NYPD Creates Fake Social Media Profiles To Track Loud Parties, Underage Drinking 135
v3rgEz writes Is that Facebook friend request from the cute girl in third period, or an undercover officer looking to bust up the next high shool kegger? That's the question more students in New York City might be asking, as newly released documents from the NYPD disclose its process for agents creating undercover social media aliases with the aims of uprooting terrorist plots, tracking "political activity," and other nefarious crimes like underage drinking or pre-meditated loud partying. Fake profiles must be approved by bureau brass, unless it would "seriously impair" an investigation or risk life or property damage.
Uh, don't post... (Score:4, Insightful)
This isn't condoning the actions of the NYPD, but I always figured that it was common sense, don't write down or otherwise document what you don't want others to know or find out about...
Re:Uh, don't post... (Score:5, Interesting)
Even if the police are not acting illegally (which I'm not so sure they are acting lawfully here)
They are violating Facebook's TOS, which is illegal. The police generally need a warrant to commit acts that would otherwise be illegal.
this is highly immoral.
Expecting the police to act morally is not reasonable. Their behavior should be constrained by laws, not just by their internal sense of right and wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
They are violating Facebook's TOS, which is illegal. The police generally need a warrant to commit acts that would otherwise be illegal.
I thought on Slashdot TOS, EULAs etc. are not the law and violating them isn't illegal.
Re: (Score:3)
It's called contract law. A contract is enforceable in a civil court. EULAs generally tend to not be very enforceable, but where they are, you'd be liable for damages. Which wouldn't be very much since you're not promising Facebook anything in return, they'd just get to terminate your account at worst.
Re:Uh, don't post... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1)
Violating TOS is only "illegal" if the company complains about it. NYPD might have an agreement with Facebook, or Facebook might just not care about it, and in both cases it's entierly fine.
Re: (Score:2)
You mean like swatting?
Re: (Score:2)
You might want to read up on the DOJ threatening people with prosecution for violating TOS's from commercial sites.
Re: (Score:1)
Doesn't that defeat the purpose? Even if the police are not acting illegally (which I'm not so sure they are acting lawfully here) this is highly immoral. Presumably these are private affairs and they're committing fraud in order to get into what may or may not be an "illegal" party (whatever that means). I'd presume they aren't advertising "under-age drinking" so any effort to infiltrate by the police is criminal and without probable cause, etc. They are attempting to defraud to find out where and then doing an illegal search that violates peoples rights.
There's nothing private about an activity that you post to a social media site.
"Hey everybody, look at this!"
"Ooops, I was too stupid to realize the police are part of everybody"
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
If you post and set it to "show only to certain people" (or whatever the settings are on your social media outlet of choice) then yes there IS an expectation that people outside the group can't see it.
If a cop is posing as as a teenager or college kid online so they can hang out in chat-rooms and hook pedophiles that's one thing (pedophiles are scum who deserve to be locked away in one of those nasty jails they show on various TV documentaries) but if they are doing it to bust up a few kids having some beer
Re: (Score:3)
I own a house. Name's on the deed and everything. In my house, I have a "reasonable expectation of privacy". But nobody who visits my house does, even if I'm not there. And in any case, you vacate your "reasonable expectation of privacy" the moment you tell anyone else about your secret.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
As for filming guests in the home, ask a local lawyer.
Why, because they can afford a really good camera?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Fully agree. Further, I don't really see this as a legal issue (rarity for NYPD, really!)
IMHO, this is like having an undercover agent fake name. Where I do have questions is in their disclosure for the exceptions, and how many exceptions there are (neither of which were published in the article).
Re: (Score:3)
Well, so long as it's a fake identity, sure.
But if they're impersonating a real person that's identity theft, at a minimum.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, ToS are a whole different ball of wax of questionable legal significance even to normal users. And if the person in the photo gives their permission, or is a complete fiction (CG, sculpture, whatever), then you're probably in the clear. But if they don't... well *then* they have a problem.
Re: (Score:2)
Doesn't really matter. It's okay for police to break the law when enforcing the law. Generally these actions are authorized by the supervising attorney and reviewed. It must not be dangerous, there must be a good reason, and it must be relevant to the investigation underway.
There's nothing illegal or unethical about the actions of the police in this case. If you don't like the crimes the police were investigating, well, change the laws. But the police procedure was routine and appropriate.
Re: Uh, don't post... (Score:1)
I have a fetish for cops posing as teenage girls. Is there a porn site for that?
Re: (Score:3)
I have a fetish for cops posing as teenage girls. Is there a porn site for that?
Why don't you create one and let us know how it works out in, say 20 years to life?
Re: (Score:3)
I have a fetish for cops posing as teenage girls. Is there a porn site for that?
Why don't you create one and let us know how it works out in, say 20 years to life?
You know how they have those TV shows where they lure perverts? Well, they lure those people to the houses with promises of underage sex, or at least promises of a minor home alone. If they lured someone to the house with promises of overage sex, and they got there and found a kid and said "uh no" and turned around, the cop dressed as a tree might still tackle them but they'd actually have a worthy defense in court.
Having a fetish for any kind of cop seems deviant enough to qualify for therapy, though
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
1. Get a group of people together to create fake "we're having a party at X's place at YPM", where X is a cop at another precinct.
2. Post videos of the Swatting on YouTube.
3. PROFIT!!!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Think about it another way, if a person is banned from a retail store because of inappropriate but not necessarily illegal behavior, there's not a whole lot that the retail chain can do to enforce that ban, especially if they're huge and compartmentalized. It's difficult to enforce a ban even at the store that an infraction(s)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No you don't. The Facebook legal terms [facebook.com] which all users of the service agree to already address this:
Re: (Score:2)
How do you to prevent your friends from posting the same information? Ordinarily, I wouldn't mind shouting from the rooftops that I am going to a party. I wouldn't even care if cops heard me. But if the cops are going to survey my friends' casual posts -- "Going to a party at Brent's!" -- and guarantee flashing lights out front once their algorithms pinpoint where it is, that a bit different. It's less like having a cop reading information you have put up on a flyer and more like the cops having wireta
Re:Uh, don't post... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's less like having a cop reading information you have put up on a flyer and more like the cops having wiretaps on all of your associates. Which would be fine, with a good reason and a court order.
Since when does facebook offer a reasonable expectation of privacy? If you don't want it to be public, it shouldn't be on facebook.
What NYPD is doing is part of a larger trend ... (Score:5, Insightful)
... of America dropping deeper and deeper into the abyss of absolute fascism
... this isn't condoning the actions of the NYPD ...
I feel sad that you choose to limit it within the very narrow context of 'action of NYPD'
The sad fact is that the United States of America, thanks to NYPD and all other local / state / federal law enforcement agencies is becoming more and more like what the Stasi did in Eastern Germany, or the secret police of the Nicolae Ceausescu regime of Romania, or under the CCP in China, or the Kim's secret police in North Korea, ...
If the sentence 'uprooting terrorist plots, tracking "political activity"' fails to alarm any of the Americans, the future of United States of America is bleak
I mean, please read that sentence again
They actually use the term "terrorist plots" and the term "political activity" in the same fucking sentence!
What kind of America is _that_ ?
Aren't Americans supposed to be free to associate or join with any political activity, especially in the Land of the FREE??
What the fuck has happened to the freedom of association?
Or has America turned into a place where local law enforcement agencies such as NYPD, and all other agencies from the States as well as from the Federal level, get to dictate who can mix with whom now??
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Calm your taco: none of this is new or different, except the "on a computer" part. I thought we were over "on a computer" freak-outs?
HS and college parties have always had narcs. Either undercover officers, or informers who were in the social scene and would ruin parties for fun. In college, we'd always learn who they were by the end of the year, and plan accordingly, but there'd be a new crop of them the next year.
This is just that, "on a computer". A fake profile is easier than a CI, enabling more sur
Re: (Score:2)
Or, ditch the "nothing to see here, move along" pablum. In the 80's, cops weren't armed with military hardware, and the FBI wasn't running around trying to turn activists into terrorists with paid informants. In the 90's, the NSA might have liked to spy on everyone's communications (see Clipper Chip) but most people didn't have email, much less cell phones, much less Twitter or Facebook.
And the police department's with limited resources always had to send an ac
Re: (Score:2)
Police aren't raiding HS parties to pad their budget with asset forfeitures, AFAIK, it's just a nuisance crime that they don't want to be bothered with in the first place. At least at my college, there was never any shortage of willing narcs to have all parties covered, unless you worked to keep it secret. I suspect HS parties are about the same.
Yes, there are real problems with police overreach, but this just doesn't seem like one of them.
Re: (Score:1)
They actually use the term "terrorist plots" and the term "political activity" in the same fucking sentence!
All terrorist plots are political, otherwise it wouldn't be terrorism. So political activity really is where you'd get earliest warning of possible terrorism. That's not the problem. The problem is that the government likes to crap all over the Constitution.
Re: (Score:2)
Pretty sure it's the same America that put all of its Japanese citizens into camps, destroyed the lives of scientists because they had left-leaning friends, tested experimental drugs on the poor, incarcerated and military without their knowing, and practiced eugenics on "undesirables."
The America you remember never existed except in propaganda.
Re: (Score:2)
Aren't Americans supposed to be free to associate or join with any political activity, especially in the Land of the FREE??
Ask anyone who was hounded out of their job in the 1950s by Senator Joe McCarthy for going to a cocktail party where communist party members may have been..
This shit has been going on for a long time.
Re:Uh, don't post... (Score:4, Funny)
The NYPD does this to islamic prayer groups, why wouldn't they do it to teenagers?
"First the came for the Socialists, but I was not a Socialist..."
I draw the line at impersonating real people (Score:1)
Undercover investigation should be possible, and if you're the kind of criminal who boasts to people you don't know, you get what you deserve.
Re: (Score:2)
I think most people who claim entrapment mean that it SHOULD be considered as such, not that it is, legally.
Loud partying is rude (Score:1)
How am I supposed to think with all that loud noise next door?
On the Internet... (Score:2, Flamebait)
nobody knows that you're a pig.
They have nothing else more important to do? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
some of us don't want concerts next door to us. if you want a legit show, go rent a legit venue and sell tickets
Re: (Score:1)
The difference is that being quiet does not affect anyone else, being loud does.
Re: (Score:2)
I guess it's too bad that you think your desires trump those of others.
Here's a clue: your right to swing your arms ends at my nose.
Re: (Score:1)
Go be loud somewhere else. Apartments and houses are places where people live and we have the right to peace and quiet when we're home.
Re: (Score:1)
Damn straight - only people with $$ deserve to have fun!
Re: (Score:2)
That only really makes sense if you're using loud music to say something. And to my mind what you're saying, very loudly, is: "we should really have some kind of law against annoying people with loud music".
Re: (Score:3)
There is also a universal right to property [wikipedia.org] and the enjoyment of that property. Almost all jurisdictions have noise bylaws which support that right.
Re: (Score:1)
Just in the same way that you have the freedom to write what you want... but only on things you own. You can't just scratch "Obama is a Muslin Satinist" on your neighbor's car and claim "free speech".
Re:They have nothing else more important to do? (Score:4, Funny)
Some of us want to pepper a whore's cunt with cocaine and ride her up and
down that imaginary line between bathroom and bed while listening to Death
Metal that is so mind-blowingly loud, it is warping the hood of your prius
that is parked outside. Then we get drunk, then all of our friends come over
for more of the same. We scream, we fight, we fuck, we get so high from pills
and powders, snorting and taking a hit off of the mystery pipe until fucking 5am
in the morning. That's when we're out in front of the house pissing our bladders
empty and calling you names before we head to a diner for bacon & eggs!
I am sorry if that somehow takes away from your weekend of smoking weed
and playing on your playstation followed by spells of intense masturbation.
But again, some people have lives, even when you don't.
...Easy for you to say on a cop's salary.
Re: (Score:2)
fake the fakers (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I'll fear the domestic military* more, thanks. The Muslim is 12,000km away, and mostly has more pressing priorities at home. They're only likely to be an issue in this country if they need to rouse some more "foreign demons" to justify their cause.
*The police are NOT a militia. A militia consists of civilians who supplement the military in an emergency, or engage in rebel activities, NOT a sustained military force.
Re: (Score:2)
I'll fear the domestic military* more, thanks.
Don't feed their egos. They're not military, no matter how bad they want to be. For all its ills, the military is far more competent than the police are. We see this demonstrated over and over again on the streets of our country every day, as cops trying to act like military do bad and stupid things.
The frustrating thing is, I doubt society would work without cops. But it isn't working now, and the cops we've got now are part of the reason why.
Old news (Score:4, Interesting)
From 2013 Cops Are Creating Totally Bogus Facebook Profiles Just So They Can Arrest People [businessinsider.com] where they also point out that this is against FB's TOS
Tangential to this in 2014 Justice Dept. will review practice of creating fake Facebook profiles [washingtonpost.com] (Which talks about Federal LE, most famously brought to light by the DEA creating the fake FB profile in the woman's name in order to nab suspects.
Feds pay $134,000 to settle DEA agent's fake Facebook case [timesunion.com]
Re:Old news (Score:4)
The DEA case is different in that they impersonated a real person without her permission.
Re: (Score:2)
FaceBook may be the group that puts an end to this because it will KILL THEIR BRAND. Just as the police seem to target "urban" locations over suburban for drug raids -- targeting Facebook social party announcements will cause people to create their parties on other platforms.
And we have to ignore the fact that drug addiction has been proven to be more the result of having an empty life over properties of the drug.
While I don't want my kids getting involved in the drug scene, or have risky behaviors, I'd say
Why Political activitys need a fake profile/image? (Score:3)
Re: Why Political activitys need a fake profile/im (Score:3)
Make sure to sow mistrust... (Score:3)
Everywhere you go, in all things.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
That is not an accident. It is also not an accident that these societies collapsed. You cannot build a working society on mistrust. For society and economy to work, it is necessary that you can trust people you know in most cases. Eroding that trust is about the most immoral and evil thing that it is possible to do.
Back In The Day (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
The cost to society this incurs is extreme: People do not trust strangers anymore and society slowly loses cohesion. The possible crime fighting successes pale in comparison to the damage done.
Re: (Score:2)
The world does not divide up into neat and tidy categories of behaviors which are always good or always bad. Sometimes the benefit is worth the price paid, sometimes it's not.
Re: (Score:2)
Your point? You seem to be unaware that I was commenting on the case at hand...
Re: (Score:1)
*SHOULD* you be trusting strangers to your house party, hoards of personal information, or various other things?
I can think of many people you should be more wary of than the cops. How about when "Bob Burglar" on your FB friends sees you "I'll be gone to Vegas for 2 weeks, can somebody babysit my cat" post?
Normal (Score:2)
"NYPD Creates Fake Social Media Profiles To Track Loud Parties, Underage Drinking"
Who doesn't?
How many (Score:1)
other pd's do this without being exposed? Should we start a contest?
At least this teaches them about online predators (Score:2)
Like the ones in the story. Side benefits are learning about chilling effects, dishonesty and certain groups of people that cannot be trusted for anything. This will be invaluable preparation for the coming fascist regime, so I would say the NYPD is doing good here.
Disonest (Score:2)
They thin their word, and invalidate their testimony,
There's one rule about Facebook... (Score:2)
Never, EVER accept a Friend request from someone you haven't met, physically, in person. Seriously.
I treat Facebook and LinkedIn with the same policy, and I have dozens of Friend Requests pending for YEARS, which will never be accepted. If I haven't met the person and pressed palms with them, then they don't get connected to me using social platforms, period.
You would be wise to do the same. With all the dark profiles being built behind the scenes, it makes sense to keep things clean and tight.