Social Networking Sites and Privacy of Users - Essay Example

Social Networking Sites and Privacy of Users Social Networking seems to the “in thing” for not only teens but people fromevery age group. Mom, Dad and even ‘grandma and grandpa’ seem to be plugged in on their favorite social networking websites. Logging in has now become a way of life; and why not? After all, this is the 21st century and the age of information. Social Networking is no doubt interesting, addictive and very useful in many cases. Everyday billions of people log in to check the latest notifications, post their photos, share interesting links, posts and update their status. You can be touch with old friends and make new ones. You can use these social networks to do business, work for a good cause and so many other positive activities can be done through these networks. While doing all this audience that you are intending are you friends and acquaintances. However with the increased popularity of these social networks, law enforcement agencies seem to be interested in using them to track criminals and gather information to back their cases. With this scenario a question arises; should law enforcement authorities be allowed to tap in the social networking sites without having to attain a warrant? Where some people see this as a clever police strategy some are concerned about the desecrated privacy of people. Doesn’t this violate the fourth amendment rights of people? How do we know that they will not misuse this information? As long as they have a warrant, there is no harm in using these websites to catch a wrongdoer. However some people think that if there is an emergency situation such interference should be allowed by the social networking sites even when there is no warrant which I believe is unethical and wrong in every sense.To support this argument let’s have a closer look into the various social networking sites and their privacy and security implications and certain situations where a warrant might be looked over. The personal networks such as Friendster, MySpace and Facebook involve sharing of information with ‘friends’ that the users have added with their choice and approval. They can share with each other links and files of photos, videos and music (Dwyer et al, 3). These platforms also share some information with those who are not approved contacts. Status Update networks are Facebook and Twitter. These are made for broadcasting information publicly however privacy setting can be adjusted to one’s choice. Location networks have become more popular with the advent of the GPS technology and GPS supporting cell phones. Through these you can find out someone’s location if they have updated it themselves or as public information (Kwak et al, 593). Foursquare, Brightkite, Loopt and the renowned Google Latitude are examples of location networks. Content sharing networks include YouTube, Flickr, Daily Motion and thesixtyone and shared-interest networks are LinkedIn, Goodreads, deviantART and Gay.com where people with similar interests can interact with each other. This means that the information that is shared by users includes age, gender, photos, contacts, geographical location, status updates and interests. This brings us to the question how information becomes public. Users can maintain their individual privacy settings and they can either choose to hide whatever they don’t want strangers to see or they can make all their information public. Then there is some information that is public by default and the user cannot restrict it even if they want to. Social networks can also change their privacy settings at any time if they wish to without asking the users. Third Party applications that the user adds can get access to this information. So as we can see is that in all of these social networks, the privacy of a user is normally set by a user himself. It is something personal and should be decided by an individual himself. The law enforcement authorities are now aware of how to maneuver these sites to sufficiently tackle criminal activity in order to get valuable intelligence that can prove useful in solving a case and catching a criminal. They access these sites in various ways; by making fake profiles or by gaining access regardless of privacy settings. Common tactics that are used by the police include using the online content that s suspect that posted such as their location, a time might be mentioned as well, pictures that can reveal possession of weapons, underage drinking going on or use of drugs is seen. It is not only police that can benefit from these websites but also a witness and an experienced defense attorney. Facebook and other similar websites have been used by law enforcement authorities to solve the smallest crime to the biggest crime of murder. USA Today published a survey from the International Association of Police Chiefs showing that it is common for almost one third of the participating law enforcement agencies to use Facebook and other websites to solve their investigations. In Florida for example the primary focus of the police has been gangs of criminals who brag about their criminal activities on these social networking websites (Chidester). Gang members post pictures with things related to their gangs such as gestures and some use the websites to threat people about future criminal activities by them. Florida police after seeing these troubles have used their power of law to fight these things. The State of Florida passed a statute 874.11 which makes it a 3rd degree offence to ‘further the interest of a criminal gang’ and those who defy this have to do a sentence of up to five years and may even lose their right to vote (citemedialaw.org). According to some people this may be a violation of publics 1st Amendment rights which has to do with freedom of expression and lack of clarity of this law is causing problems for many people. According to the civil liberties group such police tactics is a blatant abuse of people’s right to maintain privacy. The spokesperson of Fishnet Enterprise, an advocacy group, Shawn Moyer believes that this intrusion by the police is unethical and pretending to be another person is a violation of Facebook’s term of service policy. I believe that as long as the bad people are being caught this way and someone is saved from getting wronged by an offender there is nothing wrong with this police tactic. The Department of Justice seems to agree with this because when these advocacy groups filed a Freedom of Information law suit against it they responded with a 33 pages stating that this investigation was completely legal as long as the law enforcement authorities had a warrant which is the exact case I am making. A warrant is a necessity if the police want to take any such action and if they don’t have that they cannot breach anyone’s privacy. The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution guards the right of people by giving them the right to remain secure in their homes. At the same time, the protection of their properties is also covered under the law. They are protected against unjust seizures and irrational searches, and this activity can only be performed if proper justification exists (Taslitz, 256). This is the protection provided by the constitution to the people and it also includes electronic searches. Therefore the police have to have a valid reason for the search and other actions which means evidence that a crime has been committed and that they might find some evidence from the website. Without a warrant even if any information regarding the case is found and it is highly useful as well, it cannot be used in the courts. However if a user has left their information ‘public’ it does not come under the fourth amendment realm thus can be used against him. Various social networks also agree to help the authorities and are willing to cooperate; for example MySpace has a law enforcement guide which is available to the authorities. It is updated continuously and it is a very useful too. This site has a clear policy regarding assistance of the law enforcement agencies, and they are committed to help them in order to limit the spread of activities against law. The information gathered by this site can be shared with law enforcement bodies, provided they request such information and guarantee to limit its spread to unconcerned people. The type of information gathered is clearly mentioned on the website, and it also clearly states the time period for which such information is retained. For law agencies to contact this websites’ dedicated personnel, the complete contact detail of concerned staff is listed (MySpace.com, 2). My Space works in close association with the law enforcement authorities; it decided to work with 49 state attorney generals against crimes and harmful actions such as harassment, pornography, theft and cyber bullying. The number of subpoenas issued to MySpace from the State of Florida has also increased significantly from 2006 to 2008. Facebook also has a Subpoena/Search Warrant Guide and a legal department that deals with warrant and subpoena applications. Democrat Rep. Zoe Lofgren introduced a bill that would require law enforcement officials to get a search warrant in order to search any cloud data or any information. This bill was supported by many companies including Apple, eBay, Amazon.com, Microsoft, Google, Twitter, AT&T and Intel. Some conservative, liberal and libertarian advocacy groups also support the ‘Digital Due Process’. Federal agencies like the DEA, FBI and ICE request warrants investigating social networking sites for offenses like arson to rape and even terrorism. The Facebook search warrant requires a ‘photoprint’ or a ‘Neoprint’ and according to a review of Westlaw data, such agencies were given more than 10 warrants to investigate Facebook since 2011. And it is clear that none of these warrants violated the Fourth Amendment rights of people. Another thing to keep in mind is that neither the government nor Facebook is obligated in any sense to tell the user if his or her account has been searched. This is also highly immoral because the users have no idea that they are being investigated. However Twitter and some other websites do inform their users if their accounts have been searched (Bullinger, 133). Searching anyone’s account without an issued warrant is highly unethical and definitely against the right of people’s privacy. An alarming report shows that the federal police have been snooping on people’s Twitter, Facebook and Google+ accounts more and more and they have been doing this without warrants. The U.S Department of Justice made a large number of interference requests on social networking websites. The percentage of such interceptions increased 80% from 2010 to 2011. This is a total destruction of the users’ privacy. They think that they have secured their profiles by making the necessary privacy settings; little do they know that they are being hacked into by the law enforcement officials. Some people say that this is important because then the criminals will take the necessary actions to disappear which is correct. This is why the warrant is requested from the social networking sites to make the investigation legal and at the same time make the investigation legal. Informing the criminal before searching their profile is the same as telling the criminal before going to his hiding place to arrest him. These actions are necessary if the police want to actually catch the criminal. There are several cases that have been solved and criminals caught because of the help taken from the social networking websites primarily Facebook and MySpace. Some of these can be read on Wikipedia.org with the related references. Covert methods can be used to solve a criminal case again if and only if a warrant is there. Security of the public is of the utmost importance and so is the liberty; how we can balance both is even more significant. The authorities need to see whether they have the just reason for obtaining information in this way and whether it really will help in catching the criminal. There is only so much right given to the law enforcers to invade a person’s privacy. If they have substantial evidence that the targeted user will have the desired information such undercover operations can be used and there is no need to inform the user that his or her profile will be searched because then the entire purpose of the search will be eliminated. Yes, this is ethically ambiguous but we cannot ignore the fact that innocent people are being saved from being wronged and bad people are being punished for crimes that they committed. We cannot deny that punishing a criminal for an offense that has been proved of committing cannot outweigh privacy issues of that criminal. In conclusion such internet investigations are the need of today and if they are helping the law in maintaining the law and order, there is nothing wrong with it. A key point here is that a warrant is an essential aspect of this whole investigation process and without a warrant the social networking website investigations become illegal as they violate the people right to privacy which is the Fourth Amendment right of the people of the United States. I also believe that the laws regarding using such information and how they should be accessed from these websites can be revised and made better. The norms related to privacy and public information are shifting with time and as the realm of such information magnifies, expectations of what can be done with this information should expand too and the necessary balance needs to be maintained between public and private lives of people. Social networks are part of our lives now and it is about time that we can accept this method of catching criminal activity if it is helping eradicate evil and evil actions. Works Cited Top of Form Top of Form "MySpace." MySpace.com. N.p., 1 Nov. 2007. Web. 26 Feb. 2013. Bullinger, H.-J. Technology Guide: Principles - Applications - Trends. Dordrecht: Springer, 2009. Internet resource. Chidester, Mindy. "The exploitation of social media by clandestine groups, how law enforcement & intelligence can better utilize social media, and legal concerns to ensure its appropriate use by government entities." 2012. Dwyer, Catherine, Starr Roxanne Hiltz, and Katia Passerini. "Trust and privacy concern within social networking sites: A comparison of Facebook and MySpace." Proceedings of AMCIS. 2007. Kwak, Haewoon, et al. "What is Twitter, a social network or a news media?."Proceedings of the 19th international conference on World wide web. ACM, 2010. Taslitz, Andrew E. Reconstructing the Fourth Amendment: A History of Search and Seizure, 1789-1868. New York: New York University Press, 2006. Internet resource.Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Read More