Crime, Law Enforcement, And The Age Of Social Media

Social Media And The Rule Of Law

Ever run across that Facebook friend who you're not quite sure how you know them? They may have had several mutual friends, or been playing a Facebook game you were, perhaps in a political debate group and shared an opinion on a key topic. But, somewhere, somehow, you wound up with someone you do not know in person on your list who was not who they presented themselves. And maybe what they're doing is gathering information, for secret law enforcement operations that you are unwittingly being roped into.

This is the dark world of the law enforcement fake profile.

Take, for instance, the case of Sondra Arquiett. After Arquiett's arrest in July, 2010 on drug charges, DEA agent Timothy Sinnigen set up a fake Facebook profile designed to appear to be Arquiett's, under the name Sondra Prince (Arquiett's former surname was Prince). The profile was stocked with photos taken from Arquiett's cell phone, which was being held by law enforcement as evidence, including closeup photos of Arquiett's niece, and her young son, and peppered with commentary seemingly by Arquiett about her personal life. All of this was designed to get Arquiett's friends to confide in the fake Sondra, and incriminate themselves to undercover agents. Of course, all of this was a violation of Facebook's terms of service, and Arquiett, who had willingly aided law enforcement in more conventional means of gathering evidence against her former criminal co-conspirators. The end result was a $134,000 cost to US Taxpayers.

Of course, this is but one example. Indeed, the use of faked profiles to snag criminals is one of the tactics now being widely employed by law enforcement agencies across the spectrum. But the dark side of this is the classic principle that anything which is observed shall change its behavior.

Who is being targeted?

The agents operating these fake social media profiles collect circles of people who are aligned to the target viewpoint. This can quickly reinforce ideology, which in turn can induce a required behavior. Indeed, when there is no criminal activity forthcoming, agencies such as the FBI have even demonstrated the willingness to invent one and incite people to participate.

In some cases, authorities have gone from keeping tabs on people thought to possibly be connected to illegal activities or ideologically disposed to one day be so involved, to seeking to infiltrate and sabotage protest groups. Incredibly, they've even gone so far as inserting agents into the most intimate aspects of the lives of targets.

Take for instance the case of British police officer Mark Kelly. Kelly became involved in a long-term, intimate relationship with an environmental activist, in what Boing Boing called a "state sponsored seduction", leaving the victim wondering how much, if at all, the man she gave her body and her heart to ever really loved her at all. It's a wonder she says "will always keep me awake at night", and has left her with a "crushing disappointment and sadness". To make matters worse, after his time as an agent of the British police, Kelly has gone on to work for a private firm that sells information about activists to corporations, a clear indication of where his sentiments lie. Shockingly, this is not an isolated case, and in related cases other agents have even fathered children with their targets, children who ended up abandoned by their biological fathers.

In the digital era, this often starts with social media, and a fake profile. These profiles are often times culled from the profiles and personal information of real people who are used unknowingly. Be it a housewife, high school student, animal rescue worker, business manager, it does not matter the source. These people become unknowing accomplices to law enforcement's official con. The goal is to create someone which the intended target will trust, or be receptive to, and then either collect the desired data and any evidence of crimes, or even to induce criminal acts or conspiracies.

Digital Agent Provocateurs

This is an adaptation of the classic law enforcement agent provocateurs, who infiltrate groups with the goal to turn peaceful movements to criminal activity. With social media, law enforcement agents can narrow their search, targeting those they wish to induce to criminal acts on an individual basis. And by doing so, we find that the use of what is properly entrapment by law enforcement agencies is now remarkably easy to induce. And it goes well beyond entrapment, which at least involves someone committing a crime, even if they would not have done so if they had not been manipulated into doing so by law enforcement agents.

This is, as the Washington Post declared, now the age of pre-crime. Law enforcement is no longer content to wait for a criminal act. Instead, we find those who are supposed to enforce the law when and if it is broken seeking instead to anticipate who might break what law, and either incite them to break the law, or simply to punish them as though they had. Take for instance a measure considered in Los Angeles, where a mail "dear John" letters to the homes of people who drove down certain streets where prostitutes are thought to gather. In this scheme the punishment meted out is a destruction of the personal relationships of those targeted, regardless of their guilt or innocence of any crime, merely because they were in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

In the eagerness to prevent crime, shortcuts can be justified, and people enticed into actions they would otherwise not do, and the consequences can be staggering. Sometimes the consequences affect those targeted alone, such as when online jokes are taken as terror plots. Sometimes they impact society at large, such as when British intelligence agencies were tied to those who actually have carried out terrorist attacks – showing what a dangerous game they can be playing.

A problem which is only getting worse

A report by civil liberties watchdog groups Project SALAM and the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms, both  formed post 9/11, demonstrates how far this goes. Within the report, they describe law enforcement's reliance upon what is called "Preemative prosecution," the effort to target and prosecute individuals or organizations whose beliefs, ideology, or religious affiliations raise security concerns for the government. This is just a renamed version of older government programs designed to oppress those with political positions that are not in alignment with the powers that be in Washington D.C. In the past, this effort has held many names such as COINTELPRO and the Palmer Raids. Through history, these programs have resulted in horrible acts, from the executions of innocent people to the  hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans which were held in internment camps across the United States.

In the post 9/11 world America has led the world into a frighteningly dystopic reality in which the idealistic and the devout are viewed suspiciously by the state through a billion plus eyes that never blink, their communications data mined, some of them becoming targets, others pawns in a game where good people can be collateral damage. The embrace of social media for information gathering, and the generation of fake plots with the real arrests that accompany them, has brought matters to the point where people in general are all considered criminal suspects, under investigation by shadowy arms of the authorities. Leaving us all to wonder about our relationships, digital and otherwise — and who is and isn't really our "friend", or even closer.

Cover Image – Facebook Search by C_osett (public domain)

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