Facebook Wins NJ Search Warrant Fight Over User Communications

New Jersey can’t obtain the future communications of Facebook Inc. users in nearly real time based only on probable cause, but must first obtain a wiretap order providing heightened privacy protection, the state’s high court ruled.

New Jersey sought to compel Facebook to provide the contents of two users’ accounts every 15 minutes for the 30 following days based on a communications data warrant, the equivalent of a search warrant.

That wasn’t good enough, Justice Stuart Rabner said in a Thursday ruling.

“The nearly contemporaneous acquisition of electronic communications here is the functional equivalent of wiretap surveillance and is therefore ...