Using Social Media as an Investigative Tool

All of this information is useless to a department without a well trained investigator.

Have you followed the stories about social web sites being used to capture criminals? Web sites like MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and more then I can mention are in the news. Most people are aware these types of web sites are full of sexual predators but most are not aware of the law enforcement agencies that are using these tools as well. You can use social web media to investigate all types of crimes from assault, theft, vandalism to drug sales. If you are in the business of finding people social media is a wealth of pictures and clues to their location.

Data Mining

In the beginning agencies could use web crawlers and data mining programs to quickly search for key words to draw the attention to a person to read a page for content. Most social media sites contain large quantities of non word content. Video, pictures and sound clips cannot be scanned by these programs. Criminals caught on to this information lapse and turned to clever ways to hide their activity.

A drug dealer could post a picture of his illegal substance on a table next to a quantity of money. This would allow his friends to know what they had for sale and how much he was selling it for.

Training

Just For Fun

The National Consortium for Justice Information and Statistics is offering a course to help law enforcement agencies turn social media into a powerful investigative tool. Social web sites differ from traditional webs sites in many ways. Traditional websites are designed to inform the reader. Social web media is there as a form of interactions between users. One of the key difficulties is that the user can change their content many times a day. The content of conversations and contacts could be lost very quickly. The content of the activity can also be handled over many networks. A conversation may be started on twitter, discussed on Facebook and details of meeting on MySpace.

One of the main benefits to law enforcement is the email, phone and various contact information people list to help in contacting them. If someone was a victim of a crime you can check their “friends” or contact list of people who might have information. If you have a group of people who are engaging in an illegal activity all you need is one person in the group and you can follow their social connection. Many public and private conversations can be accessed yielding a wealth of information on the parties involved.

If you have a hate group or potentially destructive/violent group developing in your jurisdiction then you can find and follow their social postings within the group. Many use social media to grow their membership. You can discover their gatherings and plan accordingly to gain the Intel your department needs to help prevent crime.

You Need An Investigator

All of this information is useless to a department without a well trained investigator. No program can scan the web and put the puzzle together. Each investigator has different state laws to work within. Most states you can create multiple false accounts in order to pretext yourself as male/female or any age or social group. Public pages are free content or “Plain View” and can be used in

any cases without permission. Private messages or off-site e-mails do require permission from the user or a court order. An Investigator cannot figure out a user's password in order to obtain evidence. Likewise, a warrant is necessary to get evidence directly from the social media.

If you are in one of the 49 states that allow you to lie about your identity (most states) will allow you to engage in public and private conversation without a court order. If they accept your false identity as a friend and they choose to engage in illegal activity with you or in front of you. Make sure you remain clear of entrapment laws. All of these conversations and private messages are court submissable in most states (please refer to your laws before engaging in these activities).

Collecting the evidence is another challenge. There are tools to help you save screen shots or collect or record data. In some cases you might have to take photographs or video recording to present as evidence. The officer involved will have to testify that this is the information as it appeared on his computer in court. It is the same as a detective testifying about photographs of a crime scene. You might also need a search warrant to obtain an IP address to prove where these entries were made from. Once you pinpoint a location beware the trap of several family members with access to the computer. You will need to tie the activity to one user in the home. Finally unless the crime is totally handled over the net it’s best that you use social media to lead you to the person. Once you have them they will lead you to the evidence you need for conviction.