Slashdot Mirror
FBI's Facebook Monitoring Leads To Arrest In England
An anonymous reader writes "The BBC reports that armed police were called to a UK school earlier today after being advised of a potential threat by the FBI. The school stated that the FBI 'raised the alarm after Internet scanning software picked up a suspicious combination of words,' strongly implying that they are carrying out routine, automated surveillance of social networking sites. While in this case it does appear that there may have been a genuine threat, the story nonetheless raises significant privacy concerns."
Sounds like the "special relationship" means that passing laws against excessive surveillance by our own police will never achieve anything - they can just have the FBI spy on us instead. I wonder if they conduct questionable surveillance of American citizens in return?
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Does someone out there thinks there is an expectation of privacy for data they post on the internet?
I thought that was exactly what you should NOT expect.
"Oh, you hate your job? There's a support group for that, it's called everyone, they meet at the bar."
The story nonetheless raises significant privacy concerns
Like "OMG my public postings can be read by others"?
Significant privacy concerns? You mean like, "Don't talk about private shit in public?"
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
It's sad that you had to follow up your post with that parenthetical note else some FBI script might finger you as a person of interest. That you consciously thought twice about it, and finally decided for the amendment - justifiable paranoia? Probably.
Every time some idiot goes and posts somewhere "I'm gonna kill people" and it isn't caught, the news is "They were posting it for all the world to see, why didn't somebody stop them!?"
Then some idiot is caught from his posting, and the new is "How dare the police read posts!?"
While I don't believe in prior restraint and so I worry about arresting people based on things they said they might do, Facebook is the new equivalent of painting signs on the water tower. If ever anything didn't qualify for 'expectation of privacy', a service where the express purpose is to tell other people what you're doing should be it. As long as some additional police work goes into verifying that the threat is real, I think this is a good thing.
Tomorrow - last day of school. I'm glad because I'm tired of being bullied by the assholes in this place. I will at last be leaving this world. TGI summer break.
This isn't a Facebook threat Mr. FBI.
This is just me circa 1986 typing into a BBS.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
It's not so much that they expected the information to be private, its that the kid was arrested and we don't know the details. Would you like to be arrested for an angry rant you wrote on your livejournal?
If I posted that I was going to blow up "X" building at my school at 3pm on a given day (not to say that's what happened here) in that angry rant, and it was public, then I think that deserves a second look.
Just because you are on an emo rant in your blog, doesn't mean you can write whatever the hell you want and expect there to be no repercussions.
"the story nonetheless raises significant privacy concerns."
I know it's all the rage right now to automatically link Facebook with "Privacy Concerns," but in this case it's just asinine.
Their monitoring has had one possibly correct hit. Therefore it was justified and it is a Good Thing (tm).
It saddens me that so many people I talk to have this exact thought process.
Insanity: voting in the same two parties over and over again and expecting different results
Am I the only person here who thinks its great that the FBI are doing this? The kid clearly needs help and waiting until he blows away a few of his classmates before doing anything about it is so last decade.
It's a no win situation for everyone. I wouldn't like to be arrested for an angry rant I _published_ but it would be my own fault if I was. I also wouldn't like for someone saying in public the kind of things that precipitated this to be ignored only because the people that noticed them aren't those with a direct relationship to the one saying them. I assume the kid (and his issues) would have been dealt with using the school's discipline system if it was school staff that had picked up a threat posted on Facebook. Since schools tend not to have the resources to monitor all of Facebook then what was the FBI to do...wait to see if there was a shooting and shrug their shoulders. I assume the kid's school will now use it's discipline system with him. If it's unpublished comments that provoke the response then there is definitely an issue of capable organizations doing the monitoring. Especially for US Citizens (see at least the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments) but I guess you could say, don't do/say something that provocative or at least explain yourself if you don't mean it literally.
non, it's not 'someone called the FBI', it's the part about 'scanning software' and 'routine, automated surveillance'. As we fall deeper into a surveillance society, with cameras pointed at your front door, auto-logging of your car plates everywhere you drive, and (this is completely true) police helicopters with inferred/heat sensors flying over your house that can see through walls there is a basic issue of potential abuse of power, and the loss of freedom. Most of the 'need a warrant/ probable cause' law is to protect people who are doing there own thing, to try to keep the police state at bay, from police who think they are just protecting yourself from yourself. It's been shown over and over, every single time, once you give the government that power, someone starts abusing it. Government is not friendly, it's abusive and scary, Jefferson stated as much. Individuals should not have to be in a nanny state.
But the one thing we can be sure of is that the school system will NOT use their *discipline system* against the people who were bullying him, for years on end. The bullies, or "lads" are the ones to be protected at all costs, while their victims must be driven to the point of going over the edge, and then arrested when they complain, try to defend themselves, or threaten the bullies in turn.
However the problem here is that there is a very strong suggestion that the FBI had access to Facebook accounts that they were not "invited to"
I see no such suggestion. Care to elaborate?
But the one thing we can be sure of is that the school system will NOT use their *discipline system* against the people who were bullying him, for years on end. The bullies, or "lads" are the ones to be protected at all costs, while their victims must be driven to the point of going over the edge, and then arrested when they complain, try to defend themselves, or threaten the bullies in turn.
QFT
This is why people shouldn't put up with bullying at all. The moment a class mate pushes you or calls you a name, you should lash out and make sure they and everyone around remember not to mess with you.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
It's looking at data which is explicitly published by people such that the general public can view it.
Or is the summary writer claiming they are snooping the data elsewhere?
Face Book Incorporated
The whole problem I have with sites like Facebook isn't that they exist, but that people treat them as if a conversation on FB is no different than one in person. There are a lot of differences:
I probably post more than I should on FB, but not nearly as much as some of my colleagues. The real problem with something like FB is that it gives any prosecuting attorney a mountain of evidence on which to have you tried should you ever become *problematic* to those in power. It's a website for the unwashed, insignificant masses ruled by the upper classes. For those fighting injustice and oppression, who have the guts to speak up for what is right, it's just another liability.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
So it's wrong for the FBI, or anyone else for that matter, to look at all the crap you publicly and deliberately post for the whole world to see on a website that is very well known for not giving a crap about anyone's privacy?
The article isn't about the FBI listening in on phone calls. It's not about them peeping into your windows or installing cameras in your car. It's about them looking at the graffiti you spray painted on the outside of your house.
Facebook is not secure. Facebook has servers in the US. The FBI can watch cleartext entering or leaving the country, pursuant to the border search doctrine. Unless someone comes up with a very good argument why that's unreasonable, and that someone takes the case to the Supreme Court. But it would have to be very good, because the First Congress approved border searches AND wrote the Bill of Right--so we know that they considered them "reasonable," and it's only unreasonable searches that are forbidden.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Little anecdote...a friend told me how his little brother, about 10 years old, was put into a sandbox which then had the cover placed on it. Since those things are bloody heavy, he wasn't able to lift it off and the other kids pretty much left him there for about 10 minutes.
Now think on that for a second. It's dark, moist, cramped and you're all alone in there in what could only be called the equivalent of being buried alive.
My first question was what they had reported to the police? I mean, it makes sense right? If an adult were to do this to another adult he'd be up on charges before he knew what hit him. But no, when it's kids doing it all of a sudden this is normal behavior.
Not sure what it's going to take for us to stop accepting behavior like this. "Your kid tormented mine, so either you teach him the difference between right and wrong or Í'll do it to you"? Beating up deadbeat dads till they get the message?
Telling the victims to stand up for themselves works to an extent, but honestly, what kind of society are we living in where that is necessary? What's the point of civilization if not to protect the (physically) weak from the strong?
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
So it's OK to listen in on you? It isn't private. Is it OK if I follow you around all day on the street? It's not private. Is it OK if I look through your trash? It's not private.
Funny how if we were to follow MPs and police and tape their public conversations and watch them in public places, we'd get arrested for harassment.
PS Another thought: all that content out there in public (books, movies, etc), how come when we take copies of that, it's criminal theft?