Conventional wisdom dictates that social networking websites, such as Myspace.com, present a danger to children and teenagers. Social networking websites help connect friends and other acquaintances via a variety of on-line tools. Recent media coverage has focused on how child predators use these social networking sites to select and stalk victims. Moreover, there is a growing concern that as more young gang members build virtual ?turf? in cyberspace on-line disputes will spill into the real world and lead to physical violence. According to the 2005 National Gang Threat Assessment by the National Alliance of Gang Investigators Associations, ?gang members are becoming more sophisticated in their use of computers and technology. These new tools are used to communicate, facilitate criminal activity, and avoid detection by law enforcement.?
While social networking sites may present some dangers to children and teenagers if used improperly and without adult supervision, they also present a valuable tool to law enforcement. For example, when Maryland police learned the nickname of one of the suspects in a series of local robberies, the police were able to utilize the Internet to identify and arrest the suspect. Additionally, local authorities were able to disrupt a Columbine-style plot against Riverton High School in Riverton, Kansas and another in North Pole, Alaska, both after learning of a threat posted on Myspace.com. According to Cherokee County Sheriff Steve Norman, “The message, it was brief, but it stated that there was going to be a shooting at the Riverton school and that people should wear bulletproof vests and flak jackets.?
It is important to recognize that it does not take much technical skill or resources for local law enforcement to scour the Internet for tips and clues to solve crime or even prevent crimes from occurring. Searching these sites for clues can be as simple as keyword searching through Google. For example, a Google search for ?Mara Salvatrucha? limited to Myspace.com returns 221 hits. Once a suspect?s profile has been identified, it is simple to identify the suspect?s acquaintances by searching through the suspect?s social network. This type of link analysis may yield further clues that may aid in solving or preventing crimes.
Moreover, trolling publicly available social networking sites and other on-line forums do not raise serious privacy concerns. The Internet is within the public domain; therefore, any information posted on-line is not subjected to strict privacy protections, as there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. As a result, there are fewer restraints on law enforcement?s ability to search through these websites.
As a result, it seems clear that social networking sites can offer law enforcement a tool in its fight against crime. In order to utilize the potential offered by these sites, law enforcement officials may wish to consider designing software that can crawl specific websites in an automated fashion and notify authorities of threats specific to their jurisdiction. Moreover, law enforcement should develop relationships with many of the social networking sites so that they can quickly and easily get the support they need when investigating a crime.