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EFF Wants To Know If the Feds Are Cyberstalking

Posted by samzenpus on from the answer-seems-obvious dept.

rossendryv writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation and UC Berkeley's Samuelson Center filed suit in California's Northern District, asking the court to force a number of government agencies to hand over any documents they have concerning the use of social networking sites as part of investigative procedures."

2 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. More about data retention and usage policies... by Ransak · · Score: 4, Informative

    The summary is misleading. The suit is more about what the Feds are doing with that data and the policies surrounding it, not that the Feds are using social networking sites for investigations.

    --
    "Powers. I have them."
  2. Re:Why wouldn't they? by tlhIngan · · Score: 4, Informative

    You're joking, right? I'm pretty sure it's very different, if I set facebook to let only my friends see my stuff. I never saw a friend request from the FBI, so why should they be allowed to probe my facebook stuff? That seems like a digital analogue to the feds just storming someone's house without first getting the owner's permission to enter the home.

    In other words, they better have a darn good reason and a written warrant with that reason if they want to see my facebook without first being my facebook friend.

    On any site, even if it's marked "private", once it's posted, it's public. Those privacy settings are probably a lot shallower than you think, and "friends only" can include a lot more. For example, didn't some group release a quiz that revealed that it not only had access to your complete profile, but the profiles of your friends?

    And what about that Manulife case where an insurance recipient was denied after posting pics to their "private" profile?

    Truth is, your profile may be marked as private, but it may be more public than you expect. All it would take is someone finding a vulnerability in facebook that unlocks private pfofiles. Or just do a quiz or app that one of your friends do that'll scrape your profile. Or maybe one of your friends is a friend of the FBI and is re-posting your pics?

    "Private" means zip. It may imply that only your friends can see stuff in your profile, but it's effectively public.