The Stored Communications Act: Protecting Privacy Rights in Cyberspace

摘要

Email and social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and Linkedln, are informal communications media in which hundreds of millions of users indulge daily. Users often have their guard down when authoring emails or social site posts and such communications often are stored on one or more servers long after they are authored. Frequently these technologies are time stamped and, in their digital form, electronically searchable.More and more litigators recognize the value in scrutinizing emails and posts (collectively, e-communications) for nuggets of information to support their clients'positions in litigation. According to a recent survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, 81 percent of responding attorneys found and used evidence from social sites in litigation, most of which were obtained from Facebook.