Sixth Circuit Upholds TWC Ruling in Child Pornography Complaint
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court dismissal of Stored Communications Act complaints against Time Warner Cable for giving the wrong basic subscriber information in response to a grand jury subpoena. U.S. District Court Judge Patricia…
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Gaughan of Cleveland in 2014 tossed out a suit brought earlier that year by the Long family of Chardon, Ohio, against Insight Communications of Central Ohio, doing business as Time Warner Cable, after law enforcement searched the Long family house as part of an online child pornography investigation, only to determine that TWC had provided the wrong house address through a clerical error in running the IP address in question. In the 6th Circuit ruling filed Friday, Gaughan said the Longs "have not alleged any facts (or argued that there are any facts) to suggest that TWC was aware of the error at the time of the disclosure," that they have no claims for negligent disclosure of private information under Ohio law because that governs only records maintained by a public agency, and that the TWC subscriber agreement explains that the Electronic Communications Privacy Act allows for the subpoena of personally identifiable information by government entities in some circumstances.