EFF Wants To Know If the Feds Are Cyberstalking

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."

Comments

Re:Why wouldn't they?

[zmaragdus]

Many companies also perform such searches whilst screening potential employees. They often get junior (junior as in position, not necessarily age) employees to befriend said candidates in order to dig up any "dirt" they can on you. (Hence a warning to those of you looking for a job: beware what you post online.) The feds would be foolish not to do so as well.

They have to. Security Clearance.

[NoYob]

If you go for a security clearance, they search all you social networking pages and everyone who you are "friends" with. It's a real pain for them but they have to do it.

So, if you have a friend on Facebook who had to get security clearance, you were investigated.

Re:prove it!

[Urza9814]

Yea, I know exactly what case you're talking about. Got an email from SSDP about it.

But really that case was just a problem of the kid being stupid. Yes, the cops picked him up for a picture, but the kid then admitted to underage drinking. He didn't even try to fight it. I mean if he had tried to fight it and still gotten charged, then there would be a problem. But if you're a 19 year old kid walking down the street with a bottle in a paper bag and a cop stops you and says 'is that alcohol?' and you say 'yes'....Or if you pull over someone driving the same make and model as a car recently reported stolen, and you ask them if it's stolen and they say yes...well, it's hard to say the cop did anything wrong. And you can hardly call the arrest unreasonable (and therefore a violation of the 4th amendment) when the kid was holding a beer can. If it was a red solo cup or something, sure. But it was a beer can. It was a container that specifically stated that it contained alcohol.

Of course if you want to question police officers posing as attractive young females (as they did in this case)...then yea, you could make a case for that. But then again, they go undercover all the time, and this isn't really any different.

Re:Who Doesn't Believe the Feds are Watching?

[Frosty Piss]

If you get an aggressive investigator...

Already had some of those. They are more interested in my step brother and sisters from Etheopia, and whether I've visited any of several countries. But it really doesn't matter. There are reasons they can dink with my clearance, and reasons they can't. It's not up to the particular investigator's personal views, nor some nebulous undefined rule set. I'm quite sure that they are well able to connect my Slashdot profile with a real name... I undergo one of these mini-inquisitions every two years, and my views are not inconsistent with Democracy. Apparently, they consider me a "patriot", whatever that is... I am not paranoid.