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Undercover Feds on Social Networking Sites Raise Questions
- By Kim Zetter
- March 16, 2010 |
- 12:35 pm |
- Categories: Crime, Surveillance
The next time someone tries to “friend” you on Facebook, it may turn out to
be an undercover fed looking to examine your private messages and photos, or
surveil your friends and family. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has obtained
an internal Justice Department document that describes what law enforcement is
doing on social networking sites.
The 33-page document shows that law enforcement agents from local police to
the FBI and Secret Service have been logging
on to MySpace and other sites undercover to communicate with suspects, read
private postings and view photos and videos that are restricted to a user’s
friends.
The document also describes techniques for verifying alibis — such as
checking messages posted by a suspect on Twitter disclosing his whereabouts at
the time a crime was committed — and uncovering information that might point to
illegal activity, such as photos depicting a suspect with expensive jewelry, a
new car or even a weapon.
The document says evidence from social networking sites can:
The investigative techniques were part of a slide presentation titled “Obtaining
and Using Evidence from Social Networking Sites” (.pdf) given last year by
John Lynch, deputy chief of the Justice Department’s Computer Crime and
Intellectual Property division to describe how valuable social networking sites
can be to give law enforcement access to non-public information. The cops can
also map social relationships and networks, among other things. The document
does not include guidance or cautionary notes on how to conduct an investigation
responsibly using these services, though it acknowledges the problematic nature
of using an assumed identity to open an account with a social networking
site.
“Can failure to follow [terms of service] render access unauthorized?” the
document asks. “If agents violate terms of service, is that ‘otherwise illegal
activity’?”
Agents who create fake accounts to communicate with suspects under an assumed
identity could create a conundrum for the Justice Department, which prosecuted Lori
Drew in 2008 for essentially doing the same thing. Drew was charged with
computer fraud and abuse for violating MySpace’s terms of service when she
conspired with two others to create a fake MySpace account under the identity of
a teenage boy in order to communicate with a teenage girl named Megan Meyer.
The account was used to bully Meyer, who then committed suicide. Drew was
found guilty of three misdemeanors by a Los Angeles jury, but the judge
eventually overturned the
convictions on grounds that the federal law was constitutionally vague.
Facebook’s terms of service prohibit users from providing false personal
information to the site, as does MySpace.
In the offline world, agents involved in an investigation can’t impersonate a
suspect’s spouse, child, parent or best friend, the Associated
Press notes. But online they can.
“This new situation presents a need for careful oversight so that law
enforcement does not use social networking to intrude on some of our most
personal relationships,” said Marc Zwillinger, a former federal prosecutor told
the news outlet.
The document also discusses the value to prosecutors of using social
networking sites to obtain information on the background of defense witnesses,
though it cautions that the same sites could be “potential pitfalls” in that
defense attorneys could also use them to background prosecution witnesses.
Another document obtained by EFF is a syllabus for a training course for
employees of the Internal Revenue Service describing the use of social
networking sites and Google
Street View to investigate taxpayers. (.pdf) The syllabus notes, however,
that IRS employees are prohibited from using deception or fake online accounts
to obtain information about taxpayers and generally limits employees to using
publicly available information.
“In civil matters, employees cannot misrepresent their identities, even on
the Internet,” the document states. “You cannot obtain information from websites
by registering using fictitious identities.”
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