US law enforcement agencies stake out social networks
LONG ARM OF THE LAW: Assistant US Attorney Michael Scoville displaying part of the Facebook page of a fugitive in Seattle. US law enforcement agents are following the rest of the Internet world into social-networking services, going undercover with false online profiles to communicate with suspects and gather private information, according to an internal Justice Department document. — APJustice Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) documents obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) reveal some of the ways the FBI and tax agents are allowed to use social networks for investigative purposes.
The documents were posted this week on the website of the EFF after being obtained through a lawsuit filed under the Freedom of Information Act by the San Francisco-based electronic rights group and the Samuelson Clinic of the University of California, Berkeley.
The key documents are from a 2009 training course for IRS employees and an August 2009 Justice Department presentation on “Obtaining and Using Evidence from Social Networking Sites.”
The IRS documents clearly state that employees are not allowed to use false identities to scour social networking accounts while conducting a probe into a taxpayer.
The Justice Department presentation on the other hand includes a slide on “undercover operations” and asks “Why go undercover on Facebook, MySpace etc?”
Among the reasons cited may be to “communicate with suspects/targets,” to “gain access to non-public info” or to “map social relationships/networks,” it says.
The presentation also asks “if agents violate terms of service, is that ‘otherwise illegal activity.’”
The terms of use of most social networks bar the use of fake identities or impersonation.
The Justice Department document lists a number of ways in which evidence from social networking sites can be useful including to “reveal personal communications” or “establish motives and personal relationships.”
Social networks can also be used to “provide location information,” to “prove and disprove alibis” or to “establish crime or criminal enterprise.”
The Justice Department said Facebook is “often cooperative with emergency requests” while Twitter has a “stated policy of producing data only in response to legal process.”
MySpace “requires a search warrant for private messages/bulletins less than 181 days old,” the Justice Department said, while LinkedIn’s “use for criminal communications appears limited.”
Andrew Noyes, a Facebook spokesman, outlined the company’s policies in an e-mail to AFP.
“Like other companies holding personal records — from phone records to medical history — Facebook works with law enforcement to the extent required by law and where appropriate to ensure the safety of Facebook users,” he said.
“Our goal is to respect the balance between law enforcement’s need for information and the privacy rights of our users, and as a responsible company we adhere to the letter of the law,” Noyes said.
“We scrutinise every single law enforcement request; require a detailed description of why the request is being made; and if it is deemed appropriate, share only the minimum amount of information,” he said.
Regarding emergency requests, Noyes said “in rare instances our policies and the law allow for emergency sharing.
“One hypothetical is the case of a kidnapped child where every minute counts. In instances like this, where we’ve verified an emergency, we feel a responsibility to quickly share information that could save someone’s life.” — AFP/Relaxnews
Staking out social networks
NEW FRIENDS: Assistant US Attorney Michael Scoville displaying part of the Facebook page and an enlarged profile photo of fugitive Sopo. US law enforcement agents are following the rest of the Internet world into popular social-networking services to nab suspects and gather private information. — APThe Feds are on Facebook. And MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter, too.
US 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 tantalising 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 US 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 jewellery, guns or fancy cars — can link suspects or their friends to robberies or burglaries.
Going undercover
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 US authorities.
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, Connecticut, 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 civil liberties 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.
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.
Different purposes
The Justice Department document raises a legal question about a social-media bullying case in which US 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 misdemeanour counts of accessing computers without authorisation 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.”
Social stakeout
A former US 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 US 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 United States.
Levels of cooperation
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 defence counsel as “friends” on these services.
“Social networking and the courtroom can be a dangerous combination,” the government said. — AP
Don't think America is free, FBI is watching you, a police state of USA!
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