Facebook rebuffed the defense attorney???s subpoena seeking access to the conversation, citing the federal Stored Communications Act, which protects the privacy of electronic communications like e-mail ??? but which carves out an exemption for law enforcement, thus assisting prosecutors. ???It???s so one-sided ??? they cooperate 110 percent anytime someone in the government asks for information,??? one Oregon attorney told the Portland Oregonian, citing a separate case in which Facebook withheld conversations that could have disproved a rape charge, but turned over the same conversations when the prosecution demanded them.

Other defense attorneys voice similar complaints, and the judge in the murder case went so far as to call Facebook ???flippant??? and ???frustrating??? in its handling of the defense???s subpoenas. Facebook, for its part, has said it is inundated with judicial requests and tries to handle them uniformly within the confines of the law.

If you’ve done nothing wrong, you may not be able to get the evidence to show that.