November/December 2007
The Facebook Ruling
In a quickly convened hearing on Saturday, December 1st, Judge Douglas Woodlock of Federal District Court in Boston ruled against Facebook's attempt to force 02138 to remove The Facebook Files from our website. Read the full transcript of the hearing here.
The gist of the transcript is this: Lawyers for Facebook argued that the documents we posted, which came from the ConnectU v. Facebook lawsuit, were sealed, and that the only way 02138 could have obtained them was from the plaintiffs' side of that lawsuit, as the defendants certainly would not have provided the documents.
Facebook made this argument despite 02138 writer Luke O'Brien's public statement that he had received the documents from a court clerk when O'Brien asked to read the legal proceedings in the ConnectU v. Facebook lawsuit.
Facebook argued that it had evidence that appeared to prove that the documents came from the plaintiffs. For example, it hired a handwriting analyst who claimed that handwritten notes in the margin of one document likely came from Divya Narendra, one of the plaintiffs.
In fact, the handwriting belonged to Luke O'Brien, who had jotted notes in the margins of the photocopied documents he was using to write his story, Poking Facebook.
To further establish the origins of the documents, Facebook suggested that it would seek information such as O'Brien's and 02138's telephone and e-mail records.
02138 argued that the documents were of journalistic value and relevant to public discussion of public issues, and moreover, that the documents were legally obtained and legally posted.
Judge Woodlock ruled that Facebook's arguments did not merit injunctive relief, saying, "There hasn't been shown to be a justification for inflicting the harm against the First Amendment which a prior restraint would impose." (Page 98 the transcript .) Judge Woodlock added, "What 02138 undertook was, it seems to me, core First Amendment activity, to comment upon matters of public interest. Moreover, the appending of the source documents is, it seems to me, fundamentally beneficial to expression....[and] a salutary development in journalism generally, one that one can treat as providing for a more democratic, if unruly, form of expressive activity." (Page 93)
The Facebook Files remain posted.
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