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DoJ: Law Enforcement Can Impersonate People On Facebook 191

An anonymous reader sends news that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency impersonated a young woman on Facebook to communicate with suspected criminals, and the Department of Justice argued that they had the right to do so. The woman was charged with being part of a drug ring and sentenced to probation, after which a DEA agent set up a Facebook page in her name, uploaded images to it (including pictures of her son and niece), and used it without her consent. She recently sued the agent in federal district court, and the government argued that she "implicitly consented by granting access to the information stored in her cell phone and by consenting to the use of that information to aid in an ongoing criminal investigations [sic]." Facebook has now removed the account, and the DoJ is "reviewing" the case.
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DoJ: Law Enforcement Can Impersonate People On Facebook

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  • disgusting (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mpicpp ( 3454017 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2014 @04:29PM (#48087015)
    why not just take out a po box, credit card and bank account in her name, Wow.
    • by khasim ( 1285 ) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Tuesday October 07, 2014 @04:41PM (#48087119)

      What happens if the fake account pisses off some criminal (specifically targeted by the FBI) who then kidnaps/kills her son or niece (who are featured on that fake page)?

      Someone needs to be fired over this.

    • by Calydor ( 739835 )

      Wasn't there a case not that long ago where a judge allowed a summons to be sent through Facebook because that was the only way of reaching someone? Combine that with this and you have a rather scary scenario.

  • by nbritton ( 823086 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2014 @04:30PM (#48087023)

    Sounds like she has a solid case for copyright infringment.

    • by techno-vampire ( 666512 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2014 @04:45PM (#48087155) Homepage
      Better yet: Identity Theft.
      • by Jody Bruchon ( 3404363 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2014 @05:03PM (#48087285)
        Exactly. This is textbook identity theft. Law enforcement does not obtain any rights to use someone's cell phone photos or identity outside of the actual prosecutorial process just because that person is being or was successfully prosecuted. The fact that the DOJ argues this is totally okay reflects how absurdly fucked up the US government is.
      • by Yakasha ( 42321 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2014 @05:46PM (#48087609) Homepage

        Better yet: Identity Theft.

        Better yet: two counts of wire fraud and 11 violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, carrying a cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines, 35 years in prison, asset forfeiture, restitution and supervised release.

        I think the agent in question & his bosses all hanging themselves in their bedroom would be acceptable to me as well.

        • Better yet: two counts of wire fraud and 11 violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, carrying a cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines, 35 years in prison, asset forfeiture, restitution and supervised release.

          Nah. Eric Holder has already stated that he has broad latitude in prosecuting criminals. She might win in civil court, but there's no way those apparent criminals are going to jail.

          • By definition, you can only prosecute innocent people, not criminals, as they are not guilty until the judgement says so.

            So he must therefore have zero latitude in prosecuting innocents.

            • I disagree with your reasoning. We can make a distinction between (a) someone who actually has violated the law, vs. (b) someone whom the state has judged to have violated the law.

              I believe Holder was referring to group (a). The act of prosecution, which he appears unwilling to perform, is intended to move a person from merely being in state (a), to being in both state (a) and (b).

            • Guilt is retroactive. Yes you are innocent, but that is until you are proven guilty. It means that you WERE guilty even during the time we presumed you to be innocent.

          • by Yakasha ( 42321 )

            Better yet: two counts of wire fraud and 11 violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, carrying a cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines, 35 years in prison, asset forfeiture, restitution and supervised release.

            Nah. Eric Holder has already stated that he has broad latitude in prosecuting criminals. She might win in civil court, but there's no way those apparent criminals are going to jail.

            Of course not. I'm sure the DA will offer 6 months in federal prison & a felony record shortly before they hang themselves.

        • I think the agent in question & his bosses all hanging themselves in their bedroom would be acceptable to me as well.

          I would rather we do the hanging in the town square so we can all enjoy the scene. When the worst criminals we have to deal with work for the government, we are all in trouble.

          • by Yakasha ( 42321 )

            I think the agent in question & his bosses all hanging themselves in their bedroom would be acceptable to me as well.

            I would rather we do the hanging in the town square so we can all enjoy the scene. When the worst criminals we have to deal with work for the government, we are all in trouble.

            I would rather they see their world crumble around them. I want them to see there is no future for their kind. I want them to despair so fully and completely that they cannot handle the thought of continuing to exist being so out of place. I want them to want to kill themselves to relieve themselves of the shame of knowing the rest of the world will move on, better & brighter, regardless of what they've done or tried to do. I don't want them to know failure, for failure requires an understanding of

      • by sootman ( 158191 )

        No, she should stick with copyright infringement. More precedent, bigger penalties.

        • More monetary penalties, yes. However, if she hits them with Identity Theft, there's a very good chance they'll be spending time in the Graybar Hotel.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    I am fairly certain I would be in jail if I committed the same crime.

    • by alexo ( 9335 )

      I am fairly certain I would be in jail if I committed the same crime.

      Because you are little people.

  • mental gymnastics (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Iamthecheese ( 1264298 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2014 @04:32PM (#48087045)
    The US government constantly abuses the law by ignoring it until a test case comes up and a judge says a particular method is illegal. The real harm is the creeping loss of rights as abuses become normalized by the time they make it to trial leading to more lenient judgements over time as judges try to match interpretation to "society's standards".

    I urge you to write your congress-critter today and tell him or her that the constitution is too important to ignore in the name of safety and that "hard on crime" is an insult to your intelligence.
    • I think what's really happened is that we've allowed government to convince us that "hard on crime" is only valid when the crime is committed by someone with a disreputable history who isn't connected to the government.

      I think if the same "hard on crime" rules were applied to government employees, we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

    • I am not disagreeing with you however every american does that too. Why is the government any different?

      It is okay to dump hazard waste into the local drinking water supply. There is no law against it.

      It is okay to steal money from the pot their is no law against it.

      Every law will be abused and distorted. From the patriot act to local zoning ordances.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Land of the Free (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 07, 2014 @04:33PM (#48087059)

    LOL! What a farce this shithole called USA has become.

    • The biggest, scariest shithole is Facebook.

      It's in a country near you.

  • by sentiblue ( 3535839 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2014 @04:35PM (#48087085)
    So this is exactly why Apple would encrypt their entire phone and did not leave a way for them to decrypt their own devices... so that they can avoid situations like this...

    Just because a dude works for the DOJ... that doesn't give him the right to invade and abuse the person's privacy... regardless if he/she is a criminal or not... Just because he was authorized to view the contents of her phone, it doesn't mean he can freely use it out in the open any way he wants....

    And it makes me laugh so hard that now the DOJ is saying they have the right to do it... that's just plain ignorant...
    • So this is exactly why Apple would encrypt their entire phone and did not leave a way for them to decrypt their own devices... so that they can avoid situations like this...

      Irrelevant in this case, because she (foolishly) consented to the search. We can assume she would have handed over they keys as well, since she didn't object to the search.

      • Only if we come to the conclusion that consenting to a search implicitly means consenting to totally relinquishing control of the account, which is not the case for anyone ever. It's also assuming that the consent to search was actually consensual as well, which it likely was not.
  • Seems like a clear case of violation of FaceBooks TOS
    FB should just delete their accounts

    • Yes, just because they can get a judge to say it's not illegal "because it's the government doing it because drugs and terrorists", doesn't mean that Facebook actually has to allow them to violate the terms of service. I don't have a FB account, but if I did, I would be spamming https://www.facebook.com/DOJ [facebook.com] with questions about this while reporting them to the admins for abuse.
  • Insane (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dereck1701 ( 1922824 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2014 @04:47PM (#48087167)

    Are they insane? Wasn't there a run on creating laws in many states just to stop high school students from making fake facebook pages to harass? This act not only could result in job loss, public humiliation, harassment & other life changing events but in threats and even death if an angry drug dealer/user came after her. This officer even misused private information collected for the limited purposes of serving as evidence in a trial. This officer and anyone associated with this heinous act should be charged with identity theft, property theft, libel, unauthorized access to a computer system (remember violating a TOS is now considered to be a crime) and fraud.

    • Don't forget copyright infringement as the cops sure as hell didn't have the rights to those pics.
      Hey, it's got the highest possible penalties of all of them and applies, so might as well have it on the list.
    • Re:Insane (Score:5, Informative)

      by ShaunC ( 203807 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2014 @06:11PM (#48087763)

      You think a fake Facebook account is bad, how about having a cop take over your ID and use it to become a stripper! In 2003, Ohio law enforcement agents "appropriated" a woman's drivers license and SSN, and assigned them to an undercover officer who went to work as a stripper for 3 months as part of a sting operation on strip clubs [archive.org]. And the victim in that case hadn't been arrested for (nor consented to) a damn thing.

      Pointing to a 2002 change in Ohio's law aimed at fighting identity theft, [the prosecutor] said police are allowed to assume anyone's identity as long as it's part of an investigation.

      Fucking outrageous. Law enforcement in the US is out of control and has been so for quite some time.

      • You can blame the damn War on Drugs, coupled with the fact that these guys get free military equipment. Some small ass town of 1000 people probably has a police dept. with a tank.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Federal agents can't be exempt from all state laws. For example, murder laws are at the state level, not the Federal. Are you saying the Feds can legally kill at will?

          • by Agripa ( 139780 )

            Federal agents can't be exempt from all state laws. For example, murder laws are at the state level, not the Federal. Are you saying the Feds can legally kill at will?

            Yes, at least as far as state law is concerned.

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... [wikipedia.org]

  • by DigitAl56K ( 805623 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2014 @04:48PM (#48087179)

    Stuff like this is exactly why strong cryptographic solutions should be woven into the fabric of the internet ASAP (e.g. content signing in this case). Agencies globally have become extremely abusive - spying, manipulating, defrauding,denying - and work against the basic infrastructure elements that would prevent this at every turn. They really bring it on themselves with crap like this.

    • Cryptography would have made no difference. She gave them her data willingly (probably as a part of the plea deal) and no facebook encryption would have stopped them from making a new profile.

      The interesting part is to determine whether them being allowed to pose as her person was a part of the agreement. It clearly wasn't there explicitly, so the question is whether agreeing "to give them data so they can be used to stop the criminal activity" implicitly allows them to use the data to impersonate her and p

  • by turkeydance ( 1266624 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2014 @04:50PM (#48087191)
    although i know i cannot totally erase my FB account, i have done what i know how to do. fini.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    To hell with copyright infringement and her unauthorized use... what about facebook's rights?

    The agent in question almost certainly engaged in unauthorized access to facebook servers, in excess of his granted, authenticated authority, while impersonating another user -- on a protected, commerce impacting system (there's ads on those servers). Including hosts with financial impacts crossing state boundaries. Whereas

    That is to say -- the agent knowingly broke 8 U.S.C. 1030.

    The process of getting the report

  • And her child? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Required Snark ( 1702878 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2014 @05:08PM (#48087331)
    So the DOJ also involved her child by posting his picture? As part of a drug investigation?

    She should also be suing them on behalf of her child for endangerment. In drug transactions family members can be targets of violence. The DOJ was putting a minor in harms way.

    That would go really well for the DOJ in court. I would love to be in the courtroom and watch some lawyer from the DOJ defend a practice that puts a child at risk. I'm sure that the jury would hear that testimony and decide there and then that the DOJ should loose the case very painfully.

    Also, aren't their laws pertaining to the use of images of minors without parental consent? Even if the image was obtained legally (not likely in this case). Sounds like a potential criminal case to me. Of course, considering it's the DOJ, they could have used the image in a pedophilia sting and nothing would happen.

    • So the DOJ also involved her child by posting his picture? As part of a drug investigation?

      She should also be suing them on behalf of her child for endangerment. In drug transactions family members can be targets of violence. The DOJ was putting a minor in harms way.

      That would go really well for the DOJ in court. I would love to be in the courtroom and watch some lawyer from the DOJ defend a practice that puts a child at risk. I'm sure that the jury would hear that testimony and decide there and then that the DOJ should loose the case very painfully.

      Also, aren't their laws pertaining to the use of images of minors without parental consent? Even if the image was obtained legally (not likely in this case). Sounds like a potential criminal case to me. Of course, considering it's the DOJ, they could have used the image in a pedophilia sting and nothing would happen.

      They'll buy her off in one way or another. She was on probation...how about a complete clearing of her record to drop the whole thing plus a few thousand 'for the kid's education'.

  • I don't facebook, and recommend that everyone that does, stop. That being said, since it's a thing that so many people do, I recommend that everyone at least open a facebook account (in your real name), set the password to some really long string that you will not remember, and then close the account. This will stop a lot of ridiculous stuff from happening in your name.

    This article makes me scratch my head, for all sorts of reasons.
    • She didn't HAVE a Facebook account. They created it for her. Using their reasoning they could do the same to you.

      • She didn't HAVE a Facebook account. They created it for her. Using their reasoning they could do the same to you.

        Right, so maybe you should re-read my original post.

    • by Mr.CRC ( 2330444 )

      Then you'll get arrested, they will demand your Facebook password, then lock you up indefinitely when you can't produce it.

      Or if they can't do that now, they will eventually. Basically where we're headed folks is, the government can do anything it wants to you, any time.

      This simply follows from asking the government to do everything for you.

    • Law enforcement is likely to be able to get around that.

  • by laughingskeptic ( 1004414 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2014 @05:23PM (#48087469)
    Louisiana: http://www.criminaldefenselawy... [criminalde...lawyer.com] Unfortunately in New York http://www.criminaldefenselawy... [criminalde...lawyer.com] the intent must be criminal.
    • Louisiana: http://www.criminaldefenselawy... [criminalde...lawyer.com]
      Unfortunately in New York http://www.criminaldefenselawy... [criminalde...lawyer.com] the intent must be criminal.

      From your link:
      "A person commits the crime of criminal impersonation by: impersonating another or pretending to represent some person or organization with the intent to benefit the defendant.."

      Arguably this was done to benefit those doing the impersonation.

      Also, it's quite possible that while using her identity the agent performed illegal acts, which would seem to indicate criminal intent, if indirectly.

  • "implicitly consented by granting access to the information stored in her cell phone and by consenting to the use of that information to aid in an ongoing criminal investigations [sic]."

    "Consented". they keep using that word.

    I do not think it means what they want you to think it means. Ever.

    • It goes quite handily with all of the other terms they've corrupted. Like that recent story about how information doesn't count as being "collected" until its looked at (mass surveillance), the "shall not/no law/nor shall/limited time" portions of the constitution have mostly been rendered into "whatever you think its necessary" and the (re)interpretation of the "interstate commerce" clause would be laughable if it wasn't so tragic.

  • The war on drugs has gone too far. for the past 35 years the word "drugs" has been code word for "surrender all liberties, and make exceptions to all rules".

    There is nothing so bad to the worst of any drugs that is worth giving up this much freedom for.
  • When the DEA seizes a cell phone from a drug dealer, are they allowed to call numbers stored in the cell phone, posing as the dealer in question?

    If not, then what they did with this Facebook page is also illegal.

  • The DOJ keeps telling us that identity theft is a crime.
  • .....but shouldn't that be a form of entrapment? I guess the gov't can make whatever rules they want 'til enough United Statesians try a revolution.
  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday October 08, 2014 @02:39AM (#48089507)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by gsslay ( 807818 )

      Somehow I don't think your average drug cartel cares about the distinction between helping the DEA, and appearing to help the DEA.

    • by Thruen ( 753567 )
      Because you couldn't be bothered to even read the summary:

      the government argued that she "implicitly consented by granting access to the information stored in her cell phone and by consenting to the use of that information to aid in an ongoing criminal investigations [sic]."

      They're not doing anything to hide the fact that she assisted them, they're actually arguing that she gave them permission to create the account when she gave them permission to access her phone. Even if their argument doesn't hold up in court, they're still acknowledging she gave them some assistance by allowing them to access her phone. You could maybe claim they're downplaying how much she assisted them, but it seems more likely this is exactly w

  • Don't ever consent to anything if you are the target of a criminal investigation or anything (like a traffic stop) that might turn into a criminal investigation. What you think they're going to do with your consent and what they intend to do may be two different things. You may be surprised at what the courts *allow* them to do with information you've given them permission to access it.

    Be scrupulously cooperative with anything the cop is allowed to demand that you do. Don't argue, lecture or harangue, do

  • "implicitly consented by granting access to the information stored in her cell phone and by consenting to the use of that information to aid in an ongoing criminal investigations [sic]."

    To begin with: I worry what "implicitly" means. Do they mean "she had it on her person when arrested"?

    That said. If I "implcitly consent" to you searching my pocket, and my house-keys are in it, did I just consent to a home search and the use of my house? I think not.

Whatever is not nailed down is mine. Whatever I can pry up is not nailed down. -- Collis P. Huntingdon, railroad tycoon

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