Motion to Seal the Saudi Crown Prince's WhatsApp Number

There's something you don't see every day; looks reasonable to me as a legal matter, but struck me as worth noting. The underlying case is Oueiss v. Bin Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, No. 1:20-cv-25022 (S.D. Fla.), a case in which plaintiff, an Al Jazeera anchor, alleges a conspiracy to hack, libel, and more. From Bloomberg:

An Al Jazeera news anchor sued the crown princes of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for allegedly hacking into her phone and stealing and doctoring images to disparage and intimidate her on social media.

Ghada Oueiss claims she was a target of the harassment because of her reporting on human rights abuses, according to her complaint filed on Wednesday [Dec. 9, 2020] in Miami federal court. Her suit names Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia and Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the UAE as defendants, as well as other officials and agents of those nations….

Here's an excerpt from the motion to seal:

Given the anticipated difficulties of effecting service on certain Defendants, … Plaintiff has filed the Ex Parte Motion, in which Plaintiff requests the Court's permission to serve MBS [Mohammed Bin Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud], MBZ, al Bannai, Al Qahtani, Al-Asaker, DarkMatter, MiSK, Zeinab, al Otaibi, Al Menaia, Al-Owerde (together, the "Foreign Defendants") via alternative means pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(f)(3).

In support of the Ex Parte Motion, and for the Court's ease of reference, Plaintiff
intends to file Exhibit "K" to the Declaration of Daniel Rashbaum [D.E. 5-1], which is a chart containing the relevant addresses (physical, email, social media) at which Plaintiff proposes she be permitted to serve each of the Foreign Defendants.

Among the alternative means proposed in the Ex Parte Motion, Plaintiff requests the Court's permission to serve MBS via WhatsApp, and Plaintiff therefore intends to include MBS's WhatsApp number in Exhibit "K."

Given that MBS is the current Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, however, his WhatsApp telephone number is highly sensitive information that is not in the public domain….

Plaintiff requests that she be permitted to preserve the confidentiality of MBS's WhatsApp telephone number by filing Exhibit "K" under seal.

Comments

[John Hawkinson]

> “looks reasonable to me as a legal matter,”

Maaaybe? But also unnecessary grandstanding? Does the Court really need the specificity of the actual WhatsApp number? It does not seem like including the actual number in the exhibit should have any bearing on the Court’s resolution of the Rule 4(f)(3) motion for service by alternate means.

So the proper course would be to omit the number rather than attempting to seal the entire exhibit. One could speculate the plaintiff hopes to not be required to file a redacted copy on the public record, so is using the Whatsapp number to bootstrap sealing of everything else in the exhibit? If so, that could raise concerns, too.

[nonzenze]

They’re only asking to seal one exhibit, which is only the personal information used to serve. The rest of the case is filed.

[Bob from Ohio]

We should not let employees of Al Queda’s propaganda arm sue in our courts.

[Martinned]

MBS is the defendant…

[Noscitur a sociis]

Forget it, he’s rolling.

[Noscitur a sociis]

(I assume Bob is thinking of Al Jazeera as “Al Queda’s propaganda arm”.)

[Bob from Ohio]

Of course.

[Aunt Teefah]

Well that’s not being a very good ally! We’ll sell them hundreds of billions of dollars of high-tech weapons and assist their commission of war crimes in Yemen, but won’t let them sue in our courts?

[Bob from Ohio]

Al Jazeera

[Aunt Teefah]

Wait, you think Al Jazeera – the news organization – not the Saudis, the state that invented, exported, and continues to support Wahhabism, is the party to this suit that is “Al Queda’s propaganda arm”? Good lord.

[Milhouse]

Um, yes. That is how it has been functioning for at least 20 years.

[Rossami]

The request to seal seems reasonable. I’m not sure what the connection to US courts is, though.

From what I can tell, all the relevant parties are overseas and all the alleged hacking took place there as well. The plaintiff describes herself as “an international journalist who has a significant presence in the U.S. and abroad … and as a frequent contributor to U.S. news agencies” but that doesn’t seem like it ought to be enough to get to tie up US courts rather than your own country’s courts.

She alleges unnamed “co-conspirators in the U.S. and elsewhere” but that seems like it should be entirely too speculative.

[Martinned]

Who knows? Maybe it was an iPhone and the allegation is that Apple helped. Or the CIA. Or whoever.

Given normal forum non conveniens/forum of necessity logic, she may not need all that much of a link to the forum state.

[Eugene Volokh]

She names particular individual defendants (see the Complaint), some of whom are in Florida.

[كلام تقني]

I think after Bezos’s team found evidence regarding MBS hacking his phone using Whatsapp it’s a reasonable case!

[HarberCandelario]

Perhaps the problem is with the prince using Whatsapp GB version.

[whatsapp omar]

thank you too much