should police be allowed to use what they find on facebook as evidence?

[Miley Breckyn]

I am writing a research paper on the police use of social media and i cant really find much on the topic. My questions are:
Are there cases challenging the police use of social network sites?
should what they find be admissible for an arrest?
Is it a violation of privacy?
what should officials be allowed to do? Like suspending a student for pictures found on Facebook?

Anything you could tell me would be extremely helpful! I have been searching for days and cant find anything that is exactly these questions answered.

[Neeraj]

This is a tricky question with no straight forward answer which can be used as formula.

First of all - it is indeed violation of privacy. If facebook allowed police to view something the user has chosen in his privacy settings as private it can lead to unnecessary harassment. Most people tend to be boasting and careless when they know nobody is listening or seeing except their friends. More often than not those are simply innocent comments. For example a person may privately say he likes hitler or he is fascinated by serial-killers. Such comments may unnecessarily land him in trouble if police are allowed to get that information. The Amanda Knox case is the best example where the police used some of her innocent comments to project her image as a devil of sorts, when they could not find any credible evidence linking her to the murder of Meredith Kercher.

But again - there can be no simple rule for this. In exceptional cases where the person is a suspect in a major crime, e.g. against children or women and only if there is enough circumstantial evidence, the police should be allowed a peek. But in no case such information should be allowed as evidence in court of law. The police can use such information to reach his friends or other suspects and links for more clues and evidence. This should be done very judiciously though.

There have been so many cases where police have used garbage information to paint a bad picture of an innocent suspect, only to be proven later that the perpetrator was somebody else. The case of the little girl Jon Benet Ramsey is another example of police harassing the parents, based on their own conservative beliefs. The DNA tests later exonerated the parents, but the damage to their reputation was permanent. The crime was committed in 1996 and the case still remains unsolved.

Since the user's public information on facebook is in public domain the police are free to use it in whatever way they want. But not his\her private information to solve petty crimes.