From the Associated Press:
The American Bar Association says it’s ethical for lawyers to scour online for publicly available musings of citizens called for jury service – and even jurors in deliberations.
But the ABA does warn lawyers against actively “following” or “friending” jurors or otherwise invading their private Internet areas.
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The ABA’s ethics committee began reviewing the issue about two years ago and concluded in April that looking at Facebook posts, Twitter tweets and other information gathered passively is ethical research.
“It’s like any other publicly available information,” said Donald Lundberg, an Indianapolis, Indiana, attorney who helped draft the ABA’s opinion as an ethics committee member.
Note: The full text of the formal opinion researched and written by the American Bar Association Standing Committee On Ethics And Professional Responsibility and discussed in the article is available online (9 pages; PDF).
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