big brother takes over the facebook ...

[Kwyjibo]

This is sort of nuts ... and it scares me. Not so much for myself but for just the general state of society.

On a typical summer night out, a group of college friends went bar-hopping at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Then one of them committed a fairly typical college crime, urinating in a bush in front of a fraternity house. That's when things started to get strange.

Marc Chiles, 22, who couldn't wait until he got to the next bar, got away before a police officer could catch him. Adam Gartner, 22, told the officer he didn't know the name of the guy who had zipped up and zipped away.

Just then, Gartner's cell phone rang. The officer got on the phone, began talking to the person who called, and got Chiles' name from the caller, according to the friends.

Then the officer went to Facebook.com, a Web site where students can post profiles and leave messages for one another. Not only did Facebook help him identify Chiles, it also showed that Chiles and Gartner listed each other as friends, suggesting Gartner had lied to police.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0608030264aug03,1,5591199.story (registration required)

Heres the old campus news paper with a little more investigation of the actual cops on it.

http://www.dailyillini.com/media/st...200608031920&sourcedomain=www.dailyillini.com

 

[Mac Rules]

Thats aweful, its hardly like the crime deserved the punishment! For god's sake, why don't police just ge ton solving REAL crimes? If he'd seriously hurt somebody, been involved in an RTA or something worse, then fair enough, throw the book at him, but for being drunk and pi**ing in a bush, I'm sure that copper's never done it!

Pathetic

Cheers

 

[patrick0brien]

Not sure it's 'big brother' seems like good 'ol detective work to me. Besides, these fellas put their own info on a nice searchable place.

As for getting into trouble for peeing in a bush - yer right, what a waste of time. Like the officer's never done that.

And to make matters more interesting, let's think for a moment:

This is a bush.
In front of a fraternity house.
At U of I!

That bush has NEVER seen real water!

 

[szark]

Another question -- what right did the officer have to answer Gartner's cell phone?

 

[iJon]

As I would agree with other posters when saying police need to go solve more serious crimes but you can't forget one thing. On a university campus (or at least mine) the police never have anything to do then run radar, man the fraternity parties and investigate the latest rape to happen. Other than that there is nothing for them to do in their very very small jurisdiction area.

One thing we can all probably agree on is that these are the days where Facebook and MySpace can now bite you in the ass someday in the future.

jon

 

[Tanglewood]

Well running from the cops and then lying to them is never been a way to get on their good side.

 

[Kwyjibo]

Another question -- what right did the officer have to answer Gartner's cell phone?

This was my exact question too. I don't think a police officer can really do that, the police officer probably assumed it was the other guy (after that had split up) trying to see if he got away too.

I would guess right now the officer asked him and the kid was drunk / scared and maybe consented.

 

[patrick0brien]

Another question -- what right did the officer have to answer Gartner's cell phone?

-szark

Oo. Good one. Textbook grounds for dismissal.

 

[FrankieTDouglas]

...So yeah, did anyone else go look up their pages on facebook, too?

And is it a crime of any sort to lie to a police officer? You're not sworn under oath or anything.

 

[Thomas Veil]

Legal issues aside (and I agree the cop may not've had the right to answer that phone), there have been several articles lately about colleges not being happy with students posting tons of personal information on Facebook and similar sites. People apparently feel loose enough to post the most embarrassing information about themselves, including pictures of themselves getting wasted at parties, undressing, etc., and written details of some of their more sordid exploits. Colleges are (rightfully, IMO) concerned that such tawdry details (especially where the students are well known, e.g. football players) reflect badly on the school and exhibit poor judgment on the students' part.

But all of that is just a more extreme example of a more basic problem: giving too much information about yourself on the internet...even such simple stuff as your specific city and the names of your friends. I'm not sure why younger folks don't seem to be concerned about this. I don't think it's ever a good idea to reveal too much about yourself on the internet. You never know who might be reading it. Even cops.

 

[patrick0brien]

And is it a crime of any sort to lie to a police officer?

-FrankieTDouglas

Depends. If the officer has Probable Cause on a particular subject, and he is lied to on that subject, that is known as "Obstruction of Justice", which would apply here.

However, if the officer had probaly cause on a guy peeing in a bush, and asked about any drugs in the fraternity house, that would be harder to make an Obstruction charge stick.