海角大神

Fishing for marlin. Teaching karate. Flying helicopters.

Such are the activities you should not participate in 鈥� or at least brag about on Facebook 鈥� when fraudulently collecting disability payments from the government.

But that鈥檚 exactly what at least 106 New York City police officers, firefighters, and other civil servants had been doing for years, according to Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., who indicted the alleged fraudsters in January.

A main source of evidence in Mr. Vance鈥檚 case were the brazen photos the suspects placed on their Facebook profiles 鈥� as well as their private messages and other personal info typically unavailable to the public. When investigators obtained a search warrant for the information from the social media site last summer, the company fought back, arguing that the search was 鈥渦nreasonable鈥� under the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution.

Facebook lost, but in June the social media company filed an appeal. And on Monday, lawyers representing Foursquare, Kickstarter, Tumblr, and Meetup 鈥� as well as the American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union 鈥� said they would join the fight on Facebook鈥檚 side.

This move has set the central stage in the growing battle between social media organizations and law enforcement officials. The former say that mass warrants allowing access to every aspect of hundreds of accounts is a gross breach of digital-era privacy, while the latter describes these relatively new personal information databases as a valid investigative resource.

鈥淲ith the burgeoning tech industry in New York, the need to protect the privacy of users has never been greater,鈥� Richard Howell, a former judge representing the four tech companies,聽told the Associated Press.

In Facebook鈥檚 filing in June, the organization said that the original search warrant, which included 381 accounts, including those of high school students and grandmothers, was 鈥渢he equivalent of searching a neighborhood of nearly 400 homes.鈥�

Prosecutors, in response, noted that they had given New York Supreme Court Justice Melissa Jackson over 93 pages of details on why the accounts would be targeted.

The decision in Facebook鈥檚 original challenge, however, hinged not only on whether the search was 鈥渞easonable鈥� as proscribed by the Constitution, but also on the social media company鈥檚 legal standing.

In the first round of the company鈥檚 legal challenge, a Manhattan judge ruled that the group lacked the right to battle the warrants on behalf of their customers. Moreover, the company could not inform their customers of the searches in the New York fraud case, as doing so would jeopardize the investigation.

鈥淭he real question is, 鈥楥an they challenge warrants for their customers?鈥� 鈥� Orin Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University with expertise in digital searches,聽told The New York Times. 鈥淎nd the answer is probably not, under current law.鈥�

Facebook attorneys, for their part, have said this legal setup creates an impossible Catch-22 in which no one can legally appeal a violation of the Fourth Amendment when it comes to social media.

鈥淚t appeared to us from the outset that there would be a large number of people who were never charged in court,鈥� Chris Sonderby, deputy chief counsel to Facebook,聽said to the Times. 鈥淭he district attorney鈥檚 response was that these people would have their day in court. There are more than 300 people that will never have that chance.鈥�

The case is the second high-profile court battle regarding law enforcement searches of social media.

In 2012, a New York judge ruled that an Occupy protestor active on the social media website Twitter had no standing to challenge a subpoena for his archived tweets. That decision was tailored in narrow terms, however, as it relied on Twitter鈥檚 specific terms of service regarding tweets posted on the site.

This report includes material from The Associated Press.