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NYPD Creates Fake Social Media Profiles To Track Loud Parties, Underage Drinking
v3rgEz writes Is that Facebook friend request from the cute girl in third period, or an undercover officer looking to bust up the next high shool kegger? That's the question more students in New York City might be asking, as newly released documents from the NYPD disclose its process for agents creating undercover social media aliases with the aims of uprooting terrorist plots, tracking "political activity," and other nefarious crimes like underage drinking or pre-meditated loud partying. Fake profiles must be approved by bureau brass, unless it would "seriously impair" an investigation or risk life or property damage.
...what you don't want want other people to read?
This isn't condoning the actions of the NYPD, but I always figured that it was common sense, don't write down or otherwise document what you don't want others to know or find out about...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Undercover investigation should be possible, and if you're the kind of criminal who boasts to people you don't know, you get what you deserve.
No DeVry JD has commented that it's entrapment or violating the 5th amendment yet.
Perhaps this site is looking up.
How am I supposed to think with all that loud noise next door?
nobody knows that you're a pig.
Really?
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
It only makes sense that law enforcement should go into social networking sites to infiltrate evildoers, terrorists and other miscreants. It would be beyond naive to think they shouldn't be doing this, has nobody heard of cops going undercover in real life?
I'm glad the NYPD is doing this to thwart these dastardly villains.
Worse than loud parties of passion, I guess?
this thing could just be the thing to do it.
I don't want to condone or condemn these actions, but it just seems like a low-hanging fruit. If someone could do their job much more effectively at such a low cost (who reads the ToS anyways), is it surprising that they'd do this?
From what i understand there is much less paperwork, and the kill ratio, especially for underage children is higher.
Who has commited the greater Sin? The officer who kills a child? The judge who subverts the constitution so frivolously? Or the sheepish citizen whose boldest rebellion is to whine like a bitch on Slashdot? After all, who are you more afraid of, some whacked out Muslim in a desert 12,000 km away or an official from the state militia sworn to uphold the constitution? Answer -- fear them both. Because they don't care who they slaughter.
From 2013 Cops Are Creating Totally Bogus Facebook Profiles Just So They Can Arrest People where they also point out that this is against FB's TOS
Tangential to this in 2014 Justice Dept. will review practice of creating fake Facebook profiles (Which talks about Federal LE, most famously brought to light by the DEA creating the fake FB profile in the woman's name in order to nab suspects.
Feds pay $134,000 to settle DEA agent's fake Facebook case
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
I'm kinda confused here. Why do they need to create a fake profiles/Images to watch political activities?? Last i checked being a part of any political activity isn't against the law. Being in a gang isn't a political activity nor is terrorism.
Jack of all trades,master of none
Everywhere you go, in all things.
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
They are literally acting like pedophiles.
Creeps on the Internet making fake social accounts so they can track you.
How long till a defense attorney points out that they are obtaining evidence via an illegal act. Sure they can lie to a suspect but the cant falsely enter a contract.
For the same reason the NSA Fed the FBI information which the FBI then parsed and handed over to the IRS whom then performed tax audits on protesters they didn't like.
Because if you are for a smaller government, putting people in jail when they commit fraud, and using money as a tool not as a master, you're against the crooks in this rotten government.
Eventually everyone will realize this government has no legitimacy because it is about looting the lower classes and the meek. That's when the real fun starts.
If you are a part of any anarchist, white supremacist, or otherwise socially/politically subversive group, the Bureaus treat you as fair game for stalking. No Matter that it is your right to have/speak those views, they will harass/arrest youfor any minor infraction or even engage in entrapment. This is tthe lesson learned since Ruby Ridge and numerous instances since.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
... of America dropping deeper and deeper into the abyss of absolute fascism
... this isn't condoning the actions of the NYPD ...
I feel sad that you choose to limit it within the very narrow context of 'action of NYPD'
The sad fact is that the United States of America, thanks to NYPD and all other local / state / federal law enforcement agencies is becoming more and more like what the Stasi did in Eastern Germany, or the secret police of the Nicolae Ceausescu regime of Romania, or under the CCP in China, or the Kim's secret police in North Korea, ...
If the sentence 'uprooting terrorist plots, tracking "political activity"' fails to alarm any of the Americans, the future of United States of America is bleak
I mean, please read that sentence again
They actually use the term "terrorist plots" and the term "political activity" in the same fucking sentence!
What kind of America is _that_ ?
Aren't Americans supposed to be free to associate or join with any political activity, especially in the Land of the FREE??
What the fuck has happened to the freedom of association?
Or has America turned into a place where local law enforcement agencies such as NYPD, and all other agencies from the States as well as from the Federal level, get to dictate who can mix with whom now??
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
you have nothing to fear.
Calm your taco: none of this is new or different, except the "on a computer" part. I thought we were over "on a computer" freak-outs?
HS and college parties have always had narcs. Either undercover officers, or informers who were in the social scene and would ruin parties for fun. In college, we'd always learn who they were by the end of the year, and plan accordingly, but there'd be a new crop of them the next year.
This is just that, "on a computer". A fake profile is easier than a CI, enabling more surveillance, but this doesn't seem different in kind. This isn't some panopticon with perpetual DB, like a lot of recent crap, this is just automating old-school narcing a bit.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
really just need to hang all the cops in times square and start over
Under cover cops used to do things like randomly rent apartments in places they thought they could make contacts and do investigations. Back about 1967 I was more than amazed to find out that the very young looking hippie girl from next door was in fact an undercover cop. It went so far that she had moved out of her apartment and was living on the roofs of hotels on Ft. lauderdale beach in order to get on the inside with people prone to crime. All that has changed is that with the net the same tactics are easier to use. As for the cops a big part of this ios in not making arrests so that a police agent can work further and further into criminal activities. They may be on top of a criminal for several years before springing the trap and then they will have a list of charges so long the person will be buried in the prisons unless he starts working for the cops.
I'd have these morons running all over NYC busting fake parties at the homes of every liberal in the City...
Fuck the police.
True. Doesn't change the fact that it's fairly disgusting behavior by a fairly disgusting agency though.
"NYPD Creates Fake Social Media Profiles To Track Loud Parties, Underage Drinking"
Who doesn't?
other pd's do this without being exposed? Should we start a contest?
Get up!
If the police wonder why they are hated in some parts of society, they need
look no further than their own unethical behavior in this case.
It IS NOT SOCIETY'S JOB to infiltrate parties or other social gatherings.
That is the job of a parent if it is anyone's job.
IOW: Relax, we've always had COINTELPRO. Whatcha getting your panties in twist for?
You're still playing with the devil.
I think one of the reasons for the crime rate in the US is the wonderful example the authorities are setting with their fake profiles and spying on people.
They actually use the term "terrorist plots" and the term "political activity" in the same fucking sentence!
All terrorist plots are political, otherwise it wouldn't be terrorism. So political activity really is where you'd get earliest warning of possible terrorism. That's not the problem. The problem is that the government likes to crap all over the Constitution.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
They'll monitor any vaguely political activity that counters establishment interests and they always have. You don't have to be anything extreme like a terrorist or a supremacist - being an activist of *any* stripe makes you a target.
They actually use the term "terrorist plots" and the term "political activity" in the same fucking sentence!
All terrorist plots are political, otherwise it wouldn't be terrorism. So political activity really is where you'd get earliest warning of possible terrorism
I guess you haven't figure out what Islam is, have you?
Islam is not only a religion. It's an ideology, a way of life, an all encompassing manual for the follower to do in their daily living
In Islam it does not need politics to get people to become willing martyrs - because all it takes is to point out to that potential candidate the teachings as outlined in their enshrined texts and the promises of an everlasting enjoyment in the afterlife
Thus, looking for 'political activities' do not apply to the Islamic folks --- as they are not into the same kind of 'activism' the Westerners are familiar with
So where are the police tracking Richard Stallman? Where are the undercover cops who pose as students of MIT to bring down that radical activist, Mr Stallman?
doesnt this explicitly violate Facebooks TOS and therefore constitute a violation of the computer fraud and abuse act?
Like the ones in the story. Side benefits are learning about chilling effects, dishonesty and certain groups of people that cannot be trusted for anything. This will be invaluable preparation for the coming fascist regime, so I would say the NYPD is doing good here.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
if they don't trust their own agents why should the rest of us?
What the fuck has happened to the freedom of association?
It was punched in the face by our Founding Fathers themselves, and then taken out back and shot twice in the head by Mr. Lincoln.
If he was advocating the freedom of people and not just software, then you would be sure that three-letter-agencies would be all over him.
Pretty sure it's the same America that put all of its Japanese citizens into camps, destroyed the lives of scientists because they had left-leaning friends, tested experimental drugs on the poor, incarcerated and military without their knowing, and practiced eugenics on "undesirables."
The America you remember never existed except in propaganda.
Sounds like a waste of resources. But i think this just shows you that they are interested in surveilance (hollywood style) because shit is dope yo, rather than going after real crime. Under age drinking, pffft. Fuxing hipocritical bullshit!
Glad they're spending our tax dollars wisely, keeping people from having fun and avoiding taking actual criminals off the streets.
They thin their word, and invalidate their testimony,
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Fake profiles must be approved by bureau brass, unless it would "seriously impair" an investigation or risk life or property damage.
Ahhh, the classic law enforcement weasel words that guarantees that there will be absolutely no oversight or approval needed. Especially since it also keeps the brass off the hook when the press finds out about the inevitable egregious behaviors of the officers. Management can simply claim we "didn't know that this highly illegal/unethical activity was happening" and it was "not authorized as per our procedure"...
Just like that case where the DEA created a fake Facebook profile of a real person and deliberately put her underage son at risk so they could entrap someone they wanted. They simply didn't care if she and her son were killed as a result. They quickly changed their tune when the story became public with the accompanying hand wringing by management about how can we avoid being sued.
Why would you feel the need to violate federal law in order to track loud parties? Just wait till the noise complaints come in, drive to that area, roll down the window and start listening. I'm sure NYPD dispatch already filters out incoming 911 calls from areas the police do not want to go into at night (very poor areas). Oh, I forgot. That requires actual police work and not sitting in an office reading Facebook all day. Sounds like a nice easy job, I wonder how much that pays.
Or, ditch the "nothing to see here, move along" pablum. In the 80's, cops weren't armed with military hardware, and the FBI wasn't running around trying to turn activists into terrorists with paid informants. In the 90's, the NSA might have liked to spy on everyone's communications (see Clipper Chip) but most people didn't have email, much less cell phones, much less Twitter or Facebook.
And the police department's with limited resources always had to send an actual person to do said narcing. Now they can skip all that by pulling an automated report from their friendly neighborhood Fusion Center, launder the illegally gained "intelligence" with parallel construction, and start shopping for a new squad car with asset forfeiture before the DA even brings an indictment.
Pab. Lum.
Aren't Americans supposed to be free to associate or join with any political activity, especially in the Land of the FREE??
Ask anyone who was hounded out of their job in the 1950s by Senator Joe McCarthy for going to a cocktail party where communist party members may have been..
This shit has been going on for a long time.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Police aren't raiding HS parties to pad their budget with asset forfeitures, AFAIK, it's just a nuisance crime that they don't want to be bothered with in the first place. At least at my college, there was never any shortage of willing narcs to have all parties covered, unless you worked to keep it secret. I suspect HS parties are about the same.
Yes, there are real problems with police overreach, but this just doesn't seem like one of them.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Never, EVER accept a Friend request from someone you haven't met, physically, in person. Seriously.
I treat Facebook and LinkedIn with the same policy, and I have dozens of Friend Requests pending for YEARS, which will never be accepted. If I haven't met the person and pressed palms with them, then they don't get connected to me using social platforms, period.
You would be wise to do the same. With all the dark profiles being built behind the scenes, it makes sense to keep things clean and tight.