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Facebook friend turns into Big Brother

EpicDude86 said:
What? really? You've never heard the addage: Once it's on the internet, it's out there for good/all to see?

I know plenty of Police who use facebook and myspace, and good on them. If you're dumb enough to put EVIDENCE of you breaking the law on a PUBLIC system, especially if it's marked PUBLIC, then you deserve everything you get. :lol:

Now if they hack your account and violate the EULA and such, then I can see a problem.
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I think you summed it up perfectly here.

I see people all the time getting themselves into trouble with work, spouses, and worse by posting incriminating pictures or other evidence right out where anyone can see it. I guess it is because, even on a place like FaceBook where your name and location is attached to everything you post, the lack of face to face interaction breeds a feeling of anonymity.

It sounds like the kid was brought in on suspicion because of the picture, and then rolled on himself. He possibly could have gotten out of it, but, that part's academic now.
 
misterman said:
No, in real life. But of course there is some kind of evidence.
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Find a murder case that you believe was "built on less". I don't think I've ever heard of a conviction on circumstantial evidence. But I haven't read EVERY murder case either. ;)
 
EpicDude86 said:
Find a murder case that you believe was "built on less". I don't think I've ever heard of a conviction on circumstantial evidence. But I haven't read EVERY murder case either. ;)
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By "built on less" I meant less than a photo of someone in the act of committing the crime. That could be an eyewitness. But murder convictions based on circumstantial evidence only are hardly unusual. A few murder convictions even happen without an actual dead body proving the victim is dead. Here's a case I know of off the top of my head:

Thomas J. Capano - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
misterman said:
By "built on less" I meant less than a photo of someone in the act of committing the crime. That could be an eyewitness. But murder convictions based on circumstantial evidence only are hardly unusual. A few murder convictions even happen without an actual dead body proving the victim is dead. Here's a case I know of off the top of my head:

Thomas J. Capano - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Interesting case, but it seems that was based on a multiple confessions, not quite "built on less". Though it was nice to see a powerful figure go down for the crime they committed.
 
The problem is that digital evidence is very unreliable when it's the ONLY evidence you have of wrong-doing.
 
Catz Part Deux said:
The problem is that digital evidence is very unreliable when it's the ONLY evidence you have of wrong-doing.
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Sometimes yes, and sometimes no. Photos carry with them more than just the photo. For instance, information called metadata is stored in JPGs which can give you the date the picture was taken, and from what camera it was taken. And while electronic evidence is easy to alter if you know how, most alterations can be observed by the trained eye or there is some record of the alteration/original. Just like when you delete something off your hard drive, it's not really gone when you hit DELETE or empty your recycle bin, anyone that knows how can recover data from even a physically destroyed hard drive.
 
EpicDude86 said:
Interesting case, but it seems that was based on a multiple confessions, not quite "built on less". Though it was nice to see a powerful figure go down for the crime they committed.
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Like I said, "built on less" meant less than a picture showing him in the act of killing her.
 
vauge said:
WTF!?

Is it ok for the police to use facebook and other social websites to *enforce* the law? I think this is a privacy issue.

What do you think?
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Is it illegal to drink non-alcoholic beer?
How did the cops know the beer had alcohol in it?

Obviously this kid isn't a law student.

.
 
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zimmer said:
Is it illegal to drink non-alcoholic beer?
How did the cops know the beer had alcohol in it?

Obviously this kid isn't a law student.

.
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And a photo is only circumstantial evidence.
 
Great excuse for the cops to hang out at Facebook all day! :lol:
 
Sounds to me like the OP is what they call "entrapment". Something not allowed to cops. Which is why they can no longer hide behind big billboards waiting for someone to go speeding past them.
 
Kal'Stang said:
Sounds to me like the OP is what they call "entrapment".
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It's not at all entrapment. Entrapment is when the cops get you to do something illegal that you wouldn't do if they hadn't lured you into it. The cops did nothing at all to entice the guy to do something illegal. He just did it all on his own, and posted it for the world to see.
 
vauge said:
I think that by utilizing these methods (Facebook), the police become judge and jury thus pissing on our 4th amendment of undo search. The probable cause "because we can" should *not* be good enough.

I could careless what crime was committed. The police violated a more egregious one - ignoring our constitution.
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While I agree with Ethereal that it was a waste of time, the police did none of that -- they did not act as "judge," they did not act as "jury," and they did not "piss" on the 4th Amendment. The kid posted evidence on the Internet voluntarily and voluntarily allowed it to be seen.
 
Catz Part Deux said:
The problem is that digital evidence is very unreliable when it's the ONLY evidence you have of wrong-doing.
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That may be true -- but the kid had the opportunity to challenge on those grounds. He pleaded nolo cotendere, so he didn't argue the authenticity of the pic.
 
kaya'08 said:
Why is it a waste of time and why does it not serve any purpose?

If somebody reports an indivisual who is smoking weed, or taking some kind of drug that clearly violates the law, and can provide these claims via pictures from facebook, i see very little evidence to suggest using Facebook is a waste of time and "serves no purpose", if thats what you meant.
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Well look at it this way. The internet is the only thing that governments haven't over regulated yet. The internet allows people to exercise full freedom of speech, expression, and activism. The internet should stay this way.. It shouldn't become a tool for police officers to crack down on petty crimes or pictures that could have been edited or staged for all they know.

I think it's best we keep the government away from our internet.
 
Phantom said:
I think it's best we keep the government away from our internet.
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Just like that old guy who said "keep the government out of my Medicare!"

:rofl
 
misterman said:
Just like that old guy who said "keep the government out of my Medicare!"

:rofl
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No. Some things are meant for the government to regulate, other things aren't.
 
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You also took my post out of context by quoting the last sentence and ignored everything above it. By government I mean the police who want to use it as a tool to mean their quota on catching petty crimes.
 
Phantom said:
You also took my post out of context by quoting the last sentence and ignored everything above it. By government I mean the police who want to use it as a tool to mean their quota on catching petty crimes.
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Some would argue that the police force is a part of the government. Which technically they are. That of the state government that is.
 
Phantom said:
No. Some things are meant for the government to regulate, other things aren't.
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Um, you did get the point that the internet was created by the government, just like Medicare, right?
 
Phantom said:
You also took my post out of context by quoting the last sentence and ignored everything above it. By government I mean the police who want to use it as a tool to mean their quota on catching petty crimes.
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So? Why shouldn't they use it as a tool? As long as what they are doing is legal and constitutional, why shouldn't they?
 
vauge said:
I think this is a privacy issue.

What do you think?
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He's putting this online, so I doubt it's a privacy issue. Also, he permitted a girl to be his 'friend', thereby knowingly (and stupidly) dropped all protections around his privacy. It's not like the cops hacked into his Facebook account.

Sorry, I just think he did something stupid. Cops have been using new technologies for decades in order to catch perps (i.e. Project Innocence), this is nothing new.
 
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