[News] Federal Agents Dipping Into Social Media

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Facebook Feds Go Undercover


Document Shows Federal Agents Dipping Quietly Into Social Media

<http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/03/16/tech/main6302811.shtml>http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/03/16/tech/main6302811.shtml

(AP)  WASHINGTON (AP) - The Feds are on Facebook. And MySpace, 
LinkedIn and Twitter, too.

U.S. law enforcement agents are following the rest of the Internet 
world into popular social-networking services, going undercover with 
false online profiles to communicate with suspects and gather private 
information, according to an internal Justice Department document 
that offers a tantalizing glimpse of issues related to privacy and 
crime-fighting.

Think you know who's behind that "friend" request? Think again. Your 
new "friend" just might be the FBI.

The document, obtained in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, makes 
clear that U.S. agents are already logging on surreptitiously to 
exchange messages with suspects, identify a target's friends or 
relatives and browse private information such as postings, personal 
photographs and video clips.

Among other purposes: Investigators can check suspects' alibis by 
comparing stories told to police with tweets sent at the same time 
about their whereabouts. Online photos from a suspicious spending 
spree - people posing with jewelry, guns or fancy cars - can link 
suspects or their friends to robberies or burglaries.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based civil 
liberties group, obtained the Justice Department document when it 
sued the agency and five others in federal court. The 33-page 
document underscores the importance of social networking sites to 
U.S. authorities. The foundation said it would publish the document 
on its Web site on Tuesday.

With agents going undercover, state and local police coordinate their 
online activities with the Secret Service, FBI and other federal 
agencies in a strategy known as "deconfliction" to keep out of each 
other's way.

"You could really mess up someone's investigation because you're 
investigating the same person and maybe doing things that are 
counterproductive to what another agency is doing," said Detective 
Frank Dannahey of the Rocky Hill, Conn., Police Department, a veteran 
of dozens of undercover cases.

A decade ago, agents kept watch over AOL and MSN chat rooms to nab 
sexual predators. But those text-only chat services are old-school 
compared with today's social media, which contain mountains of 
personal data, photographs, videos and audio clips - a potential 
treasure trove of evidence for cases of violent crime, financial 
fraud and much more.

The Justice Department document, part of a presentation given in 
August by top cybercrime officials, describes the value of Facebook, 
Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn and other services to government 
investigators. It does not describe in detail the boundaries for using them.

"It doesn't really discuss any mechanisms for accountability or 
ensuring that government agents use those tools responsibly," said 
Marcia Hoffman, a senior attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The group sued in Washington to force the government to disclose its 
policies for using social networking sites in investigations, data 
collection and surveillance.

The foundation also obtained an Internal Revenue Service document 
that instructs employees on how to use to use Internet tools - 
including social networking sites - to investigate taxpayers. The 
document states that IRS employees are barred from using deception or 
creating fake accounts to get information, a directive the group says 
is commendable.

Covert investigations on social-networking services are legal and 
governed by internal rules, according to Justice Department 
officials. But they would not say what those rules are.

The Justice Department document raises a legal question about a 
social-media bullying case in which U.S. prosecutors charged a 
Missouri woman with computer fraud for creating a fake MySpace 
account - effectively the same activity that undercover agents are 
doing, although for different purposes.

The woman, Lori Drew, helped create an account for a fictitious teen 
boy on MySpace and sent flirtatious messages to a 13-year-old 
neighborhood girl in his name. The girl hanged herself in October 
2006, in a St. Louis suburb, after she received a message saying the 
world would be better without her.

A jury in California, where MySpace has its servers, convicted Drew 
of three misdemeanor counts of accessing computers without 
authorization because she was accused of violating MySpace's rules 
against creating fake accounts. But last year a judge overturned the 
verdicts, citing the vagueness of the law.

"If agents violate terms of service, is that 'otherwise illegal 
activity'?" the document asks. It doesn't provide an answer.

Facebook's rules, for example, specify that users "will not provide 
any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for 
anyone other than yourself without permission." Twitter's rules 
prohibit its users from sending deceptive or false information. 
MySpace requires that information for accounts be "truthful and accurate."

A former U.S. cybersecurity prosecutor, Marc Zwillinger, said 
investigators should be able to go undercover in the online world the 
same way they do in the real world, even if such conduct is barred by 
a company's rules. But there have to be limits, he said.

In the face-to-face world, agents can't impersonate a suspect's 
spouse, child, parent or best friend. But online, behind the guise of 
a social-networking account, they can.

"This new situation presents a need for careful oversight so that law 
enforcement does not use social networking to intrude on some of our 
most personal relationships," said Zwillinger, whose firm does legal 
work for Yahoo and MySpace.

Undercover operations aren't necessary if the suspect is reckless. 
Federal authorities nabbed a man wanted on bank fraud charges after 
he started posting Facebook updates about the fun he was having in Mexico.

Maxi Sopo, a native of Cameroon living in the Seattle area, 
apparently slipped across the border into Mexico in a rented car last 
year after learning that federal agents were investigating the 
alleged scheme. The agents initially could find no trace of him on 
social media sites, and they were unable to pin down his exact 
location in Mexico. But they kept checking and eventually found Sopo 
on Facebook.

While Sopo's online profile was private, his list of friends was not. 
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Scoville began going through the list 
and was able to learn where Sopo was living. Mexican authorities 
arrested Sopo in September. He is awaiting extradition to the U.S.

The Justice document describes how Facebook, MySpace and Twitter have 
interacted with federal investigators: Facebook is "often cooperative 
with emergency requests," the government said. MySpace preserves 
information about its users indefinitely and even stores data from 
deleted accounts for one year. But Twitter's lawyers tell prosecutors 
they need a warrant or subpoena before the company turns over 
customer information, the document says.

"Will not preserve data without legal process," the document says 
under the heading, "Getting Info From Twitter ... the bad news."

Twitter did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

The chief security officer for MySpace, Hemanshu Nigam, said MySpace 
doesn't want to be the company that stands in the way of an 
investigation. "That said, we also want to make sure that our users' 
privacy is protected and any data that's disclosed is done under 
proper legal process," Nigam said.

MySpace requires a search warrant for private messages less than six 
months old, according to the company.

Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said the company has put together a 
handbook to help law enforcement officials understand "the proper 
ways to request information from Facebook to aid investigations."

The Justice document includes sections about its own lawyers. For 
government attorneys taking cases to trial, social networks are a 
"valuable source of info on defense witnesses," they said. "Knowledge 
is power. ... Research all witnesses on social networking sites."

But the government warned prosecutors to advise their own witnesses 
not to discuss cases on social media sites and to "think carefully 
about what they post."

It also cautioned federal law enforcement officials to think 
prudently before adding judges or defense counsel as "friends" on 
these services.

"Social networking and the courtroom can be a dangerous combination," 
the government said.



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