Overcoming Reasonable Expectation Of Privacy Rights To Discover Postings On Social Networking Sites

DRI, the Voice of the Defense Bar 

by Eric L. Probst

     ""New technologies create interesting challenges to long established legal concepts." Written over fourteen years ago in a court martial decision involving the electronic transmission of pornography, United States v. Maxwell, Jr., 45 M.J. 406 (C.A.A.F. 1996), this statement has never been more relevant than it is today in the social networking era of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social networking sites ("SNS"). When Congress enacted the Stored Wire and Electronics Communications Privacy Act in 1986, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2701–2711 ("SCA"), to regulate how and under what circumstances electronic information providers could produce electronic information to third parties . . . Read More