DoJ: Law Enforcement Can Impersonate People On Facebook

An anonymous reader sends news that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency impersonated a young woman on Facebook to communicate with suspected criminals, and the Department of Justice argued that they had the right to do so. The woman was charged with being part of a drug ring and sentenced to probation, after which a DEA agent set up a Facebook page in her name, uploaded images to it (including pictures of her son and niece), and used it without her consent. She recently sued the agent in federal district court, and the government argued that she "implicitly consented by granting access to the information stored in her cell phone and by consenting to the use of that information to aid in an ongoing criminal investigations [sic]." Facebook has now removed the account, and the DoJ is "reviewing" the case.

Comments

disgusting

[mpicpp]

why not just take out a po box, credit card and bank account in her name, Wow.

Re:disgusting

[ColdWetDog]

Don't you just love couch terrorists?

How is this not identity theft?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am fairly certain I would be in jail if I committed the same crime.

mental gymnastics

[Iamthecheese]

The US government constantly abuses the law by ignoring it until a test case comes up and a judge says a particular method is illegal. The real harm is the creeping loss of rights as abuses become normalized by the time they make it to trial leading to more lenient judgements over time as judges try to match interpretation to "society's standards".

I urge you to write your congress-critter today and tell him or her that the constitution is too important to ignore in the name of safety and that "hard on crime" is an insult to your intelligence.

Re:mental gymnastics

[Em Adespoton]

I think what's really happened is that we've allowed government to convince us that "hard on crime" is only valid when the crime is committed by someone with a disreputable history who isn't connected to the government.

I think if the same "hard on crime" rules were applied to government employees, we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

Land of the Free

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL! What a farce this shithole called USA has become.

Re:Land of the Free

[laie_techie]

They've been doing this for years to catch child molester pervs. This is nothing new and is completely legal.

Have they been using the identity of real people to catch pervs? While I want the pervs off the streets, I'm not ok with them using someone's identity without that person's explicit permission.

Re:Land of the Free

[Mr.CRC]

There is something very wrong with the moral compass of a society that accepts the premise of luring people to commit crimes so they may be prosecuted while we cheer.

People who are on the verge of misdeeds, and where this is known to authorities, should be given warnings to change course lest they commit an act that warrants their removal from society.

Then it should be made a crime to entice people to cross the line.

And it could be worse.

[khasim]

What happens if the fake account pisses off some criminal (specifically targeted by the FBI) who then kidnaps/kills her son or niece (who are featured on that fake page)?

Someone needs to be fired over this.

Re:And it could be worse.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fired??? I would say jail time.

Nathan

Re:And it could be worse.

[sjames]

Even if not, the child has a right to privacy. As a minor, the decision of what pictures of the child may be posted online falls to the parent or guardian. The DOJ is neither.

Re:Copyright Infringment

[techno-vampire]

Better yet: Identity Theft.

Insane

[Dereck1701]

Are they insane? Wasn't there a run on creating laws in many states just to stop high school students from making fake facebook pages to harass? This act not only could result in job loss, public humiliation, harassment & other life changing events but in threats and even death if an angry drug dealer/user came after her. This officer even misused private information collected for the limited purposes of serving as evidence in a trial. This officer and anyone associated with this heinous act should be charged with identity theft, property theft, libel, unauthorized access to a computer system (remember violating a TOS is now considered to be a crime) and fraud.

Put cryptography everywhere

[DigitAl56K]

Stuff like this is exactly why strong cryptographic solutions should be woven into the fabric of the internet ASAP (e.g. content signing in this case). Agencies globally have become extremely abusive - spying, manipulating, defrauding,denying - and work against the basic infrastructure elements that would prevent this at every turn. They really bring it on themselves with crap like this.

And her child?

[Required Snark]

So the DOJ also involved her child by posting his picture? As part of a drug investigation?

She should also be suing them on behalf of her child for endangerment. In drug transactions family members can be targets of violence. The DOJ was putting a minor in harms way.

That would go really well for the DOJ in court. I would love to be in the courtroom and watch some lawyer from the DOJ defend a practice that puts a child at risk. I'm sure that the jury would hear that testimony and decide there and then that the DOJ should loose the case very painfully.

Also, aren't their laws pertaining to the use of images of minors without parental consent? Even if the image was obtained legally (not likely in this case). Sounds like a potential criminal case to me. Of course, considering it's the DOJ, they could have used the image in a pedophilia sting and nothing would happen.

Re: Copyright Infringment

[WillAffleckUW]

The only difference between Obama and Bush is that the former is a better public speaker.

They are/were both great Republican Presidents.

(pay attention to what they do, not what labels you give them)