...and there are no "no-go" zones. If the bad guys are somewhere, using some service, the good guys will follow. See
Break the law and your new 'friend' may be the FBI
It's interesting how a private organization operating without any meaningful government oversight - the Electronic Freedom Foundation - believes it has a right to 'police' government agencies who are bound to the US Constitution and have to answer to executive, congressional, and judicial overseers. And the EFF does so, and their efforts are reported on, without the slightest trace of irony.
The author of the above linked news story reveals his true colors when he equates a real woman who created a fictional online identity in order to bully a child until the latter committed suicide, with the actions of hypothetical government agents conducting criminal investigations, describing these as "effectively the same activity... although for different purposes." Right. For the benefit of those who "report" on legal matters, we call those "purposes" intent, and it is commonly the presence or absence of criminal intent that determines what is or is not a crime. For example, if I break down your door to drag you out of a burning house, that is "effectively the same activity" as if I break down your door in order to shoot you once in the neck and once in the head. That the "purpose" is different is - I hope - obvious, yet in both cases I do in fact make a mess out of your door. Sorry about that...
The reality of Internet use by criminals is inadvertently captured by the article in the following:
Undercover operations aren't necessary if the suspect is reckless. Federal authorities nabbed a man wanted on bank fraud charges after he started posting Facebook updates about the fun he was having in Mexico.Maxi Sopo, a native of Cameroon living in the Seattle area, apparently slipped across the border into Mexico in a rented car last year after learning that federal agents were investigating the alleged scheme. The agents initially could find no trace of him on social media sites, and they were unable to pin down his exact location in Mexico. But they kept checking and eventually found Sopo on Facebook.
While Sopo's online profile was private, his list of friends was not. Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Scoville began going through the list and was able to learn where Sopo was living. Mexican authorities arrested Sopo in September. He is awaiting extradition to the U.S.
In the end, privacy advocates are really idiot defenders. The evidence is laying out there in plain view, and it was left there by the criminals themselves. Posted on 16 March 2010 @ 15:59
