Ng: Catching criminals in Facebook

FACEBOOK has become the place “where the profane, the mundane, the marginally insane and their parents all attempt to meet,” CNET said in a report. Based on the personalities you meet in the social networking site, that could be true. I have met all kinds of people there, including people and classmates I have lost touch with for over 20 years. With 400 million members, it is one giant directory that has more members than the total population of the United States.

Apparently, it is now also a place where law enforcement agents come in. A story appeared in the news about a certain Maxi Sopo.

He was wanted in Seattle for bank fraud charges but fled to Mexico. He posted pictures of himself having fun in Mexico, where he met his friends. He boasted that he was living in paradise.

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Agents, however, got wind of his Facebook account and the prosecutor was able to track his address. They had Mexican authorities arrest him. As of this writing, Sopo is awaiting extradition to the US.

Police now find it worthwhile to be on Facebook, MySpace and other social networks.

They create false online profiles, and, according to some reports, they communicate with suspects and also gather private information. They browse private information such as postings, personal photographs and video clips.

Among other things, they use the social networks to check suspects’ alibis when comparing stories told to police by comparing them with updates on Twitter or Facebook. The US Justice Department is said to have exhorted government attorneys to research all witnesses on the social networking sites.

This has prompted the social networks to insist on truth of information. Most terms of service on Facebook or Twitter indicate that users have to agree to create accounts that are truthful and they cannot impersonate other people or they would be violating the terms of service. Obviously that applies to most of us users, but generally, it is assumed that most of these services would agree to allow government agents to impersonate and do undercover work, if asked.

There was a celebrated case where this was put to the test. A woman from Missouri, by the name of Lori Drew, registered herself as a teen age boy in MySpace, and started to flirt with a 13-year-old girl. The girl hanged herself in October 2006 after she received a message saying the world would be better without her.

Drew was convicted after it was found that she violated MySpace’s rules in creating a fake account but later, she went free when a judge cited the vagueness of the case.

Will the evidence gathered on social networking sites be considered legal, especially if gathered by operatives using fake profiles? We don’t know, but surely, by then, the damage has been done. At least, be careful when making friends.

Your next friend might be from the government, or worse, could be somebody from a crime syndicate. Be careful. Treat your activities in social network sites as almost like living in a glass house.

(www.ngkhai.net/bizdrivenlife)