Social Networking Site or Government/Institution Insight
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
It was suggested today that I should blog about the belief that the Governement uses social sites such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn etc to gather information about you without your knowledge. Thanks to my middle sister Terri for trusting that I would attempt to try to make sense of this or at least try to expose the situation and leave it to my followers to chime in.
When you make the decision to "sign-up" to a social site, what is your intention? To try to connect with friends from your past, future or even make new ones that you can carry thru the rest of your days with. We post what we do with our life up to the moment it happens and also plans and dreams that we have for our future. Posting pictures of what we did last night at a party, family outing or just in general and random. Never in a million years would we think that the government (local or state) would invade our privacy without us giving the acception of their "friend request." While doing some research, I found that the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) noted that the Department of Justice released a presentation entitled "Obtaining and Using Evidence from Social Networking Sites." (http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/social_network/20100303__crim_socialnetworking.pdf) In reading this it says that since we provide information on these sites to the public it can do any of the following: Reveal personal communications, establish motives and personal relationships,rovide location information, and prove and disprove alibis. Facebook trys to comply with emergency cases as they see fit but let's create a scenario. I get off work late one night and Joey and I meet up with a couple of friends for a drink. Joey says he has to leave to go check on something and says his goodbyes to the group. Everyone continues to have a great time and at different times everyone in the group updates their status with the following
Brian-- Chillin with my homies for the night. Good to see Joey again
Trema--Having a relaxing night at Friday's with Joey and some friends
Nattie--So tired after a long day of work, but glad to see Joey at Friday's
Timmy--Thanks Joey for inviting all of us out for drinks for you to leave. Guess
since its only 11 I'll head home.
Joey--Sittin at home bored playing the xbox.
So, in the meantime Joey kills someone in route to his house. But he swears that he was home the entire time. At this point the officials have every right to go to Joey's Facebook page and views his status. Looking thoroughly thru they notice everyone else's status updates (because we are friends) and BAM! Your alibi is compromised! And Joey goes to jail for just being plain stupid...
Also I watched a segment on the news a couple of weeks ago where Colleges are looking into these social sites to decide if you are the "type" of person that fits their mold of a student. Why does this matter? Why can't I be on "Girls Gone Wild XXX" at night or on the weekend and study law by day? Why does it matter that I am a fan of "I put thngs that arn't dirty in the laundry cuz im to lazy to put them away." Does it mean that because I can have a great time being promiscuous that I'm not smart? Or that because I rewash my laundry instead of putting it away i'm not responsible? Let me know! But I think that this is all wrong because my 5 educational degrees tell me so!
What's your take...
5 comments:
I do think it's crazy that the government can do this and i'm not trying to condone it but everyday regular people do the same thing everyday. Say in your scenario that Joey had told his girlfriend he was spending his evening playing God Of War 3(shameless plug) and then he went out with his friends and hooked up with some random chick. Odds are, if his girl had any reason at all to doubt him she would do be doing the same exact thing that the government would do if he killed somebody. She's checking his Facebook friends, looking at the status updates of his friends and scanning through their photos. Like I said, I don't condone it but it already happens.
I really not feeling the college thing though. I'm guessing there are a whole lot of smart freaks!
One last thing, you don't even have to have a social-networking account to get seen or busted or noticed. One day a girl came up to my boy and asked him about a party he'd been to over the weekend. She told him what he was wearing, what his girl was wearing and other things. And when he asked her how she knew, she said she'd seen a picture of them on the Facebook page of one of her friends.
P.S. Is Joey the man or what? I find it odd that in a group of 5 friends, 4 of them posted statuses that directly implicated Joey as being at the bar. REAL friends never use an individual's name in a status. They use pronouns like we and us. Now if it had been a picture, different story.
Ok.....First off. I completely disagree with the gov being able to look into these things. That's why there are privacy settings on these sites! That is an infringement on our First Amendment rights.
Second problem I have is. Social sites like Facebook. Come set up, as you sign up. With everything being set to private. Unless you change those settings. A random person cannot look at your profile. See your updates.
So, only if that gov personnel is on my friends list, or maybe a friend. Can they even see my updates.
If not, they are hacking that site. Or getting cooperation for that site management. Now, without a warrent. That proves I was involved in some shading dealings. That is against the law. An treason as far as I am concerned.
So, everyone think long an hard about what has been said here tonight. How free are we really????
Tasha you are more than welcome...You know and what better way for them to get the information....We post alto of things about our selves on sites such as this..At one point some of the things that we put on sites like this would be private.How ever if we post information on here including these little apps that people send to us they can learn more things about us..How ever if you dont have anything to run from you should be okay.....Just a joke but you know what im saying is true....MissT.J
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