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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.
Fully agree. Further, I don't really see this as a legal issue (rarity for NYPD, really!)
IMHO, this is like having an undercover agent fake name. Where I do have questions is in their disclosure for the exceptions, and how many exceptions there are (neither of which were published in the article).
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
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
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Even if the police are not acting illegally (which I'm not so sure they are acting lawfully here)
They are violating Facebook's TOS, which is illegal. The police generally need a warrant to commit acts that would otherwise be illegal.
this is highly immoral.
Expecting the police to act morally is not reasonable. Their behavior should be constrained by laws, not just by their internal sense of right and wrong.
If you post and set it to "show only to certain people" (or whatever the settings are on your social media outlet of choice) then yes there IS an expectation that people outside the group can't see it.
If a cop is posing as as a teenager or college kid online so they can hang out in chat-rooms and hook pedophiles that's one thing (pedophiles are scum who deserve to be locked away in one of those nasty jails they show on various TV documentaries) but if they are doing it to bust up a few kids having some beers (and presumably harming no-one except themselves) then that's different and shouldn't be allowed.
You'd get more than that. By running these operations, they're driving away real users and making the information that Facebook collects less valuable. There would be some monetary damages as well.
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