Federal Agents Quietly Using Social Media by Magdalena Rosova

Maxi Sopo, accused of bank fraud charges, escaped to Mexico and enjoyed his life so much that decided to post about it on Facebook so that all his friend could read about his new adventures. But unfortunately, a federal prosecutor in Seattle watched it as well. The prosecutor tracked Sopo's friend and found his address in Mexico. Sopo was arrested by Mexican authorities and now is awaiting extradition to the U.S. Sopo learned that the federals are on Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn ad Twitter as well. It was very costly lecture. Law enforcement agents are using popular social-networking sites to track the wanted persons and to gather information about them. The Electroni! c Frontier Foundation, civil liberties group based in San Francisco, sued the Justice Department and five other agencies. The group wanted to fore the government to stop using social networking. When sued the government, the fundation received a document of Justice Department. An internal Justice Department document revealed that U.S. agents secretly log into internet social sites to exchange messages with suspected persons. They try to identify a target's friends and relatives and they search for private information about the suspects. Investigators can for example use the personal information such as postings, pictures or videos to check the suspects' alibi. For investigators social networks are great source of information. The Justice document says that “Knowledge is power.” In the past federals monitored AOL and MSN chat rooms to find sexual predators. But today's social services contain more worthy information. The social medias are literally treasur! es for agents. But the document does describe any boundaries f! or using the social medias. According to an Internal Revenue Service document IRS employees can not use deception or create fake accounts in order to get information. The Department of Justice says that its agents use social networking legally and they follow internal rules. However, the department refuses to uncover what those rules are.

related story (sgx16783): http://slashdot.org/story/10/03/16/1857259/Federal-Agents-Qu...

by Magdalena Rosova for Cantell TV (http://cantell.tv)

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