Your New Facebook Friend May Be a Federal Agent

WASHINGTON (March 26) -- A Justice Department document asks the simple question: Why Go Undercover on Facebook, MySpace, etc.?

Then it goes on to explain: "Communicate with suspects/targets" ... "gain access to non-public info" ... "map social relationships/networks."

The document, part of a Justice Department PowerPoint presentation, demonstrates how some federal and local law enforcement agents are quietly creating fictitious accounts on social networks like Facebook and MySpace to get dirt on suspected criminals. The presentation recently surfaced in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in a San Francisco federal court.

"This is just the way people meet these days -- electronically," James Cavanaugh, special agent in charge of the Nashville office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told AOL News. "It wouldn't be any different than calling someone on the phone, say, in an undercover capacity. If we can meet them on Facebook by creating a fictitious account, that's great. "

Even so, the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco filed the lawsuit in December against about a half a dozen federal agencies to create a public dialogue on the matter and make sure agencies have guidelines for agents, according to Marcia Hoffman, a senior staff attorney for the foundation. The Justice Department, Homeland Security, Treasury, the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence are included in the suit.

more: http://www.aolnews.com/crime/article/your-new-facebook-friend-may-be-a-federal-agent/19415010

We've actually started getting together, in person, and having pot-luck dinners and great conversation. We don't invite Fed. agents.

I dumped FB a year ago and haven't looked back.

We need more of it.

Isn't it much nicer to sit down with your friends, maybe over a glass of wine or beer, and ask "how's your week been?" Much better than a "status update" on an impersonal website, IMHO.

friends with. It began to look like a pissing contest much of the time, or a way to brag about how good life has been to people. It was revealing, however, when I checked out the FB page of a woman I was starting to date. She had hundreds of pretentious pictures of herself, some of which were, like, vanity shots she took of herself with her cell phone while driving, including 7 or 8 of a series where it looked like she was trying to get her lips to pout just so. So I guess FB helped confirm that this was a very vain person.

from people I don't know and I won't always declined.

maddezmom

I have Facebook, but I never just give in to a request of friendship becouse "some" want to be a friend.. I would rather say I am pretty conservative with who I make a friend. And have also denined a few request from peopole I know, but dosen't think about as _friends_ (im little picy about the term FRIEND!)

Or you can use the old metode, who was been used in the old world for centuries, when we have our share of repressive governments - we came togheter and talked man to man / woman to woman / woman to man" and so on.. That way the government dosen't have the same posibility to watch what you do.. In my home where I was growing up in, we never used the Phone to speak "personal" on.. It could be that it was some on the line - my foster father was rather "red" and until he quit local politic after a rather stormfull session at the Town Hall, he walked out and never got back. We kind of had the "secred police" pooking into the line sometimes... Verry silly becouse in that day of age you could sometimes hear your talking after you finished talking:P And that happend not in a "communist state" in the Eastern Europe - but rather in a democratic Western Europe nation.... The people in East Europe was maybe more used to the idea of been watched over, but even today I never talk to personal in a phone... If I wanted to talk personal I talk to the pepole I wanted to talk personal to - or at least I use some form of "scrambling" so it would not be so easy to "catch me":P At lot of "free" stuff online for that use...

The best advice I could give anyone, not just they who are in "the governments interest zone" is to use common use, and not just say yes to everyone who want to talk to you online..

It is a slippery rope when the government is starting to stalk pepole who are using THEIR free speatch against what they suspect is not good for the country they are living in.. I can understand that LEGITIMATE consern from the government agencies is real - but not to just trow out a fishing net and se what came out of it... That is dead wrong in so many levels...

But as everyone who have read about secret police's and agencies that using that type of policing.. It was never intended as supressing everyone - just to protect againt criminal activites.. Even the NKVD - later the KGB was intended to just secure the govoernment in a time when it was turbulence and it was not sure the new government would surive or not.. Later when the power desided to use the NKVD to repress everyone, it was used as a tool to scare everyone... And to repress dissents... And we know about what happend with NKVD and with the KGB... Both in Russia and in Eastern Europe later....

US have some security against government supression, even tho I am not sure about it anymore.. The 8 year with Bush damamged that more than I can express in english im sad to say.. The Patriot Act, the MCA and so on, is making the whole consepct of free speatch far difficult than ever.. And I would also say that before this laws is made a thing of the past, the danger is that you all wil wake up to a full flegded dictatorship one day... The Bolsjevichs, dosent just grab the power in Russia in one day.. Neither did the nazis of the 1933.. Or to the point, the Nazi Tyranny of the 1930s dosen't start at once when Hitler was Chanclor, it was a steady course, when pepole was used more and more to tyranny, and the supression from the government... And in the end, Hitler got the total power over everything in Germany - and at one point also over most of Europe...

Be carefull, try to learn from history, and maybe you all can learn some from "old europe" too?. After all NO country is imune against extremism, and even US, with their special constituion, and their speciall history is imune to tyranny.. No country is that... I hope the best for US, you have been a light bolt in the dark, and been an insperation for freedom and liberty for all men, over 200 year now.. When everything in Europe was looking as dark as the night. What country was we looking to?.. The United States of America.. When Europe had to rebuild from World War Two. Whitch country was we looking to? United States of America.. Whitch country most of Western Europe wanted to make a alliance with?.. Again United States of America no less... When every chips is falling to the floor, Europe and US have a lot of thing commons.. And even tho Europe today is richer and maybe more powerfull than it was in 1949, we are still friends with US in most cases. And even 8 year with the mischiefs in power, could not broke the NATO alliance between Europe and US... So I guess our friendship is stronger than we suspected when US was going nuts..

Diclotican