FBI sets up fake Facebook profiles to snare suspects

[Newsjock]

Source: Associated Press

The Feds are on Facebook. And MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter, too.

U.S. law enforcement agents are following the rest of the Internet world into popular social-networking services, going undercover with false online profiles to communicate with suspects and gather private information, according to an internal Justice Department document that offers a tantalizing glimpse of issues related to privacy and crime-fighting.

Think you know who's behind that "friend" request? Think again. Your new "friend" just might be the FBI.

The document, obtained in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, makes clear that U.S. agents are already logging on surreptitiously to exchange messages with suspects, identify a target's friends or relatives and browse private information such as postings, personal photographs and video clips.

... The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based civil liberties group, obtained the Justice Department document when it sued the agency and five others in federal court. The 33-page document underscores the importance of social networking sites to U.S. authorities. The foundation said it would publish the document on its Web site on Tuesday.

Read more: http://www.fresnobee.com/2010/03/16/1860672/break-the-law-and-your-new-friend.html

---

From EFF:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/03/eff-posts-documents-detailing-law-enforcement
EFF Posts Documents Detailing Law Enforcement Collection of Data From Social Media Sites

... One of the most interesting files is a 2009 training course that describes how IRS employees may use various Internet tools -- including social networking sites and Google Street View -- to investigate taxpayers.

The IRS should be commended for its detailed training that clearly prohibits employees from using deception or fake social networking accounts to obtain information. Its policies generally limit employees to using publicly available information. The good example set by the IRS is in stark contrast to the U.S. Marshalls and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Neither organization found any documents on social networking sites in response to EFF's request suggesting they do not have any written policies or restrictions upon the use of these websites.

[ixion]

1. And the fascists march on

:grr:

[LiberalFighter]

2. Get them to commit to an act terrorism and turn them in.

[Echo In Light]

20. .. or what could pass for 'aiding' their cause via tenuous language

[arcane1]

3. "browse private information such as postings..."

I don't know about that.. Facebook isn't exactly "private"

[Swamp Rat]

7. Imagine a stranger following you everywhere, listening to your conversations and everything you say

in "public."

Imagine various corporations or entities using everything you say against you for some unspecified, future event by culling your speech patterns and content.

It's ok for them to do this, after all, because you "spoke in public."

[NeedleCast]

12. But it's simple to stop

By making them "friend" you first, you can pretty much stop this from happening. The simple solution being not to accept friend requests from people you don't know.

[Better Today]

14. Exactly, I can't figure out the problem here. If they're dumb enough to friend

someone or leave a public profile, then I can't see any illegality or invasion of privacy.

Now, if they are managed to get "friended" without the user's knowledge of it or simply hacking into private profiles, that would be different.

[Newsjock]

15. "Friend" requests genuine?

I think a concern here is that the feds might impersonate one's friends by gathering other information (such as a photo). When an old friend arrives out of the blue and sends you a friend request, I think most folks will accept the request from a "known quantity."

And if that "known quantity" is brought into doubt and users cannot trust that their friends really are the people they claim to be, that blows a Titanic-size hole in the business model of these social networking companies.

[NeedleCast]

17. Well, I think you're giving them too much credit

Some people on DU seem to think agencies like the FBI, NSA, whatever, have some awesome level of person-power when dealing with this stuff. Having worked for one of these agencies, briefly, I'm pretty sure they aren't nearly as prevassive as some give them credit for. Even using keyword searches and things of that nature it would require an incredible number of work-hours to sift through the dross on the combined user base of dozens of big social networking sites.

In the case of known quantity, I think that A) it would be difficult to really set up and B) I think it would get tossed for entrapment in most cases.

I just don't see this sort of thing happening on a non-targeted basis and imagine there are quite a few better ways to go about collecting information on people.

Occam's Razor applies. The alphabet agencies don't have the person-power to sort through a gazillion posts about what person A got a Starbucks, what movie person B went to see, and 200 megs of baby pictuers person C posted. Now imagine that A,B,C...extends to 100 million characters or so.

[Swamp Rat]

18. For computer experts and hackers, your personal information is a few clicks away.

Of course, don't take my word for it. Go ahead and post personal information about yourself on FaceBook, et al. for only your 'friends' to see, at which point you can only 'hope' your personal information will not be collected by one entity and then sold to others.

[spanone]

4. i guess entrapment laws are sooo yesterday.

[Chulanowa]

9. Damn straight

If the rest of us have to lose our rights so that Susie Homemaker and Joe Sixpack can watch "To Catch a Predator" with a feeling of smug self-righteousness, then damn it, that's just what it's going to take!

[Swamp Rat]

5. It's a Brave New World

[skeptical cynic]

6. Welcome to the Homeland

From "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism" by Emmanuel Goldstein ("1984" by George Orwell):

"The social atmosphere is that of a besieged city.. And at the same time the consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival."

"It does not matter whether the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going badly. All that is needed is that a state of war should exist."

"Wherever he may be, asleep or awake, working or resting, in his bath or in his bed, he can be inspected without warning and without knowing that he is being inspected."

"Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity."

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

8. They're spying on us to "protect" our "freedom".

:crazy:

[gratuitous]

10. And if you haven't done anything wrong . . .

Just wait until someone who doesn't have your best interests at heart gets a hold of the things you say and do. You'll soon have a much broader appreciation for "wrongdoing" than you have now.

[Echo In Light]

16. _

[notesdev]

11. I view non-business social networkers

as positively insane. You're basically inviting people to stalk you, furnishing every person who might want to do you harm with all sorts of details about your personal life. You put it on one of these sites, you may as well put it on the 9 o'clock news.

So unless you're making money off of your social networking - and are thus broadcasting your sales pitch rather than juicy personal details - you're nuts to use these sites.

I remember when someone first showed me Twitter - my reaction was "who in their right mind would use this?"

[NeedleCast]

13. Not really

For most social network sites, you've got to give people permission to access this stuff.

RE: Twitter, a lot of us in Virginia used it during the run up to the election to coordinate grass roots stuff, because it's accessible on most smart phones.

[Catshrink]

19. I use it for family stuff only

and don't "friend" anyone outside the family -- especially my students! It's a boundary I'm not going to cross.