[VoiceOps] Subpoena

[Peter Beckman]

I'm not a lawyer, but I played one in a high school musical once.

OK, not really. The musical part.

The process I usually go through is:

     1. Read the subpoena
     2. Web search the law it states gives them the power to issue the subpoena
     3. Find a phone number of the entity NOT on the subpoena or the
        email/fax that sent it
     4. Call them and verify the voracity of the subpoena, the status of the
        individual who sent it AND the individual who is requested to receive
        it, if they are not the same individual.
     5. If the law seems reasonable to your un-lawyered logic, and the
        individual(s) involved were verified out of band, you should send
        the information.

I believe that if you respond to the subpoena and the individual was NOT
empowered to issue such a subpoena, the court will throw out such evidence
(and I would hope have it destroyed). You complying with a legal request,
and doing a bare minimum of validation, puts you in a good position to
justify the information disclosure.

If you can afford to have an attorney review every subpoena, great! If not,
and I suspect most of us don't, sanity check, reply, move on. Make sure
your TOS clearly states that you comply with all legal requests for
information.

My opinion only.

Beckman

On Wed, 8 Mar 2017, Dan White wrote:

> I'm not a lawyer.
>
> Not within the telecom context, but I have seen a Subpoena Duces Tecum
> signed by an officer of the court (a lawyer in a civil case). If there is a
> case number attached to the order, you might be able to verify if the city
> official is an officer of the court where the case was filed.
>
> You should consult with your company's attorney, as disregarding a subpoena
> could carry civil or criminal consequences.
>
> On 03/08/17 17:15 -0500, Jay Patel wrote:
>> Hi
>> 
>> Has anyone seen subpoena signed by local city official?  We usually get
>> subpoena for CDR request signed by  Judge.
>> 
>> This is first time we saw a  local city official asking for CDR. We really
>> want to know industry practice for this kind of request.
>> 
>> Thanks in advance.
>> 
>> -Jay
>
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>> https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
>
>
> -- 
> Dan White
> _______________________________________________
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> VoiceOps at voiceops.org
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>

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Peter Beckman                                                  Internet Guy
beckman at angryox.com                                 http://www.angryox.com/
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