{"id":41913,"date":"2020-01-21T04:16:29","date_gmt":"2020-01-21T09:16:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=41913"},"modified":"2020-01-21T04:16:29","modified_gmt":"2020-01-21T09:16:29","slug":"the-intercept-facebook-warrant-targeting-student-journalists-in-puerto-rico-prompts-fears-of-political-surveillance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=41913","title":{"rendered":"The Intercept: Facebook Warrant Targeting Student Journalists in Puerto Rico Prompts Fears of Political Surveillance"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Intercept: Facebook Warrant Targeting Student Journalists in Puerto Rico Prompts Fears of Political Surveillance<\/a> by Alleen Brown & Alice Speri. After student protests to budget cuts at Puerto Rico’s university, seven were charged. Apparently Facebook search warrants were used:
\n<\/p>\n

How exactly V\u00e1zquez\u2019s Justice Department determined which students to charge out of the dozens who participated in the protest has remained a mystery to defense attorneys. The lawyers\u2019 suspicion: that the case isn\u2019t about crimes committed in the boardroom that day, but rather an attempt to penalize the political activity of some of the most active student organizers. The seven facing trial were members of the student strikers\u2019 negotiating committee as well as political organizations critical of the government.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we are alleging is that they selected them based on their participation in the strike, that those who were leaders in the strike were the ones who were selected,\u201d said Marisol S\u00e1ez Matos, one of the defense attorneys on the case.<\/p>\n

The documents released to defense attorneys provide further evidence of a broad and invasive hunt for prosecutable crimes related to the protests. An agent from the cybercrimes unit of Puerto Rico\u2019s Justice Department sought a search warrant for the records of virtually every Facebook interaction over a 72-hour period with the three publications that livestreamed the protest. The agent obtained private messages with the publications\u2019 followers and detailed information about the student journalists who managed the pages.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe consider this to be a violation of our rights as a free press,\u201d said Marisol Nazario Bonilla, who was Pulso Estudiantil\u2019s director when the existence of the warrant came to light. She told The Intercept that the warrant could have put confidential sources at risk. \u201cIf this happened to a student media outlet, it could happen to local, national newspapers, or news outlets in general.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Intercept: Facebook Warrant Targeting Student Journalists in Puerto Rico Prompts Fears of Political Surveillance by Alleen Brown & Alice Speri. After student protests to budget cuts at Puerto Rico’s university, seven were charged. Apparently Facebook search warrants were used:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-media-warrants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41913"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41914,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41913\/revisions\/41914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}