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There is a growing concern among the people in the international media over the increasing number of search warrants agencies like FBI, DEA and ICE receive to pry into files and data on Facebook.

Reuters documents a review of Westlaw legal database by which since 2008 judges have authorized more than two dozens warrants to search people’s Facebook accounts. Federal judges were looking for personal data, messages, status updates, links to videos and photos, wall postings and even friends request rejections.

The crimes the federal judges request this kind of access for range from rape to terrorism.

The search warrants of the federal agencies demand even “Neoprint” and “Photoprint” information, which is a way Facebook uses to describe a detailed package of profile and photo information which is unavailable for the Facebook user himself.

The manuals of law enforcement in the United States contain information on how to demand these packages when requesting Facebook to allow access to private data.

The manuals seem to have been prepared by Facebook itself, though the company denied it had done so.

FBI

Reuters says it is hard to determine how many warrants were served on Facebook over the years, but the number is at least eleven since the beginning of 2011, which is double as compared to the number last year.

Facebook declined, when asked, how many such warrants were served on the company, but reaffirmed that the company cares about the privacy of its members and that usually it rejects federal “fishing expedition.”

The most famous such case when the authorities present social networks with search warrants happened last year, when Icelandic Member of Parliament Birgitta Jónsdóttir claimed that Twitter had been subpoenaed by authorities to allow access to her personal files and conversations with Julian Assange, the editor of the famous whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks. It was not known whether in this case Facebook received a similar request.

What is striking is that none of these warrant requests was challenged on the grounds that it violated the Fourth Amendment of the American Constitution, which protects against unlawful search and seizure.

One reason for that could be that the people whose accounts had been placed at the disposal of authorities.

According to the law, neither Facebook nor the government are under the obligation to inform the user that the account has been searched, even though the law enforcement agencies must disclose material evidence to the users. Twitter made it a policy to inform the users of the fact that authorities have demanded them to show them the files.

One of the most renowned cases in America was of the four Satanists who burnt down a church in Ohio. FBI requested access to their Facebook accounts and eventually they were captured.

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