about? Whether the action sought by Parliament comports with the law, which is the expressed will of Parliament?
That's tourist thinking.
If you want to play in their country, you abide by their rules.