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Facebook Warns Memphis Police: No More Fake "Bob Smith" Accounts:
Facebook has a problem: an infestation of undercover cops. Despite the social platform's explicit rules that the use of fake profiles by anyone—police included—is a violation of terms of service, the issue proliferates. While the scope is difficult to measure, EFF has identified scores of agencies who maintain policies that explicitly flout these rules.
Hopefully—and perhaps this is overly optimistic—this is about to change, with a new warning Facebook has sent to the Memphis Police Department. The company has also updated its law enforcement guidelines to highlight the prohibition on fake accounts.
This summer, the criminal justice news outlet The Appeal reported on an alarming detail revealed in a civil rights lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Tennessee against the Memphis Police Department. The lawsuit uncovered evidence that the police used what they referred to as a "Bob Smith" account to befriend and gather intelligence on activists. Following the report, EFF contacted Facebook, which deactivated that account. Facebook has since identified and deactivated six other fake accounts managed by Memphis police that were previously unknown.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 28 2018, @12:48AM
"how do you do, fellow memphis people?"
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Friday September 28 2018, @12:50AM
So, all those friend requests aren't just from Nigerian men who suddenly turn into white blondes if you look at their profile history? Whoa, mind blown.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 28 2018, @01:10AM (21 children)
It should be permitted for the cops to infiltrate Facebook just as they infiltrate situations in real life.
If Facebook forbids cops making undercover accounts, Facebook is effectively siding with criminals.
This is not a smart move for Facebook. Facebook will discover that the government has the power to make things difficult for Facebook if Facebook refuses to cooperate with law enforcement.
Just wait and see. Oh, and FUCK Facebook.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 28 2018, @01:17AM (10 children)
Binary thinking much? https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/empathy-and-relationships/201701/when-binary-thinking-is-involved-polarization-follows [psychologytoday.com]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 28 2018, @02:01AM (9 children)
What a sad attempt at a counter-argument.
Instead of posting a URL and running away like little bitch, why don't you try to write your own argument.
Do explain how NOT catching criminals by using undercover police work is a benefit to society.
Do explain how Facebook can morally justify not working with the police.
I'm sure your explanations will be good for a few laughs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 28 2018, @02:03AM (3 children)
You really don't understand how we do things in America, do you?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 28 2018, @03:16AM (2 children)
Actually I understand the real way things are done in the US a lot better than you do.
If you think criminals deserve protection, I sincerely hope you are soon the victim of a violent crime that leaves you weeping in a puddle of your own piss.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 28 2018, @05:27AM (1 child)
Here I'll leave you another link to ponder. COINTELPRO [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by RS3 on Friday September 28 2018, @01:29PM
Thank you. That's the point exactly. Too much power, secrecy, secret power, corruption. That the cops think it's okay to violate Facebook's terms of use is itself troubling. I don't know what "criminals" they were trying to catch, but when the cops stop following the law, we're all in trouble.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Friday September 28 2018, @02:22AM (3 children)
Blackstone's formulation. No, it's not my own argument, but it's a reasonable argument, often debated, and well understood.
Your position seems to prefer a police state over a state that can tolerate ten guilty escaping justice, but cannot tolerate an innocent being unjustly punished.
The whole idea of entrapment has been rejected, again and again by the courts. But, it keeps coming back.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by DaTrueDave on Friday September 28 2018, @03:08AM (2 children)
You seem to be confusing entrapment with undercover operations.
The situation being discussed is related to undercover operations, where a cop establishes some sort of fake persona, in order to infiltrate criminal operations. Entrapment is when the police do something to entice someone to break the law, who otherwise would never have broken that law.
Those are very different things, and entrapment is rarely seen in the United States. The closest thing you might see is a honeypot, where the cops set up an easy way for people to break the law (buy drugs or kiddie porn or prostitutes, or whatever). If they advertise too blatantly, and a judge thinks that the police threw it in someone's face instead of someone seeking it out, then it may be entrapment.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Spamalope on Friday September 28 2018, @03:50AM
You know, after the last police beating I witnessed I'm really not going to accept anything like that would actually result unless both the lack of accountability and the arrangement that built it this way are meaningfully fixed. If police misconduct and corruption is so rampant that someone as milktoast as me has seen what I've seen, there is a fundamental problem. It shouldn't be this way, and doesn't have to be.
Last one I saw - well, I can say they are learning. Some folks were criminally looking too hippy. Officers waited until they moved to a spot on the street where the street light was out under a tree. Cell phone cameras won't work there don't yah know. Then they batonned the preppie unrelated college kid for being there with an SLR that could get those pics (this was NOLA - so he was probably there for boobie pics), then started with the real beatdown. Watched an officer in a patrol car who was too late for the fun and I guess mad about it swerve across 3 lanes to try and hit a couple crossing the road nearby (the couple had the 'walk' sign and the officer had a red light, which he ran, and did not have his lights on). As a nerdy, white bread, milktoast guy I shouldn't have the stories I have - and wouldn't if things were healthy.
So no, I don't want to give the folks who think that's a good idea the ability to easily spy on anyone from their chair without oversight or accountability. Not that FB is a good actor in any fashion.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday September 28 2018, @02:34PM
I'm not real sure about that. Remember those Muslims in Syracuse? Pretty much everyone who knew them agreed that the bunch of them didn't have the brains to build a bomb, lacked the savvy to come up with any kind of meaningful target, and probably couldn't even find their way to a target if they had one. I watched the documentary, with a healthy skepticism, but really, those guys weren't smart enough to pour piss out of their boots, if the instructions were written on the bottom. But, the FBI made headlines with their big terrorist bust.
What you're calling a honeypot should be deemed entrapment. If the cop has the drugs, and he's apparently selling them, he has broken a number of laws, including solicitation. But, cops never get charged for all the illegal crap they do.
Honeypot or entrapment, either way, it's a tool of a police state. I don't have much liking for police states.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 28 2018, @05:51PM
Do explain how letting police violate the law is a good idea.
As far as I know the CFAA doesn't have a Law Enforcement loop hole in it.
if the information they are getting on these organizations is worth making the accounts for, it stands to reason that they are "things of value," also, making fraudulent accounts is exceeding "authorized access" to facebook's protected computer (protected in this case is any computer that engages in interstate commerce).
(Score: 5, Interesting) by sjames on Friday September 28 2018, @02:03AM (7 children)
Did you even read the summary? The PD was gathering information on activists, not criminals. Essentially they were taking advantage of the difficulty of connecting a fake account to a real person to skip that whole probable cause/warrant thingy (it's Sooooo inconvieniant).
Perhaps the PD should police lying, cheating, and stealing rather than participating in it.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 28 2018, @03:23AM (6 children)
"The PD was gathering information on activists, not criminals."
-
What your tiny little brain doesn't seem to understand is that activists can ALSO BE CRIMINALS.
A proper police investigation would clearly distinguish between the people who were only activists and the people who were also criminals.
I live in a town where activists HAVE recently engaged in criminal activity. Many citizens in this town do not like that criminal activity even when they are sympathetic to the cause the activists embrace. We don't mind the activists behaving in a lawful manner. We want the activists who engage in criminal
activity to be punished severely enough that they quit such behavior. If you think criminal activity is justified because you're "fighting for a cause",
we have jail cells for you too, motherfucker.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by RS3 on Friday September 28 2018, @04:57AM (3 children)
What is your problem? Did you experience something terrible? Or are you just genetically predisposed to fascism?
Agreeing with what Runaway wrote, I strongly uphold the Founding Fathers' principle that it's better for 10 criminals to be loose than one innocent in prison. It's a concept that should be applied everywhere. I strongly agree with the Innocence Project, and I find it horrendous that there is a need for such an effort. I feel strongly that it is much more deeply criminal for governments to cause harm (cops beating, shooting), steal (seizure, forfeiture), kidnap (imprison), and murder (capital punishment) an innocent person.
Frankly I'm much more afraid of cops than I am criminals, mostly because if the cops are bad, now what, who ya gonna call?
Maybe you're a cop. Either way, there are plenty of police states in the world- go live in one.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 28 2018, @05:31AM (2 children)
My problem is that I can't take a baseball bat to your skull and spray your grey matter all over the sidewalk.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 28 2018, @09:35AM
I see that you had your police brutality training, Mr Bob Smith
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Friday September 28 2018, @02:57PM
Fascism it is, then, Mr. Brown Shirt.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 28 2018, @03:13PM
FTFY ... but you already knew that, right copper?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday September 29 2018, @01:35AM
Since you say HAVE rather than are suspected of, it sounds like you have what you need.
It also sounds like you have forgotten who is supposed to be working for who. Try wagging a civil tongue next time.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 28 2018, @04:25PM
I disagree. You're effectively saying "If you're not with us, you're against us."
History has shown that to be a piss-poor mindset for a society to adopt. Bad Things Result.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Friday September 28 2018, @06:38PM
I would not use those words, but this is true. Terms of Service does not override laws, or even bylaws. Judges would almost certainly find that police have a legal right to go undercover and the obstructing them is breaking the law.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Friday September 28 2018, @01:38AM
I question your math, and think you should go count Facebook's problems again to see if you can't spot more than that.
Hint: There's more than one in today's Soylentnews headlines alone.
You can, in fact, possibly just skip to the right-hand end of the number line for the actual number.
(Score: 1, Troll) by jmorris on Friday September 28 2018, @02:06AM (1 child)
So Facebook openly tells governments how it is going to be. Nice to see we aren't pretending the vestigial elected portions of the Deep State are still meaningful, we are admitting the old formal government is being cast off now and the vastly more powerful and intrusive corporate arms of it are going to directly rule is in their own name now.
So I wonder, now that Facebook has made its decision, with what force does it intend to enforce its edicts? If a local PD sets up a facebook account and arrests some local perv or drug dealer will Facebook have the officers involved arrested somehow? Will the PD or the entire city be deplatformed (like Alex Jones) from access to the Internet and the banking system? Will they send elite ninjas to have the chief of police killed? Send a platoon of lawyers to engage in lawfare?
Enquiring minds wanna know. Had we any journalists remaining someone would have put a mic in Zuck's face by now and got some answers. Alas.
(Score: 1, Troll) by khallow on Friday September 28 2018, @04:53AM
No more force than it uses on the many other users who ignore that. Real names is a dumb idea and even the authorities are ignoring it.
(Score: 1, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Friday September 28 2018, @02:28AM
Very SMART work by our Memphis Law Enforcement, they're working SMARTER not HARDER. It's modern day police work, very 21st Century. They've come a long way since Officer Earl Clark took out MLK. Love it!!!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by ShadowSystems on Friday September 28 2018, @05:42AM
Given the plethora of obviously fake accounts on FaceBook, from literal sock puppets, cartoon characters, cats & dogs, to non-individual-person accounts for such "people" as white supremacist hate groups, all it would take is the PD to file a discrimination suit to force FB to defend itself in court.
"You say we can't create a fake user account in the course of a police investigation, but yet you allow probably MILLIONS of fake accounts by inanimate objects, animals, & terrorist groups posting beheadings. Please explain how you justify discriminating against the police force doing their duty."
FB may want to purge their systems of every single "fake account", every account not verified to be using a real name, & that doesn't violate *any* of the FB TOS before FB tries to tell the cops what they can & can not do.
Otherwise I don't (metaphorically) see how any judge wouldn't find against FB for being complicit in violating/ignoring their own rules.
"Hey Zuck, have you ever heard the old addage that those whom live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones? Yeah, well, those who don't fekkin' bother to enforce their own rules against Mianmar government led culling of their populace via FB campaigns MIGHT want to rethink stopping law enforcement trying to do its job. Just sayin'."
(Score: 2) by Entropy on Friday September 28 2018, @06:54AM
What they actually mean is Antifa terrorists. (Violence to cause a change in government policy..)