sorry, but ...

[Roland Perry]

In article <op.wh1x0btp6hl8nm at clerew.man.ac.uk>, Charles Lindsey 
<chl at clerew.man.ac.uk> writes
>If Alice's Facebook account is setup so that all the world can see her 
>messages, then there is no issue, because Law Enforcement officers are 
>a  subset of "all the world", and they can just "look".
>
>If, as is more likely, only Alice's "friends" can see them, then 
>Facebook  have set up a communication system that allows messages to be 
>sent from  Alice to those Friends (whether or not the Friends need to 
>log on to  Facebook in order to read them). Thus Facebook is providing 
>"mere conduit"  as well as storage facilities accessible only by Alice 
>+ Friends.
>
>Now if all the Friends are situated in the UK

A huge assumption. My Facebook friends are literally all over the world. 
Even someone with a UK-based work life is quite likely to have at least 
one relative abroad.

>, then any message is  inevitably both 'sent' and 'received' within the 
>UK, and is therefore  internal, since it seems to be agreed that a 
>server, wherever located,  which provides mere conduit, or temporary 
>buffering/storage to facilitate  such conduit, is itself neither a 
>sender nor a receiver.
>
>Now if one of Alice's friends (say Bob) happens to reside outside the 
>UK,  then things might get more interesting, since every message is 
>potentially  from Alice to Bob (but what if Bob never actually bothers 
>to read it).

Bob may have an email alert, which means he'll get sent the message 
whether he wants it or not. Similarly, if Bob has a Tweetdeck account 
linked to his Facebook, he'll be "pushed" many of the postings that way.

This is all far to technology specific to be of use making law, however. 
You simply have to assume that there will be a Bob, and he will get the 
message.
-- 
Roland Perry