ALBANY – Facebook lacks legal grounds to challenge the Manhattan district attorney’s search warrants for contents of personal accounts held by 381 Facebook customers, New York state’s highest court ruled Tuesday.
While conceding that “novel and important substantive issues” are implicated by Matter of 381 Search Warrants directed to Facebook (New York County District Attorney’s Office), 16, the majority of the state Court of Appeals said the state’s Criminal Procedure Law (CPL) simply does not authorize the social media platform to challenge the criminal warrants issued in 2013 by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. The appeals court therefore does not have jurisdiction to intervene, the court said in a majority ruling by Judge Leslie Stein.
