US Gov't Relying On 'Narcissistic Tendencies' To Get People To Accept Facebook Friend Requests To Spy On You
from the the-gov't-wants-to-be-your-friend dept
Were you wondering what the FBI was doing hanging out on Reddit, and using random out-of-context comments to put tracking devices on vehicles? Well, not surprisingly, the government's social networking voyeurism goes much further. Jay points us to the news, revealed via an EFF Freedom of Information Act request, that parts of the government are using social networks to try to "friend" people in order to keep track of them. They even point out that the general desire of individuals to collect more friends means that many won't wonder why a government official they don't know wants to be their friend:Narcissistic tendencies in many people fuels a need to have a large group of "friends" link to their pages and many of these people accept cyber-friends that they don't even know. This provides an excellent vantage point for FDNS to observe the daily life of beneficiaries and petitioners who are suspected of fraudulent activities.Now, as the EFF notes, there's nothing wrong with law enforcement making use of social networking tools to try to deal with crime or terrorism. But they do wonder if the rules should be clearer, noting that:
the memo makes no mention of what level of suspicion, if any, an agent must find before conducting such surveillance, leaving every applicant as a potential target. Nor does the memo address whether or not DHS agents must reveal their government affiliation or even their real name during the friend request, leaving open the possibility that agents could actively deceive online users to infiltrate their social networks and monitor the activities of not only that user, but also the user's friends, family, and other associates.So, no matter what your narcissistic tendencies might be, and your desire to collect as many friends as possible, perhaps think twice before friending random people you don't know.
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Filed Under: friending, government, privacy, social networks, surveillance
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Nothing Better To Do?
And if someone ignores their friend request, do the Feds get a warrant? Is that reasonable suspicion of a crime or obstruction of justice? Tampering with an investigation?
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SImple...
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If the "Top Secret America" report is at all accurate,
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Re: If the "Top Secret America" report is at all accurate,
Talkin out yer ass again?
Or is that the voice of experience?
From what little I've read about it, your claim seems a bit preposterous.
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A: You can always deny them as a friend
B: Most people post information on Facebook with the presumption that this information is likely available to anyone they know and might be available to anyone who inquired. So they are somewhat careful about not posting anything they wouldn't want anyone, including the feds, to know.
Now if they can somehow spy on the information without the consent and/or knowledge of the person being spied on then a warrant needs to be granted (and hopefully there is a system in place that prevents judge shopping so that the warrant will be based on reasonable suspicion and not simply on an FBI request).
Where this bothers me has more to do with the fact that it's a complete waste of taxpayer money. Having FBI people playing around on facebook instead of doing actual work doesn't help national security and instead deters resources that could better serve to secure us towards needless entertainment. If the FBI agent wants to do this on his spare time, when he is not being paid, so be it. But to waste our tax dollars on this nonsense seems uncalled for.
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Then again, there are some really dumb independent criminals out there, but they shouldn't really fall within the scope of the FBI. More within the scope of local police officers.
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everyday, we are loosing more and more of it, and now with social networks we are giving it away?
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This actually happened
The tendency for these "friends" is to have one profile picture up, no info is given, and you can see people from various states (or in one case countries) appear with no correlation. It's seriously almost the same as the spammers.
But as others are saying, this spying really doesn't do anything to stop terrorism.
And the idiots that start saying "Yargh, I set a house on fire!" on their FB account only lead the police right to them through other means.
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4.1 - You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission.
4.2 - You will not create more than one personal profile.
4.3 - You will keep your contact information accurate and up-to-date. (Does this mean that have to put "Your local FBI office" in their address field)
5.7 - If you collect information from users, you will: obtain their consent, make it clear you (and not Facebook) are the one collecting their information, and post a privacy policy explaining what information you collect and how you will use it.
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Doesn't apply to law enforcement/government agents.
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Social Nets
Directed social networks, e.g. DailyMile.com, are very useful in that they allow people with something in common to commune and friend-gathering is not a goal.
Understand this, if the government wants to spy on you...they will. They may be doing so already. If you think some law is going to keep them from doing something "dirty" then you best think again. Those that do the "watching" are already in a "dirty" business and the jump to bending and breaking the rules is a short one.
Then again, what have you got to hide? Have you been spending time on chatroulette lately? In the long run we've all got a little larceny in us, don't we?
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One look through a person's photo albums (including photos they're tagged in) and friends list will immediately provide a high quality list of the people they they associate most often with.
It would take months, if not years of surveillance to gather the kind of information that a facebook profile presents. Facebook Places also ups the ante, by providing a chronological list of location data. Priceless.
Additionally, the cost to the observing agency is minimal.
Of course, if anyone is stupid enough to use facebook for criminal deeds then they deserve what they're gonna get.
Basic rules of internetting, people, if you're gonna use these services learn how to protect your privacy. Locking down your profile from outside views and denying friend requests from strangers should be a given.
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My observation has usually been that the people that spend the most time criticising law enforment are usually the ones that know the least about how cops et al. do their jobs.
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I keep getting "friend" requests from random people on YouTube, but I just ignore them. I only created an account on there so that I could set the prefs to not have to confirm my age every time I tried to video a video that had been deemed "adult".
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FB TOS
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Aware & unconcerned
Personally, have been aware but unconcerned about the possibility of having my actions monitored.
The way I see it if you have something to hide, then your asking for intervention in the first place.
Would people be so annoyed about surveilance if it saved their city or country from a large scale terrorist attack.
Personally, it gives me comfort knowing that authorities use Social Media to ensure the safety of civilians.
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1. Police
2. Lawyers
3. Politicians
because they all lie for a living. None of them can be trusted to help you boy, because they will protect themselves first by lying about anything.
She also told me about a 4th one that will misuse it's authority by hiding behind the law and that one is Judges. It's no wonder that they all represent the law.
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nice
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FascistBook
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