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Parliament seizes cache of Facebook internal papers

theguardian.com

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Re: Parliament seizes cache of Facebook internal papers

#81

Post by rhizome »

DannyBee wrote: post #77
rhizome wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are being threatened with legal process in a foreign country, step #1 is always "contact your embassy". I've always known this to be good advice in a criminal context, but not political ones like this unless to relay that the USG in general should intervene. I have not heard that the guy was detained. I really don't think an embassy has the juice to go up against UK Parliament, the current US Ambassador to the…

He was in fact detained by the sergeant in arms, according to the articles I've read. The rest I agree with, but the goal would be to give Facebook a chance to intervene

Would it qualify as a detainment under both US and UK law, or possibly only US?

Re: Parliament seizes cache of Facebook internal papers

#82

Post by rhizome »

DannyBee wrote: post #76
rhizome wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason they would ever get away with such a thing is because everyone hates facebook. The only reason? Can't it be because FB's behavior was criminal, and/or that FB's behavior has already created an international incident? Six4three can and should be held liable in a US court for this Under what principle?

FB's behavior is 100% irrelevant here. If they seized them from FB you may have an argument. But they didn't. As for holding them liable, this is a very clear violation of a protective order either way. The correct answer, as I said, is to take it to court, where Facebook, you know, the rightful owner of the documents, can intervene. If he actually was in possession of the documents, I would definitely push hard for…

I would think that it's germane and worth mentioning if the material on the laptop contained evidence of crimes committed, and also that the guy was subject to UK jurisdiction.

I mean, I see women showing their hair and ankles in public all the time, does that mean I can take a stick to them like mutawwi'a? No, because those laws simply do not reach the US.

If you're only referring to the SixWhatever guy's liabilities within US law, then I suppose we'll see how that plays out.

Re: Parliament seizes cache of Facebook internal papers

#83

Post by lixtra »

bobloblaw2 wrote: post #29
lixtra wrote: post #7

Looks like Six4Three is at fault here. It should have protected the papers to be not accessible by whoever is outside the US. We will see more of this as national jurisdictions collide with the international internet.

I'm not entirely sure that's the case. The guy is the CEO. So let's say he can't access it from the UK. The UK guys tell him "give us the documents or you go to jail". Well then he could ask an employee who is currently in the US to unlock them for him, maybe even give them his password. Basically, there is usually a way to get things done if there is a threat of jail pending. The greater issue is how the UK was allo…

Well, he can tell his employees beforehand to only accept such order if he is in the US. Otherwise the documents should not leave the country. Then he would have to reply that he is unable to provide access to the documents.

Another reply suggested that he should have contacted the US embassy and ask that he is forced to commit a crime in the US by UK. This would have lifted it to a diplomatic level.

From the circumstances it sounds possible that he wanted the documents published and was happy to be forced.

Re: Parliament seizes cache of Facebook internal papers

#84

Post by pmyteh »

Latteland wrote: post #79
johneth wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parliament is sovereign. Power flows from it. This means Parliament can do what it wants.

I've been told the uk has an unwritten constitution. But they must have limits, like the us. The us Congress can't make a law overriding the Supreme Court. What about in the uk? My point is countries are "soverign" but they often have legal limits on the leader, parliament etc. Parliament can't say sentence someone to death for making fun of them or something surely. In the us you can still plead the 5th amendment ev…

In theory, no - the doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty holds that there are no checks on the power of Parliament, which is absolute.

So if it chooses to have someone's head removed for spurious reasons it does in principle have the power (this would be an Act of Attainder, not used since the 18th Century, I think, and held to be so oppressive it's outlawed specifically in the US Constitution).

In practice, it's quite a lot more nuanced than that. Parliament is constrained by both politics (the public would be outraged by an Act of Attainder), international commitments (our EU membership, in particular, comes with supervening law which would make that a very costly action at a minimum), and historical practice.

The Facebook thing is a good example of these constraints. There's no question that Parliament could vote itself powerful and enforceable subpoena powers. And it has in centuries past. But it's also not used them recently, and done various other bits of legislating (e.g. the human rights act) which aren't compatible with arbitrary action. If the Commons tried to use its inherent power of imprisonment to enforce a subpoena, it might be overturned by a judge issuing a writ of Habeus Corpus on the grounds that the power is obsolete and in breach of the HRA. In principle, Parliament as a whole could pass an Act to prevent this, but it hasn't. So a lot of the checks that are constitutional in the US are conventional and institutional in the UK.

Finally, there are absolutely legal checks on the powers of the executive, which are enforced by the courts much as they would be in the US, though the source of these is basically law rather than constitution.

Re: Parliament seizes cache of Facebook internal papers

#85

Post by forgottenpass »

Latteland wrote: post #79
johneth wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parliament is sovereign. Power flows from it. This means Parliament can do what it wants.

I've been told the uk has an unwritten constitution. But they must have limits, like the us. The us Congress can't make a law overriding the Supreme Court. What about in the uk? My point is countries are "soverign" but they often have legal limits on the leader, parliament etc. Parliament can't say sentence someone to death for making fun of them or something surely. In the us you can still plead the 5th amendment ev…

>But they must have limits, like the us.

The limits on the U.S. government exist because we put them in our organic law (the Constitution) which is not solely the prerogative of the federal congress (or any lone state).

Remember this the next time someone questions the fact we're a federal republic in the context of a short-term setback.

Re: Parliament seizes cache of Facebook internal papers

#86

Post by Latteland »

slededit wrote: post #80
Latteland wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been told the uk has an unwritten constitution. But they must have limits, like the us. The us Congress can't make a law overriding the Supreme Court. What about in the uk? My point is countries are "soverign" but they often have legal limits on the leader, parliament etc. Parliament can't say sentence someone to death for making fun of them or something surely. In the us you can still plead the 5th amendment ev…

> Congress can't make a law overriding the Supreme Court Indeed they can, the Supreme court merely interprets the law. If congress decides to change the law then the Supreme Court's interpretation is moot. These days changing the constitution is politically infeasible so it may seem this way - but ultimate power rests with Congress.

Of course congress could amend the constitution, which I understood, but that takes 2/3rd of the states to support it. They can't make a regular law to overturn the supremes, right?

Re: Parliament seizes cache of Facebook internal papers

#87

Post by Latteland »

pmyteh wrote: post #84
Latteland wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been told the uk has an unwritten constitution. But they must have limits, like the us. The us Congress can't make a law overriding the Supreme Court. What about in the uk? My point is countries are "soverign" but they often have legal limits on the leader, parliament etc. Parliament can't say sentence someone to death for making fun of them or something surely. In the us you can still plead the 5th amendment ev…

In theory, no - the doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty holds that there are no checks on the power of Parliament, which is absolute. So if it chooses to have someone's head removed for spurious reasons it does in principle have the power (this would be an Act of Attainder, not used since the 18th Century, I think, and held to be so oppressive it's outlawed specifically in the US Constitution). In practice, it's qu…

Interesting, thanks for explaining stuff I didn't know. Is it concerning to people in the UK that the parliament has supreme power? What if an evil tyrant and her party had control of parliament, couldn't she make herself dictator for life? (I don't mean PM May, I mean in general :-)).

Re: Parliament seizes cache of Facebook internal papers

#88

Post by Latteland »

zorga wrote: post #69
Latteland wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parliament shouldn't be able compel any random company to hand over internal papers just on a whim. The police can't do that. You have to have a reason, and it can't be a fishing expedition as we say in the us. You must have cause to suspect something. In this case, it's unclear what the cause to justify this could be.

Whether parliament or congress, those who make the laws have the power to do whatever they want; they do not have to have a reason. Police don't make law, they follow law, your comparison is not applicable. Probable cause applies to police, not the law makers.

What I meant was the police can't compel someone to hand over anything arbitrarily, they have limits in democracies. Police interpret the law, and we see in the US it's hard not to interpret things to one's own benefit sometimes.

Re: Parliament seizes cache of Facebook internal papers

#89

Post by slededit »

Latteland wrote: post #86
slededit wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Congress can't make a law overriding the Supreme Court Indeed they can, the Supreme court merely interprets the law. If congress decides to change the law then the Supreme Court's interpretation is moot. These days changing the constitution is politically infeasible so it may seem this way - but ultimate power rests with Congress.

Of course congress could amend the constitution, which I understood, but that takes 2/3rd of the states to support it. They can't make a regular law to overturn the supremes, right?

The only reason they can’t make a “regular” law is because they made a law spelling out the process. Their power is restricted because they passed a law in the past saying it was restricted.

As the only body capable of updating the text of the law they have ultimate power. That they chose to constrain it was an altruistic act of a sovereign body. But only they (and their predecessor the continental congress) had the power to restrict themselves. The courts can only hold them to the text they themselves wrote.

Re: Parliament seizes cache of Facebook internal papers

#90

Post by sjg007 »

mtgx wrote: post #44
umichguy wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple answer: You want to do business in any country, you abide by their laws within their jurisdiction. Don't like it? Pull out. Simples. Don't you think the U.S. would not have done the same (probably would've done much sooner) if a company was repeatedly turning up its nose and thumbing it?

The us would do worse like sending FBI in other countries to arrest people. Or CIA.

In some cases it is called leverage and in cases where you don't have leverage then extraordinary rendition.
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