Case 1:20-mc-00036-JEB-DAR Document 8 Filed 08/04/20 Page 10 of 18 ARGUMENT Facebook is committed to working with and providing information to the relevant authorities as they investigate international crimes in Myanmar, as it has publicly stated. But an application under Section 1782 is not the proper means for The Gambia to pursue the discovery it seeks from Facebook. This Court should deny the application for the reasons set forth below.1 I. The Application asks the Court to issue a subpoena in violation of federal law. The application does not comply with federal law. In particular, the Stored Communications Act (“SCA”) prohibits Facebook from disclosing the content of the communications of its account holders in response to a civil subpoena like this, absent a statutory exception, even where those account holders are foreign governments and high-ranking foreign officials accused of genocide. The SCA promotes the privacy of electronic communications by strictly limiting the circumstances under which providers may divulge them. It mandates that “a person or entity providing an electronic communication service to the public shall not knowingly divulge to any person or entity the contents of a communication while in electronic storage by that service.” 18 U.S.C. § 2702(a)(1).2 Because Facebook (and Instagram) are providers of an “electronic communication service,” see In re Facebook, Inc., 923 F. Supp. 2d 1204, 1206 (N.D. Cal. 2012), 1 This opposition brief addresses the grounds for denying the application outright. If the application is granted, Facebook reserves the right to challenge each request in a motion to quash. See In re: Application of Joint Stock Co. Raiffeinsenbank, 2016 WL 6474224, at *7 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 2, 2016) (decision to grant Section 1782 application “does not preclude [the respondent] from bringing a motion to quash or modify the subpoena[]” on grounds of “intrusiveness, relevance, breadth, or burdensomeness”). 2 The law was enacted in response to Congress’s concern that if governments or members of the public could obtain people’s private information from service providers—who maintain such records as part of their role in transmitting and storing data—then people would not trust the privacy of electronic communications, providers would become inundated with third-party requests, and innovations in communications technology would cease. 6