Something strange and disturbing happened in the UK this weekend. That it targeted pariah du jour Facebook doesn't make it any less bizarre or worrisome.
The short story is this: peeved at being blown off repeatedly by Mark Zuckerberg and other Facebook representatives, members of Parliament shook down an American third party for documents possibly related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The long story -- broken by Carole Cadwalladr of The Guardian -- fills in the details.
But first a little background: Six4Three, developers of a scuzzy app that scanned profiles for bikini photos, is currently suing Facebook for yanking its API access. The lawsuit has traveled from the federal court system to a California state court, where Six4Three is hoping for a ruling declaring Facebook's actions to be a violation of various state-level competitive business laws.
During the course of this suit -- which was filed in January 2017 -- Six4Three has obtained internal Facebook documents through discovery. These documents may contain info related to Facebook's data-sharing and data-selling practices, which could possibly include its deals with Cambridge Analytica.
Somehow, members of Parliament found out one of Six4Three's lawyers execs was in London. So, this happened:
Damian Collins, the chair of the culture, media and sport select committee, invoked a rare parliamentary mechanism to compel the founder of a US software company, Six4Three, to hand over the documents during a business trip to London. In another exceptional move, parliament sent a serjeant at arms to his hotel with a final warning and a two-hour deadline to comply with its order. When the software firm founder failed to do so, it’s understood he was escorted to parliament. He was told he risked fines and even imprisonment if he didn’t hand over the documents.
Let's break this down: the UK government wants answers from Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. Since Facebook hasn't been compliant, the UK government feels justified in taking documents obtained through discovery in a US lawsuit from an American lawyer currently suing Facebook… just because he happened to roam into its jurisdiction.
This is insane.
As an added twist, the documents the lawyer was forced to turn over are currently under seal. That means no one in the US other than the litigants and the judge have access to them. At least that was the case until Parliament's bizarre, heavy-handed move.
Facebook has responded with some fluff about Six4Three's creepy app (not really relevant) and a reminder that the documents seized from its opponent's lawyer are, at this point, privileged information. MP Collins has responded with a shrug, reminding Facebook's legal rep that the UK is not California so who cares what a local court has to say about who can see what documents.
It's unlikely the California court will find Six4Three's lawyer in contempt for being pretty much arrested and threatened with indefinite imprisonment if he didn't hand over documents it has ordered sealed. Facebook has asked that no members of Parliament view the documents until it has heard back from the California court. This has been greeted with a different kind of contempt:
Facebook said: “The materials obtained by the DCMS committee are subject to a protective order of the San Mateo Superior Court restricting their disclosure. We have asked the DCMS committee to refrain from reviewing them and to return them to counsel or to Facebook.” Too late.
— Ian Lucas MP (@IanCLucas) November 25, 2018
If you can't read/see the tweet, it's from MP Ian Lucas and reads:
Facebook said: “The materials obtained by the DCMS committee are subject to a protective order of the San Mateo Superior Court restricting their disclosure. We have asked the DCMS committee to refrain from reviewing them and to return them to counsel or to Facebook.” Too late.
Parliament may now have some of the answers Facebook has refused to provide. But was it worth it? The UK government acted more like an authoritarian dictatorship than a free country with this move. It detained a lawyer who didn't even work for Facebook and threatened him with jail time if he didn't turn over documents a judge in his home country had ordered sealed. The next few days should see some interesting iterations of the "ends justifies the means" pontificating from every Parliament member supportive of this damaging move.
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