We really need to read and understand the legal complaint.

Northwest may have a legitimate issue with certain employees or they may believe confidential information may have been disclosed.

It's hard to draw conclusions about this matter without first understanding the complaint.

Can the complaint be posted here?

RC

[This message has been edited by Radiocycle (edited 01-16-2003).]

SHould be able to post the document, as it is obtainable at the court office.

Requesting ISP records via supeona is getting to be common practice in many suits-especially divorces. Sometimes it is merely a "fishing expedition" trying to find dirt on the employee or spouse (such as lurking in chat rooms with sexual content, etc)

Let me clear something up here: FlyerTalk has not been approached about this and I have no personal knowledge. Any actions come from outside of FlyerTalk and may not actually involve FlyerTalk since we have not been contacted.

If true I do have an interest and would welcome being invited to help any member of FlyerTalk remain private.

I for all intent and purposes continue to beleive that FlyerTalk is a private Web site - thus registration is necessary - and subject to the rights of such.

We have in the past asked local law personnel to get involved with ISPs only in regard to former members who clearly have identified themselves as trying to harm FlyerTalk. A recent member - jimpop - fits into this classification when asked politely to cease and desist from posting or registering on FlyerTalk to harass other members. Members who don't want to play nice with others will warrant this type of response from us, but i sense this is not the same.

Again, FlyerTalk and I personally have not been contacted in any way with what I read here. We are not participants to anything involving this member, whomever he/she is.

For being currently involved in a case in which my own electronic records are being subpoenaed, I'll venture the following comments:

By sending a subpoena to the ISP, the plaintiff might be trying to obtain transactional info (time-date stamp/IP addresses) that will establish the link between the owner of the account (whose identity they know) and a post on FT.

I doubt that the ISP would retain the content of the posts, and in any case since all posts are viewable on FT the plaintiffs only need to do a search to get that.

I suppose that since FT logs (but does not display) the IP address of posters, the plaintiff could also issue a subpoena to FT to clearly establish the link.

Believe me, these things are not fun. It's scary what lawyers are entitled to.



[This message has been edited by Droneklax (edited 01-18-2003).]

The views expressed in this message do not always represent the views of Northwest Airlines, NWA Inc., or any Northwest subsidiary or business/marketing partner. Nor have I, nor any other poster on this forum, ever declared myself to be an emissary of NWA, Inc.

If an employee is posting company communications that are not to be public knowledge, then I believe the company should first contact the employee in question and advise that his/her actions are inappropriate.

The company's legal department obviously had the internet addresses as being @yahoo.com or the subpoena would not have been sent to Yahoo!. Therefore, if they knew the email addresses, why not contact the parties in question via that email address to inquire as to why they were posting what they did and try to clear up any misunderstandings or issues that might be detrimental to the company?

PARSPro:

As I have stated previously, ANY unapproved airline employee postings can be construed as "inappropriate". NWA, like most other large companies, has authorized spokespeople and PR firms to interact with the public via the media. A known airline employee posting on FT is acting as an unauthorized spokesperson, even if that was not the intent.

A disclaimer does not do anything to change that fact, and I'll use a phrase from your disclaimer ("The views expressed in this message do not always represent the views of Northwest Airlines...") to give you an example as to why. That phrase makes it clear that you may not always "tow the company line", but how is the public-at-large supposed to know when you are towing the line vs. when you aren't? ALL of your statements may be in line with NW policy, or NONE of them may be. The confusion and misunderstandings that may result could ultimately prove harmful to the principal, in this case NWA.

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Thank you for choosing Continental Airlines, a proud member of the SkyTeam Alliance.

This may be somewhat isolated incidents that NWA has a justification to investigate.

Without more information on the reason why Northwest is investigating the Yahoo ISP we can only speculate.

Is there anyone at Northwest in the legal department that can explain why this matter is being investigated, or because it is an ongoing investigation will they probably decl;ine to comment?

I have followed this discussion carefully since it began, and it is completely true that most of it is speculation. We know very little, and I am surprised so much discussion can be engendered by pure speculation, and no specific information. Even the original poster has been unable to provide any facts in the case, and appears to have no direct knowledge of it. Literally, we don't know what we are talking about. And talking about "what if" scenarios, with no grounding in reality, is probably more harmful than helpful.

We don't even have a clue yet that this has anything to do with FT! All we know is that NW has subpoena'ed someone's online records in a dispute. Until someone looks at the complaint, any discussion on whether it even relates to FT is premature -- or did I miss something in this discussion?

Here's an interesting spin on things. Was over in the Yahoo NWAC forum and saw this...
Link to Yahoo Thread

Wonder whats got NWAC so up in a tizzy?

With regards to the posts on the Yahoo site, I think Bugs Bunny said it best, "What a bunch of maroons".

DCAview found this and posted it on page 1 of this thread:

Here's what came up from a Pacer search. At first glance it looks like a breach of contract suit Northwest has filed against as many as 10 unknown people. Perhaps someone with a bit more legal knowledge can translate this. Sorry for the awkward formatting.
---------------------------------------------
U.S. District Court

U.S. District Court - Massachusetts (Boston)

CIVIL DOCKET FOR CASE #: 02-CV-12491

Northwest Airlines, v. Does

Filed: 12/30/02
Assigned to: Judge Mark L. Wolf
Jury demand: Plaintiff
Demand: $0,000
Nature of Suit: 190
Lead Docket: None
Jurisdiction: Diversity
Dkt# in other court: None
Cause: 28:1332 Diversity-Breach of Contract

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NORTHWEST AIRLINES, INC. John Miller
Plaintiff [COR LD NTC]
Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris,
Glovsky & Popeo, P.C.
One Financial Center
Boston, MA 02111
617-542-6000
v.
JOHN DOES, John Does 1-10
Defendant


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


DOCKET PROCEEDINGS


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DATE # DOCKET ENTRY

12/30/02 1 Complaint filed. Case assigned to Judge: Wolf. Receipt #:
44088 Amount:$ 150.00. Fee Status: pd (ktb)
[Entry date 01/02/03]

12/30/02 -- Summons issued for John Does 1-10 (ktb)
[Entry date 01/02/03]

So we know it is "breach of contract". There is nothing unclear about that.

This could very well NOT be targeting employees; it could be someone they think breached their contract of carriage, or the "contract" you agree to as part of your WP enrollment process. We won't know until someone posts the entire complaint.

I just purchased a cyber scrub package for deleting information on your computer. When I linked over to the companies main site there was a very interesting article about NWA Subpoening employees computers in regards to a "sick out" staged by the unions and the flight attendants. Here is the link:

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-11-502433.html?legacy=zdnn

Seeing as this article is almost three years old, I do not think it is about the current subpoena, but it does give a good heads up as to what Companies are capable of doing to your personal computer. There may have been a similar "incident" more recently that NWA is looking into.

[This message has been edited by wldtrvlr (edited 02-16-2003).]

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[This message has been edited by welookgood.com (edited 02-16-2003).]