Stupid criminals have made various law enforcement agencies job’s easier by posting their crimes in onto social media. Since this ridiculous trend has led to more arrests, the DEA begin to create fake profiles on Facebook to lure in some of their suspects.
Rules are rules and Facebook isn’t allowing even a prestigious organization like the DEA to get by breaking them.
Reports MSN:
Facebook’s chief security officer, Joe Sullivan, said in a letter Friday to DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart that law enforcement agencies need to follow the same rules about being truthful on Facebook as civilian users. Those rules include a ban on lying about who you are.
Sullivan’s letter was in response to a New York woman’s federal lawsuit claiming that a DEA agent created a fake online persona using her name and photographs stored on her cellphone.
In court filings, Sondra Arquiett said her pictures were retrieved from her cellphone after she was arrested in July 2010 on drug charges and her cellphone seized. Arquiett said the fake page was being used by DEA agent Timothy Sinnigen to interact with “dangerous individuals he was investigating.” Arquiett is asking for $250,000 in damages.
“Facebook has long made clear that law enforcement authorities are subject to these policies,” Sullivan wrote. “We regard DEA’s conduct to be a knowing and serious breach of Facebook’s terms and policies.”
Brian Fallon, a spokesman for the Justice Department was quoted saying, “That review is ongoing, but to our knowledge, this is not a widespread practice among our federal law enforcement agencies.”
In other words, there may be a spike in online informants since the DEA can’t do it.
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Photo: VitalyzdTv
