Agents taught how to extract information from social networking sites in US government document obtained by advocacy group
[guardian.co.uk] Any criminals dumb enough to brag about their exploits on social networking sites have now been warned: the next Facebook "friend" who contacts you may be an FBI agent.
US federal law enforcement agents have been using social networking sites ‑ including Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and Twitter ‑ to search for evidence and witnesses in criminal cases, and in some instances, track suspects, according to a newly released justice department memo.
FBI agents have created fake personalities ‑ in apparent contravention of some of the sites‘ rules ‑ in order to befriend suspects and lure them into revealing clues or confessing, access private information and map social networks.
The new online efforts were revealed in a justice department document obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based legal advocacy group. The document, a 33-page slideshow prepared by two justice department lawyers, was obtained in a lawsuit the group filed against the justice department, seeking information on its social network policies. (more on guardian.co.uk)
