Full Disclosure mailing list archives

Re: Facebook Police


From: "Thor (Hammer of God)" <thor () hammerofgod com>
Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2009 10:00:51 -0800

Ultimately, I think you are right.  Illegal is illegal, and police techniques are police techniques.  In a cut-and-dry 
analytical world, I would have to agree with you.

However, under-age drinking in Wisconsin is NOT a criminal offence.  This from UoW:
http://www.uwstout.edu/aod/laws/wisconsin_laws/age_laws.html

"Can I Be Arrested? Underage drinking is not a criminal offense. However, a person may be detained by an officer as 
long as required to conduct an investigation. Sometimes arrests result because of other incident-related circumstances."


There just seems to be something wrong about this.  Sure, people use fake names on facebook all the time.  I even tried 
to create a "His Hand" account to goof about with the relationship status.  But these cops are willfully and 
purposefully using a third party service against policy, and facebook is allowing them to do so.  They are gathering 
"evidence" under false pretenses - last time I checked, that WAS illegal.  And it's not "public."  The privacy settings 
are there to explicitly PREVENT public access.  I also don't like that they can use a picture (that they don't know how 
old is) as evidence.  I mean, a picture of a 19 year old holding a beer should not make a case.  But they pleaded 
(plead?) no contest.  But still, I see you point and I guess I have to agree conceptually.  I still don't like it.  
These kids can be sent to war and die for their country, but if they have a beer at a friend's house, some fat-ass 
Wisconsin cop pretending to be some hot chick on FB can come arrest them because they posted a pix of themselves 
holding a beer.  How much time does it take?  What is the cost of the arrest?  And what lasting value add does this 
procedure create?  The kids are not going to stop drinking;  they'll just be more careful about posting pix.  The cops 
get to sit back in their office and surf facebook and make "easy" arrests rather than doing their job and arresting the 
aforementioned Chippewa Rapists and still get to justify their existence.  It's disgusting.  And who says a parent or 
guardian was not present?  How do they know they are not married to someone who IS of drinking age?  I bet the poor 
sobs don't even know that they are being arrested for something that is not even a criminal office.  

THAT'S the issue I see here....

t

-----Original Message-----
From: full-disclosure-bounces () lists grok org uk [mailto:full-disclosure-bounces () lists grok org uk] On Behalf Of 
Rohit Patnaik
Sent: Friday, November 27, 2009 8:55 AM
To: full-disclosure () lists grok org uk
Subject: Re: [Full-disclosure] Facebook Police

Actually, I'm not sure what the issue is here.  Facebook is a public forum.  Underage drinking is an illegal act.  If
you post evidence of yourself committing an illegal act to a public forum, the police are free to come and arrest you,
and use the pictures that you posted as evidence against you.

The only complaint here seems to be that the police violated Facebook's Terms of Service in "friending" these underage
drinkers and gathering evidence against them.  However, I'm not sure how that's illegal in any way.  If it were,
undercover investigations and sting operations of all sorts would be illegal.

As I see it, these are kids who were caught out in their own stupidity, for doing something that they know to be
illegal, and then posting pictures.  Now these same kids are whining because the police were marginally more tech-savvy
than they assumed.

--Rohit Patnaik
 
On Fri, Nov 27, 2009 at 10:32:53AM +0100, netinfinity wrote:
 "Facebook policy requires the use of one’s real name to sign up, but
they let the police use fake names.."

Sure the policy says that but a lot of people are changing their names
on a daily basis (ok maybe not daily). And majority of those changes
are
just for fun, but never the less they are against the policy. What
about those people? Only way to verify or check someone's name is
through IP (ISP). And that can't be done
by will.. It must have some legal grounds...

Let me get to the point, I'm sure that police is violating some some
kind of human rights or even law's (?)

-- 
netinfinity

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_______________________________________________
Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html
Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/
_______________________________________________
Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html
Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/

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