Here's What Facebook Sends the Cops In Response To a Subpoena

An anonymous reader writes "Facebook already shares its Law Enforcement Guidelines publicly, but we've never actually seen the data Menlo Park sends over to the cops when it gets a formal subpoena for your profile information. Now we know. This appears to be the first time we get to see what a Facebook account report looks like. The document was released by the The Boston Phoenix as part of a lengthy feature titled 'Hunting the Craigslist Killer,' which describes how an online investigation helped officials track down Philip Markoff. The man committed suicide, which meant the police didn't care if the Facebook document was published elsewhere, after robbing two women and murdering a third."

Comments

Feel bad for his girlfriend

[danbuter]

Maybe they should have deleted his girlfriends name and location from this stuff, before publishing it to the net.

Re:Feel bad for his girlfriend

[History's Coming To]

If you friend somebody you make that information public, it's how social networks, you know, network socially. They're presenting that information in an unpleasant context, yes, but it's still public.

Re:Feel bad for his girlfriend

[Anonymous Coward]

unless, of course, you set your privacy to 'friends only'. anyone getting information beyond that is still a breech.

Re:The last thing they would care about

[Elbereth]

Allegedly. Innocent until proven guilty.

Re:Makes you wonder

[gellenburg]

Same info but without the redactions.

Re:The last thing they would care about

[TubeSteak]

Allegedly. Innocent until proven guilty.

If you're not a lawyer, a judge, or a juror, you have no obligation to maintain an artificial neutrality with regards to someone's guilt or innocence.

Innocent in the eyes of the law != innocent.

Re:The last thing they would care about

[tbird81]

Very true. I wish people would stop believing that a court's decision is always correct. People escape conviction all the time.

Re:The last thing they would care about

[Anonymous Coward]

That is true, but popular opinion is unlikely to be more correct than the courts, since they don't even have all the information available to them.

If a man is found innocent in court but is treated as guilty by society, then what's the point of even having a trial?

Re:Unclear antecedents are dangerous!

[houghi]

On a serious not, I think it is worrisome that the police did not care. To me even a convicted criminal has rights to privacy. I understand that many people say that as soon as a person is convicted (I am not even talking mugshots of arrested people) they should lose all their rights.

I hold myself to higher standards and will defend the privacy rights of everybody, including the worst mass murders and my ex-girlfriend.

If nothing else because of the "First they came for the criminals ..." slippery-slope.

If I want to defend MY privacy, it means I must respect YOURS as well. The moment I get an excuse not to respect yours (e.g. you are a convicted killer) you will find an excuse not to respect mine.

The fact that my phone-number is in the phone-book does not mean you can write it on the wall in the mens-room.

Re:The last thing they would care about

[canadian_right]

The bigger problem is convicting the innocent. It is very rare for people who commit serious crimes to get off. It is much more common for the wrong person to be convicted.