Dan Sachs writes:
In a pair of rulings, the Minnesota Court of Appeals avoided review of a trial court’s decision on the important but rarely-litigated issue of when “publicly” posted social media content is subject to the protections of the Stored Communications Act. Facebook, Inc. v. Aguayo-Gomez, Case No. A13-0177 (Minn. Ct. App. Feb. 12, 2013) & Facebook, Inc. v. Aguayo-Gomez, Case No. A13-0579 (Minn. Ct. App. May 1, 2013). While it did not address that issue directly, the Court of Appeals did provide some answers for criminal defendants seeking data held by electronic communications services. Under the SCA, only the government can obtain the contents of communications directly from an ECS—criminal defendants may not. 18 U.S.C. § 2703(a).
Read more on Law Across the Wire and Into the Cloud.