Facebook: Not Just For Stalkers Anymore
Memo to past and future law-breakers: don’t use Facebook. I am not a lawyer, but I’m pretty sure these sorts of statements just won’t hold much water in court:
Ethically, the community of Facebook users is expecting the site will only be frequented by fellow students and not administrators, professors or police officers, [telecommunications professor Matthew] Jackson said.
“Is it appropriate for the police to be using this source when students created their profiles for a completely different purpose?” Jackson said.
Professor Jackson, is it appropriate for police to use sperm found in rape victims to catch rapists? After all, the sperm wasn’t put there with the intention of being evidence.
Reading the article, I find it funny that Gordner feigns outrage at being contacted by the cops. He’s studying to be one, obviously, from looking at his major. Yet if he establishes himself as being persecuted, other students with an antipathy toward law enforcement will confide in him. He’ll make the perfect snitch until he graduates, and then he’ll get a job. Maybe Facebook is the networking tool it purports to be after all.
Jesus, that’s hilarious:Romero said she posted a photo on her Webshots that clearly showed her on the field after the Ohio State game.”I didn’t know they could do that,” she said. “This really scares me.”Truly, it’s a scary world we live in. This is just so, like, Orwellian, dude.
facebook should enact measures if they don’t want to lose subscribers. It will just be another case where the free market outsmarts the cops, again. But it is pretty interesting.
You mean, if I post pictures in a public place of myself doing something stupid/illegal, the cops can use that?
Say it isn’t so!
Sheesh. Now thousands of idiots are going to say that the police are somehow abusing some sort of something…
Is it appropriate for police to be using my chef’s knife as evidence, when the manufacturers made it for cutting vegetables?
What an idiot.