Government Used Woman's Phone to Set Up Fake FB Account

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In case you don't think your government is intrusive enough, here is a case where the DEA is defending using pictures and information from a woman's phone (including pics of her children) to set up a fake FB account to lure in drug dealers.

Quote:

The Justice Department is claiming, in a little-noticed court filing, that a federal agent had the right to impersonate a young woman online by creating a Facebook page in her name without her knowledge. Government lawyers also are defending the agent’s right to scour the woman’s seized cellphone and to post photographs — including racy pictures of her and even one of her young son and niece — to the phony social media account, which the agent was using to communicate with suspected criminals.

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Type: Discussion • Score: 5 • Views: 1,817 • Replies: 11

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@engineer,

Very interesting and while sad it is hardly surprising that our government would place even young children at some risk in fighting the so call drug war.

In the history of this drug war, I question if one drug user could not find his or her drug of choice so other then fulling up our prisons and turning parts of major cities into war zones there seem little point to this so call war.

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@engineer,

What's your point?

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@engineer,

Dont we call that identity theft?

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@hawkeye10,

That's what I call it. That and endangerment since they are using this account with pictures of this woman and her children to contact suspected drug runners. I wonder what the DEA will do if one of them shows up at her house.

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

Dont we call that identity theft?

Hawkeye is it not strange that facebook have not as yet taken a known false account down and if I was her and her lawyers I could be suing them also.

Next those pictures are de facto copyright and I would assume that would give her the right to send a demand letter to Facebook to at least have the pictures taken down as the copy right owner.

Off hand I do not think that even the Federal government or facebook would have the right to disregard copyright laws.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

Doesn't Facebook assert that it owns everything submitted?

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Seeing
As fb is a CIA information-gathering-system - Are you fkn surprised????
Not to mock you guys, but REALLY?????????

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@hawkeye10,

I wonder if they could assert that for stolen property.

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@engineer,

I looked it up, facebook claims that the submitter owns the content, then it claims the right to act like an owner changing or using the content at will. This is the kind of corporate double-speak that would not exist if we had effective courts.

As the years go on by disdain for our courts and entire justice system grows. Patent and copywrite law are the two most thoroughly fucked areas of our law in my opinion.

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

Doesn't Facebook assert that it owns everything submitted?

Facebook can only claims any rights to the materials if the person who post it on their system happen to be the owner and in this case I can not see how the Federal government can claim to be the owner.

There is a form under law to demand a website take down material due to copyright issues and if I was her I would send it to facebook and by law they must take it down unless the poster fill out another form claiming they are the rightful owners.

In other word I would be placing a lot of pressure on facebook.

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Quote:

http://wraltechwire.com/stolen-photos-of-stars-find-safe-harbor-online-legally/13950468/

SAN FRANCISCO — To preserve the Internet as a free-wheeling forum, the U.S. Congress included a key provision in a 1998 law called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that governs the online distribution of photos, video and text. A "safe harbor" clause absolves websites of any legal liability for virtually all content posted on their services. The law, known as the DMCA, requires websites and other Internet service providers to remove a piece of content believed to be infringing on a copyright after being notified of a violation by the copyright owner....

Read more at http://wraltechwire.com/stolen-photos-of-stars-find-safe-harbor-online-legally/13950468/#4dzpSOLLKrMwSXsi.99

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Government Used Woman's Phone to Set Up Fake FB Account

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