Social Media Law Enforcement
Law Enforcement and Social Media Social media is new tool for law enforcement that has proven instrumental in community oriented policing. As times and technology advance, police need to keep up to maintain the edge against criminals. The internet, social media in particular, is a relatively new occurrence, and how to most effectively utilize it as a crime fighting tool has probably not even been realized yet. Criminals are not known to be the brightest bunch, and there are new stories every day of some knucklehead posting incriminating evidence online and getting arrested for it. If information is made public via social media, then there is no expectation of privacy and it can be used against you. Social media is allowing law enforcement to connect with their communities in new and exciting ways, giving officers a face and bringing them closer to the community.
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There are multiple ways that this can affect us, the most obvious being posting something incriminating online, but there are a few others as well. Police departments are checking possible candidate’s social media accounts in order screen for possible disqualifiers and to ensure they will not discredit the department (Roufa, 2017). Anything private will still require law enforcement going through the proper channels, usually requiring a warrant (Kelly, 2012). There has been multiple cases where someone has tried to argue that information found on social media is personal, but the courts have stood by the ruling that anything posted publicly does not have a legitimate expectation of privacy (Bianca, 2015). The Fourth District Court of Florida recently ruled that “…generally, the photographs posted on a social networking site are neither privileged nor protected by any right of privacy, regardless of any privacy settings that the user may have established” (Nucci v. Target Corp,
Uses for …show more content…
There are multiple ways that this can affect us, the most obvious being posting something incriminating online, but there are a few others as well. Police departments are checking possible candidate’s social media accounts in order screen for possible disqualifiers and to ensure they will not discredit the department (Roufa, 2017). Anything private will still require law enforcement going through the proper channels, usually requiring a warrant (Kelly, 2012). There has been multiple cases where someone has tried to argue that information found on social media is personal, but the courts have stood by the ruling that anything posted publicly does not have a legitimate expectation of privacy (Bianca, 2015). The Fourth District Court of Florida recently ruled that “…generally, the photographs posted on a social networking site are neither privileged nor protected by any right of privacy, regardless of any privacy settings that the user may have established” (Nucci v. Target Corp,