Thursday, February 23, 2012

America The Greatest Nation On Earth! The Underhand Use of Facebook by Police

America The Greatest Nation On Earth!

The header, ending quite deliberately in an exclamation, rather than a question mark.

I honestly don't know if my ability to put my feelings into words can do this story justice.

The meanness of spirit displayed by these stalwart upholders of the law, I think can only be matched by the pettiness of their mission.

We have in this country a little saying, more often uttered with tongue in cheek than not, 'That's not the attitude/action that put the Great in Britain. Similarly it can be said, that which is written below is somewhat at odds with the self proclaimed status of 'Greatest Nation on Earth'

That this blog carries an 'Entrapment' tag is testament enough to that which passes as law enforcement in modern day America. Though must be said, those that are featured there, represent but a fractional part of the overall cases that plague America, featuring usually, only the more high profile and blatant examples of such despicable practices. And again must be said, invariably, though not exclusively involving the FBI.

I featured, but four days ago, one such case that involved local cops rather than the Feds. A case so loathsome, so cruel and so unjust, that I posted it without comment. Cliched as it might sound, I just didn't have the words in me to describe what I had just read. Nevertheless, it really is essential reading, if for no other reason to see the depths of humanity that the cops are prepared fall to in order to secure a bust. Shocking Case of Student Entrapment

As I say, I didn't have the words to describe the article on posting, but I did manage later, a response to a comment left on the post:

Part of comment: do these types of women ever realize that maybe one day they themselves have a son who could be entrapped by an attractive young "undercover cop"?

Response: They probably don't have the intellectual or moral capacity to think that far outside the box. They aspired to be part of, and did join the police force afterall.

A far from noble profession in America today.

But my heart goes out to the kid in question. Not only is his life ruined, (Google drug conviction student) Not only is his life ruined, but what about his heart?

In a case of probably 'first love,' and nothing burns brighter and harder than first love, then to have that love shattered by such treachery, must have broken his poor heart. To say nothing of how it would colour the kid for life regarding his attitude towards women.

The US is truly a disgusting society. For a man to be caught taking a piss down an alley, his life too is over, well, as a productive member of society it is; destined to spend his life living under a bridge as a convicted sex offender.

Just as there are a myriad of other charges that would get you jail time in America, many, so insignificant that they would never even be considered as offences here in Europe.

And they all keep giving it the ''Christian Nation'' bullshit; as a country, it's about as far from Christian, whatever that is supposed to mean, as any place could be.
As I say, it's essential reading.

Our case in question however, is not one of entrapment, but rather, the aforementioned meanness of spirit and pettiness of mission. What both stories do have in common however, is the use of Facebook by the cops to further their shameful ends.

For a nation facing the problems that it does, and they are without doubt manifold, too numerous by far for me to even attempt listing them here. But wouldn't you think, that a country and a society that is as overrun with woes as America is today, that the cops might find better use of their time, rather than engaging in the practices described below?

Read on.

Undercover Police on Your Facebook Friends List?

Police on Facebook
by Mark Dice
July 9, 2010

Police in multiple cities around the country have been setting up fake accounts on Facebook using photos of attractive girls as the supposed user and then sending friend requests to students to look at their photos to see if there are any pictures of people under the age of twenty-one who can be seen holding alcoholic drinks.

One such instance that made news was in Wisconsin in 2009 when 19-year-old Adam Bauer, a student at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, received a friend request from police posing as an attractive girl that resulted in him being charged with underage drinking. “She was a good-looking girl. I usually don’t accept friends I don’t know, but I randomly accepted this one for some reason,” he said.

Shortly after he accepted the friend request from the unknown attractive girl, Bauer was confronted by police who had a photo of him from Facebook showing him holding a beer. He was then ticketed for underage drinking. At least eight students at UW Lacrosse were targeted in the same manor including one of Bauer’s friends. “I just can’t believe it. I feel like I’m in a science fiction movie, like they are always watching. When does it end?” Bauer said after his court appearance.

The students said that they were being safe and partying at home and insisted that nobody was driving afterwards. La Crosse police officer Al Iverson said, “Law enforcement has to evolve with technology. It has to happen. It is a necessity—not just for underage drinking.”

This is certainly not an isolated incident of Big Brother watching Facebook. In January 2008 several teenagers were arrested in Illinois for underage drinking after a sheriff deputy found photos of them partying that were posted on Facebook.

In February 2006, a 16-year-old boy in Colorado was arrested for juvenile possession of a firearm after police saw pictures that he had posted of himself posing with guns on MySpace.

One student in Miami, Florida was arrested and charged with inciting panic after he posted a police sketch of a rape suspect as his profile picture on Facebook. While certainly this was an untasteful and juvenile attempt at a joke, it certainly didn’t incite a panic.

In August 2006 a student at the University of Illinois was arrested for urinating in public while another student was able to escape. The student that was originally arrested said he didn’t know the name of the one who ran away, but police were able to get his name from other witnesses (who were not urinating) but were in the same group. The arresting officer then used Facebook to discover that the two students were friends, and then came back and charged the first student who was originally arrested for urinating in public with obstruction of justice because he had lied to police and said he didn’t know the other student.

In February 2007, eleven high school students at a Catholic school in Canada were suspended for posting negative comments about their principle on Facebook. There also have been numerous reports of people being fired from their jobs after complaining about their boss or their employer in their status updates. Facebook

H/T Maren.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

http://www.alternet.org/cops-go-undercover-high-school-bust-special-needs-kid-pot-why-are-police-so-desperate-throw-kids