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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.
why not just take out a po box, credit card and bank account in her name, Wow.
Sounds like she has a solid case for copyright infringment.
I am fairly certain I would be in jail if I committed the same crime.
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.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
LOL! What a farce this shithole called USA has become.
So this is exactly why Apple would encrypt their entire phone and did not leave a way for them to decrypt their own devices... so that they can avoid situations like this...
Just because a dude works for the DOJ... that doesn't give him the right to invade and abuse the person's privacy... regardless if he/she is a criminal or not... Just because he was authorized to view the contents of her phone, it doesn't mean he can freely use it out in the open any way he wants....
And it makes me laugh so hard that now the DOJ is saying they have the right to do it... that's just plain ignorant...
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.
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.
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.
although i know i cannot totally erase my FB account, i have done what i know how to do. fini.
To hell with copyright infringement and her unauthorized use... what about facebook's rights?
The agent in question almost certainly engaged in unauthorized access to facebook servers, in excess of his granted, authenticated authority, while impersonating another user -- on a protected, commerce impacting system (there's ads on those servers). Including hosts with financial impacts crossing state boundaries. Whereas
That is to say -- the agent knowingly broke 8 U.S.C. 1030.
The process of getting the report, following up, revoking access, and reputational harm alone easily exceeds $5,000. C'mon facebook... bring charges to bear. The least you can do is demand that if the DEA impersonates a user, they do it through YOUR authorized processes, or get a damned court order for it.
US v Morris alone is enough to get this happening on "federal interest" computers. Given facebook's a CIA front... well...enough said.
They failed on all counts. Think of the precedent it sets if you don't go after them... you've failed to protect your ad revenue.
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.
Why is Snark Required?
Louisiana: http://www.criminaldefenselawy... Unfortunately in New York http://www.criminaldefenselawy... the intent must be criminal.
But by no means have we reached the global minimum!
Then you'll get arrested, they will demand your Facebook password, then lock you up indefinitely when you can't produce it.
Or if they can't do that now, they will eventually. Basically where we're headed folks is, the government can do anything it wants to you, any time.
This simply follows from asking the government to do everything for you.
She actually agreed to help them, setup the page and got the information. They found the people involved to be potentially dangerous to her so they're covering it up by looking like they did it without her permission publicly so no one goes after her..