In a newsworthy case in which retail giant Amazon and social media developer Foursquare Labs, among others, submitted friend of the court briefs, the New York Court of Appeals on April 4, 2017, affirmed the decisions of the Supreme Court and the Appellate Division, First Department, which denied Facebook’s motion to quash warrants issued to it by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and denied Facebook’s motion to compel disclosure of the district attorney’s supporting affidavit to its warrant application.
Despite the potential for addressing broad substantive issues of privacy and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, and issues of federalism and the applicability of a federal statute which establishes procedures a government body can use to compel information, the court hewed to the narrow procedural framework of the case and declined to address the broader issues—as the court put it “while it may be tempting for this Court to address these issues … we must first ascertain whether we possess the necessary jurisdiction.” Matter of 381 Search Warrants Directed to Facebook, 2017 N.Y. Lexis 767, 2; 2017 NY Slip op. 02586, 2 (N.Y. April 4, 2017).
