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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.

10 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. Uh, don't post... by TWX · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...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.
    1. Re:Uh, don't post... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

    2. Re:Uh, don't post... by aitikin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's less like having a cop reading information you have put up on a flyer and more like the cops having wiretaps on all of your associates. Which would be fine, with a good reason and a court order.

      Since when does facebook offer a reasonable expectation of privacy? If you don't want it to be public, it shouldn't be on facebook.

      --
      "Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
    3. Re:Uh, don't post... by slashdot_commentator · · Score: 3, Funny

      The NYPD does this to islamic prayer groups, why wouldn't they do it to teenagers?

      "First the came for the Socialists, but I was not a Socialist..."

      --
      There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
    4. Re:Uh, don't post... by Mr.+Freeman · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

      --
      -1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
  2. Old news by OzPeter · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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?
    1. Re:Old news by jklovanc · · Score: 3

      The DEA case is different in that they impersonated a real person without her permission.

  3. What NYPD is doing is part of a larger trend ... by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... 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 !
  4. Back In The Day by JimSadler · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  5. Re:They have nothing else more important to do? by Bob_Who · · Score: 3, Funny

    Some of us want to pepper a whore's cunt with cocaine and ride her up and
    down that imaginary line between bathroom and bed while listening to Death
    Metal that is so mind-blowingly loud, it is warping the hood of your prius
    that is parked outside. Then we get drunk, then all of our friends come over
    for more of the same. We scream, we fight, we fuck, we get so high from pills
    and powders, snorting and taking a hit off of the mystery pipe until fucking 5am
    in the morning. That's when we're out in front of the house pissing our bladders
    empty and calling you names before we head to a diner for bacon & eggs!

    I am sorry if that somehow takes away from your weekend of smoking weed
    and playing on your playstation followed by spells of intense masturbation.
    But again, some people have lives, even when you don't.

    ...Easy for you to say on a cop's salary.