Originally published on From the
Sidebar.
A recent court decision has added support to the idea that there
is no privacy on the internet.
In
United States v. Meregildo, defendant Melvin Colon moved to
suppress evidence seized from his Facebook account pursuant to a
search warrant. Colon did not challenge the issuing
court's decision that the search warrant application was
supported by probable cause. Rather, he challenged the
government's method of collecting evidence to show probable
cause in its application for the search warrant. Colon's
Facebook privacy settings allowed only his Facebook
"friends" to view his profile. One of these
"friends," who happened to be a cooperating witness,
allowed the government to use his account to access
Colon's profile. The government then collected
information from Colon's profile to use as evidence of probable
cause to support the search warrant.
