On the Internet, No One Knows You’re a Cop: Police and Social Media Deception

As long as police can con­tin­ue to exploit the legal fic­tion of user »con­sent« to access our pri­vate com­mu­ni­ca­tions, our pri­va­cy rights will remain just as fic­tion­al. While we’re hope­ful that the courts will one-day strike this prac­tice down as vio­lat­ing the Fourth Amend­ment, more urgent statu­to­ry pro­tec­tions are need­ed. The leg­is­la­tion needn’t be lengthy or com­plex, it’s not a nuanced ques­tion. To the con­trary, what we need is a com­plete and cat­e­gor­i­cal ban on the use of fake accounts by police, let­ting those who’ve been sur­veilled sue, and sup­press­ing the evi­dence that’s obtained at trial.