Police are using social media to catch criminals in various ways: 1. Suspects are incriminating themselves by posting photos and messages on Facebook that show gang affiliation or admit to crimes. While suspects have an expectation of privacy, courts have ruled that information shared with friends on social media can be shared with police. 2. Undercover police accounts on social media pose as friends to gain information, which some see as deceptive but not illegal if the evidence is used in court. 3. Police obtain search warrants requiring social media sites like Facebook to turn over private messages and profiles as evidence, which has led to convictions for crimes like talking to underage girls. As law enforcement adapts to social media, people

1. 3 WAYS COPS
ARE CATCHING
CROOKS
VIA FACEBOOK

2. #1. INCRIMINATING POSTS
• Melvin Colon: Facing charges of murder, along with
weapons and narcotics-related crimes.
• He was a suspected gang member, & posted public
photos on Facebook that showed him flashing gang signs.
He also made private, more incriminating posts, including
references to past violent crimes and threats against
others.
• "Colon's legitimate expectation of privacy ended when he
disseminated posts to his 'friends' because those 'friends'
were free to use the information however they wanted --
including sharing it with the government," the judge
wrote.
• Using Facebook is just one of several ways law
enforcement officials are collecting evidence from social
media to help solve crimes.

3. FOURTH AMENDMENT CONTROVERSY
• In Colon’s case, his attorneys claimed his Facebook posts
were protected under the Fourth Amendment, which
shields people's homes and effects against unreasonable
searches and seizures.
• A federal judge disagreed, saying Colon forfeited any
expectation of privacy when he shared online postings
with friends.
• In other words, the online world is just like the offline
world in many respects: Your friends can inform the police
about you, and detectives can go undercover to catch you
in the act.

4. #2. UNDERCOVER ACCOUNTS
• A more controversial approach to getting information from
social networks is going undercover online -- creating fake
profiles to befriend suspects.
• Facebook, where almost 9% of accounts are believed to be
fakes or duplicates, frowns on this practice, however.
• While these fake accounts may violate a social network's
rules, they are not illegal. And evidence collected in this
way can still hold up in court.
• "In other, non-digital circumstances, these types of
practices have been upheld," said Hanni Fakhoury, a staff
attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "For
example, the police may pose as a potential drug buyer in
order to arrest individuals on drug crimes."

5. #3. ONLINE SEARCH WARRANTS
• Police seeking access to private information on Facebook
must go through official channels.
• Each social network has established a policy for how it turns
over data when requested. Some require a warrant,
depending on the type of details being requested and how
long it has been hosted on the site.
• When police suspected Darrin Anderson of using a fake
Facebook page to talk to underage girls, detectives had to
obtain a search warrant for the profile. Facebook turned over
2½ years of data associated with the 31-year-old's profile,
including more than 800 chat conversations, primarily with
girls under 18.
• The Facebook profile was used as evidence in court, and
Anderson pleaded guilty to traveling with the intent to
engage in illicit sexual conduct and was sentenced to 12
years in prison.

6. ANALYZING NEW MEDIA TOOLS AND THEIR
USES IN ORDER TO BE SAVVY MEDIA
CONSUMERS AND CONTENT CREATORS.
• From my project, I’ve been able to see how social media
can be used in the never ending war on crime.
• I’ve observed several different ways law enforcement is
training to use social media to their advantage.
• I’m no expert by any means, but I feel that I would be
capable of working with social media in a position relating
to law enforcement.

7. DESCRIBING HOW NEW MEDIA
SHAPES OUR SOCIETY.
• New media tends to shape our society rapidly and
sometimes drastically.
• Its potential also tends to spread just about everywhere,
including the criminal justice field.
• As law enforcement continues to grow more accustomed
and skilled with new media, people will grow more
accustomed to thinking twice before posting something
online.

8. SOURCE:
Kelley, H. (2012, August 30). Police embrace social media as
crime-fighting tool. In www.cnn.com. Retrieved May 29, 2013