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Fighting Crime With Facebook
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Demond Fernandez writes that Facebook has become a hot, new crime fighting tool for police in Conroe, Texas. Sergeant Joe Smart says Conroe police have been using its Facebook page to profile suspects and criminals since May — like a woman accused of stealing credit cards, masked gunmen caught on tape burglarizing a local store and a suspected computer thief, who the department's Facebook friends just helped police catch. 'It works. The witnesses are looking at it and they are giving us information,' says Smart. Police say Facebook friends in Conroe already helped them catch two wanted suspects and gather leads on several other open cases. Apparently the idea of using facebook to catch criminals is getting picked up in other places as the Toronto Police Service announced their goal is to have about 175 officers with online profiles by early November. 'We've prevented some pretty serious incidents simply because people reached out to the few police officers that were using social media,' says Constable Scott Mills, the force's social media officer. 'This is going to lead to a lot more trust and a lot more transparency.'"
Looks like "walking the beat" and being in contact with people matters. Who would have thought?
With all the idiots they're chasing after on facebook, how many of the criminals who don't use facebook will go un-caught? Seems like an invasion of personal privacy and waste of tax dollars, IMHO.
They should stop trying to filter every little online program and just do the actual work. I'm sure that a majority of these "criminals" are just underage kids drinking or smoking pot and then uploading pictures to facebook, and there's no point in trying to go after them, kids are stupid, and they'll likely do what they want anyways.
This is small town Texas. Everyone is in everyone else's business in these type of places. As a result, this technique probably doesn't scale well to larger locales.
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
* Officer McDuff has beat the crap out of Neighbor Joe and arrested him on fake drug charges. LAPD, NSA, and 3 others like this. * Neighbor Joe and Officer McDuff are no longer friends. * Attorney Smith and Neighbor Joe are now friends.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
There exists a dedicated Twitter account indexing most, if not almost all, people threatening other to death. Police doesn't do a thing with it. The makers even mapped the offenders out on Google Maps.
http://twitter.com/doodsbedreiging and http://www.doodsbedreiging.nl/hierzittenze
I do a fair amount of debt collection. Facebook is one my best sources for finding my deadbeats for service of process and wage garnishments.
No Inflation Taxation without Representation
After the riots we had following the Stanley cup playoffs, many of the vandals pictures were posted on facebook. This soon spawned a site entirely devoted to catching people based on pictures and videos from the night.
The interwebs can be a power tool indeed...
Eat donuts and solve crimes! Bonus!!
I'd be much more interested in "fighting Facebook with crime."
It should be legal to brain racists with a fungo bat.
From most news stories, I gathered Facebook, when involved with crime, was facilitating more the supply side
wow... i hope police indonesian police chief read this article..
http://vivateknologi.com
http://newsvoip.com
The recent riot in Vancouver is an excellent example of this. The police probably caught a good hundred people directly thanks to social media. Maybe they would have found most of those people by other means.. but they basically had the worst offenders all identified within hours thanks to social media.
Facebook itself is the perpetrator?
Committing crimes with Facebook. Criminal has been using the extra information from facebook to commit a large variety of crimes including identity thief, social hacking, and possible other crimes. So?
Don't tell me that the news here is that they are ONLY using facebook to identify social links between criminals? Or is it that they only started profiling criminals just recently?
Didn't you hear, every problem that black people have is the fault of a white person. There is no personal responsibility.
BTW, here's a multi-million dollar idea: SMI - Social Media Investigators, the weekly drama. Think about it, international appeal (everyone everywhere is on facebook), goofy drama like any other whodunit show. Add a young, hot couple with underlying sexual tension, and a cranky old boss, and a weekly murder mystery. Tadaa!
and this story i think is candycoating it a little much. facebook will gladly hand over your personal information, contacts, and media to law enforcement
without a formal warrant. cops dont "need" to post anything; you've done the work for them.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Does not do anything for the NZ Police. They have been told that their Head of Vice for Manukau Counties NZ Police District is a terrorist from Malaysian Government point of view, is known as a serial killer in Manukau Counties and yet the NZ Police does nothing but create smoke screen after smoke screen.
I would point you in the direction of learning about the sociological legacy of 100 years of slavery and then 100 years of discrimination (first legal and overt, and then "illegal" and covert), but I doubt you'd care to educate yourself. Is any particular white person responsible for any particular black person's bad personal choices? No, of course not, but you're just ignorant if you think a group of people can just shrug off 200 years of that kind of negative social pressures and become the equals of their former masters in a relatively short span of time. We'll still be dealing with these problems for another 200 years. The effects of slavery that was practiced thousands of years ago have left imprints that still exist today in populations, with negative socioeconomic consequences for them.
The real question isn't why things are this way but what can we do about it? What is the appropriate response to the facts and our history? And yes, "do nothing" is a valid answer but every path will have consequences. Ignoring the problem won't make it any better, it'll just kick the can down the road for another generation to deal with.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
It should be legal to brain racists with a fungo bat.
Why should it be legal to hit Al Sharpton with a bat?
Can we post pictures of police officers who have wronged us? This should get interesting..
A guy named Ramirez was falsely arrested in LA for the horrible beating of a Giants fan. The police were feeling the heat, so they went after Ramirez. The case almost immediately fell apart, but they kept saying it was the man in custody until they arrested the other two suspects.
In this case Ramirez is still in jail for a probation violation, which he is contesting. If you search for his name you will find all the details of the false arrest.
Now suppose that it's you, and you haven't done anything and don't have a criminal record. How do you fix that? Remember the Internet never forgets. Even if they take down the web page it will still hit on your name. Will they post a retraction? Maybe if you sue them. Outside of a trial it is very rare for someone to be declared "not guilty" in a legal sense.
They have no incentive to put up a retraction. It makes them look bad, so they will resist any responsibility. They would rather see an innocent person in jail then admit an error, so if you are just accused how much leverage do you think that you will have?
Just kiss your online presence goodbye. You will never get the interview with an online application process. That means you can't get hired at a national grocery store, for example, much less a tech job. You could be denied credit and not be told why. All these things can be overcome to some extent, but it could haunt you for the rest of your life.
Does it sound like such a good idea now? If you think you are immune your are being foolish. There is a lot of power here to hurt innocent people, and very little a victim can do to clear their name.
Why is Snark Required?
ok but you speak as if blacks are the only group ever oppressed through periods of history. the native americans, the jews, and others have also known long periods of discrimination and second-class status. they don't commit the level of crimes of blacks or abandon their children like blacks do. how do you explain that?
if everyone is inherently equal then with similar treatment you would expect similar results. logically. however you do not get similar results.
at some point this is a faith-based religious discussion. the answer is determined in advance before the data is evaluated. the answer of course is everyone is equal and you are a very bad person if you question this. any reason to doubt this could only be the product of those evil heretics who ask uncomfortable questions. they're the racists, the infidels, whatever you wanna call them because they don't automatically accept the orthodoxy. naturally even asking questions is enough to get you branded "racist" because how dare you suggest the orthodoxy was made by men and therefore may be subject to human idiosyncracies.
really what is the fear? is the fear that if blacks actually are less advanced than whites, then what, that makes it okay to mistreat them? no it doesn't. do you go around torturing and killing cats and dogs because they are less advanced than you? no? then level of advancement has nothing to do with it.
'We've prevented some pretty serious incidents simply because people reached out to the few police officers that were using social media,' says Constable Scott Mills, the force's social media officer. 'This is going to lead to a lot more trust and a lot more transparency.'
I lived on the north side of Houston until April of this year. Conroe was 18 minutes from my house. I even lived in Conroe for 3 years. In Conroe or all of Montgomery County there is no such thing as Transparency. They are, have always been, and always will be a closed force who has been investigated by the DoJ several times for their unprofessional ways. Facebook is just a way to make the citizens believe they have changed. Those that will buy into getting pulled over in a school zone and told the speed limit is 20 even though it is midnight. As for the point of police departments being on facebook, I think its a good idea. Although in smaller towns it may be plausible but in larger places like Houston, Chicago, etc. not so good. Too many people.
M O O N... That spells Slashdot.
I quit face book...
Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d encule de ta mere.
Would you believe just the facts maam?
Great to hear that facebook can be used for good instead of just evil!
I hope "Officer bubbles" will be not my "friend".
Way too late, I know. But...
Builders build
Hunters hunt
Buglers bugle
So what do burglars do?