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."
You forgot the part where you posted a picture of a firearm to go with your rant about bullies. Nice job of cherry picking the parts of story that fit your rant while ignoring the obvious threat. Last I checked it was next to impossible to get a firearm in the UK, so the fact that a kid who was having problems with bullies posted a picture of him with a firearm and POTENTIALLY menancing words warranted a closer investigation.
Put the shoe on the other foot. What if some kid had gone on a rampage and it later came out that the FBI thought he might have been a threat but decided not to share the information? Rather than worrying about someone's rights being trampled (and I'd argue that they weren't given that he posted in a PUBLIC forum visible to the world), we'd be condemning the FBI for not doing more to save the children.