Department of Justice sued over creating fake Facebook page

For any who remembers this, an update.
BBC said:
The US Justice Department is to pay a woman $134,000 (£88,640) after making a fake Facebook page that contained a photograph of her half-clothed.

Sondra Arquiett had sued the government after it had suggested she had "implicitly consented" to the creation of a page using her identity since she had previously granted officers access to her mobile phone

The DoJ has now settled the dispute, but has not admitted wrongdoing.

The case had raised privacy concerns.

Although the US government has not ruled out using similar tactics in the future, it has acknowledged the criticism it faced.

"[A] review is ongoing, but Department of Justice leadership has already met with law enforcement agencies to make clear the necessity of protecting the privacy and safety of third-parties in every aspect of our criminal investigations," said a spokesman.

A lawyer for Ms Arquiett said she believed officials now recognised the use of the fake page had been "totally inappropriate".

Drugs probe

The case dates back to July 2010, when Ms Arquiett, a restaurant waitress, was arrested and accused of being involved in a drugs ring.

She pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine, and was later sentenced to six months of weekend incarceration.

At the time of her arrest, Ms Arquiett surrendered her mobile phone and consented to officers accessing its data to help them with related criminal investigations.

This included an investigation into her boyfriend, who was suspected of co-ordinating drug sales. He later pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine.

Ms Arquiett said she was not, however, notified that this operation would involve the creation of a "publicly available" Facebook page in the name of Sondra Prince, an alias she had used.

It included photographs of her posing on a BMW car, a picture of her wearing only a bra and underwear, as well as images of her son and niece.

The fake page was used to send a "friend" request to help catch the boyfriend. The US government denied it had been made "publicly available" in a wider sense. However, the Buzzfeed news site and the Associated Press news agency were both able to access the page before it was taken offline.

Ms Arquiett sued the government in 2013 saying she had suffered fear and emotional distress because the page indicated she had wilfully co-operated with the drugs ring investigation.

Her case was supported by digital rights group, the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

"If I'm co-operating with law enforcement, and law enforcement says, 'Can I search your phone?' - my expectation is that they will search the phone for evidence of a crime, not that they will take things off my phone and use it in another context," said Nate Cardozo, a lawyer at the organisation.

Facebook itself had also voiced its displeasure, noting that it explicitly bans fake profiles on its site.

"Facebook has long made clear that law enforcement authorities are subject to these policies," the firm's chief security officer Joe Sullivan wrote to the Drug Enforcement Administration last year, which was responsible for the page's creation.

"We regard the conduct to be a knowing and serious breach of Facebook's terms and policies, and the account created by the agent in the Arquiett matter has been disabled.

"Accordingly, Facebook asks that the DEA immediately confirm that it has ceased all activities on Facebook that involve the impersonation of others or that otherwise violate our terms and policies."
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30921804

Any new thoughts on this since thread started in October, or are we all in agreement that hopefully someone at the DoJ got fired over this?
 
I am really torn here between it obviously being unacceptable for the government to do this, and my utter contempt I hold for drug dealing scum.
What the heck is wrong with selling drugs? Cocaine is far less harmful than coca-cola.

I hope she gets the maximum possible damages. LE gets away with far more than the criminals ever will.
 
Why do people hate anyone that deals / takes drugs? Its not their fault that such petty things are illegal in the first place.

I don't agree that the government should have so much control over what people do with their own bodies, and rehabilitation would be vastly more effective that criminalization for handling drug cases.

'But then everyone would do drugs!!!!1111oneoneone'.

Like everyone would suddenly stop commiting crimes if they carried a death penalty? Oh wait, no it doesn't work that way.
 
Why do people hate anyone that deals / takes drugs?
Anti-Semites said Jews hurt society, people say drug-users and dealers hurt society (and themselves). One justification is not the same as the other, the underlying cause of such sentiments however very much is - how satisfying it can be to alleviate yourself over another group which is "scum". And many people are just quit eager to embrace such a sentiment one way or another.
 
Anti-Semites said Jews hurt society, people say drug-users and dealers hurt society (and themselves). One justification is not the same as the other, the underlying cause of such sentiments however very much is - how satisfying it can be to alleviate yourself over another group which is "scum". And many people are just quit eager to embrace such a sentiment one way or another.

Well, it such can also be formed by bad experiences. I will openly admit to hold several views based on such that especially North American posters may consider borderline racist, if not outright such. For instance, perception of Antilleans (mixed-race people from the Dutch Caribbean) is almost uniformly negative among the Dutch and I am no exception. Even though they are certainly exceptions who aren't as bad, I tend to keep my distance from such people. My experience with Antilleans is that at quite a few times I almost got involved in fights with people of that ethnicity infinitely more often than with other ethnic groups (including other impopular ethnic groups such as Arabs, Berbers and Turks), with the aggression initiated by them for no good reason, though it usually vague pretenses of protecting women or feeling personally insulted, which is usually very fast.

It is a cultural problem: Antilleans are raised to be that way. As kids, they often get weapons or weaponisable items (such as kitchen knives) as birthday presents, and this is not just fearmongering but something that actually pervasively happens. They are as stingy about personal honour as Japanese people, though unlike the Japanese, who are prone to depression and suicide, they actively resolve to avenge their silghts to honour through aggression against strangers. Problem is that discussing Antilleans is highly politically incorrect since they aren't Muslim (so Muslim radicalism is not a thing among them) and are all native citizens of the Netherlands, since they come from the Antilles.

So while I wouldn't say ethnicity would affect my judgment of individuals, I admit that I cannot treat all ethnic groups the same. Frankly, I consider such attitude of approaching all ethnic groups the same way to be indicative of lack of social intelligence.
 
Anti-Semites said Jews hurt society, people say drug-users and dealers hurt society (and themselves). One justification is not the same as the other, the underlying cause of such sentiments however very much is - how satisfying it can be to alleviate yourself over another group which is "scum". And many people are just quit eager to embrace such a sentiment one way or another.

You know a pretty big difference between anti-semites and anti-drugdealer folks? Drug dealers are breaking the law! But hey, let's not let little facts like that get in the way of a good righteous post. ;)
 
Every time.... yes, when I am talking about "drug dealers" you can safely assume I am talking about dealers of illicit drugs. If the drugs are legal, I call the "drug dealers" stores, pharmacies, vending machines, etc.
 
This is why I cant stand lawful people.

What of the law said it was illegal to be a Jew, and that it was ok to kill Jews? Would you suddenly go out and start hunting Jews because the law said so?
 
You know what, I am going to direct you to search my posts over the last 10+ years. Search for "law ethical moral indefensible" as the search words. I'm not repeating myself again.
 
Because "lawful" people always do anything and everything allowed by law.
 
What is so unethical and immoral about drugs?
 
Every time.... yes, when I am talking about "drug dealers" you can safely assume I am talking about dealers of illicit drugs. If the drugs are legal, I call the "drug dealers" stores, pharmacies, vending machines, etc.

To me Starbucks is a drug dealer - a company taking advantage of people's addictions to a drug. But yeah, I getcha. ;)

I have a feeling you'd call someone who deals marijuana in a state where it's legal a drug dealer still though.
 
In Portugal they legalised all drugs, and after 10 years there were significantly less people on drugs and more people seeking rehab.

So why not legalise drugs everywhere?
 
I meant that not every country is in the exact same political/social/foreign/domestic situation as Portugal. What might work in Portugal might backfire terribly in Bulgaria and vice-versa.
 
I meant that not every country is in the exact same political/social/foreign/domestic situation as Portugal. What might work in Portugal might backfire terribly in Bulgaria and vice-versa.

Well yes, that can be pretty much said about any situation imaginable, so as such I don't feel it needs to be stated.

AKA We're all different, yo.

Having said that, people who refuse to learn from others for that reason are doing it wrong.
 
You know a pretty big difference between anti-semites and anti-drugdealer folks? Drug dealers are breaking the law! But hey, let's not let little facts like that get in the way of a good righteous post. ;)
Wait, so anti-Semitism is only wrong because practising Judaism is legal? :huh:
 
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