cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/1874605
A 17-year-old from Nebraska and her mother are facing criminal charges including performing an illegal abortion and concealing a dead body after police obtained the pair’s private chat history from Facebook, court documents published by Motherboard show.
Someone somewhere along the chain of command would have to give the order to ignore the subpoena. That person would presumably be held responsible as an individual, just like you or me.
They could get contempt of court charges and spend time in jail, pretty much arbitrarily long - as long as judge feels
What? You think individuals in corporations are held accountable in the US?
It happens occasionally although you are more or less correct. My state’s old governor was the CEO of a company that committed at the time the largest healthcare fraud in US history.
Instead of going to jail he became the governor.
So ya I see your point. I would still of course be hesitant to push my luck and ignore a subpoena. Pushed hard enough, they will get ya. Look at how Epstein was eventually out in jail.
I suppose mainly it’s about money and power. It’s rare for someone really wealthy to suffer serious consequences. Before Epstein went to prison, he got a ridiculous deal from the guy who was later Trump’s Sec of Labor, Acosta, where he had to report to prison each night but was out for 12 hours a day or something… since, you know, his work is so important because he was wealthy.
I’m not sure about individuals, but a company can be sanctioned in various ways for ignoring a subpoena… usually something like being prohibited to operate in a state, or being dissolved. Fairly unlikely that would happen to a company the size of facebook. I guess I’m not sure whether a subpoena like the one in the article is addressed to a corporation in general, a department of the company, or an individual?