Facebook Friend Turns into Local Police Arrest

Someone in college drinking...God Forbid!

Rofl @ cops

Big brother is watching...... Welcome to the socialized world web.

Man, who does the editing for Toms Hardware. Every single article i have read has errors.

Local police is using Facebook to crack down on underage drinking.

you know, suddenly I like social networking. anything that can be exploited to punish idiots is fine by me.

Cops blow. Welcome to the Police State.

they need to prove there is alcohol in the drink/bottle, the picture is not enough, bottle/cans/ glasses are not in themselves illegal to hold or posses, fight back, make them prove you had a drink

Try as hard as they will this won't teach the message they are looking for.... The only message I see kids getting from this is drink alcohol out of a plastic cup, and/or don't post the picture online....

Way over the line in my opinion.

lol!
I read the article up to a point thinking "so? did he buy drinks for a 16 year old?" (as I am from the UK and a year younger than the guy who got busted but can drink as much as I want).

I don't understand why the legal age is still so high?
Is the law kept just so they can fine people to get revenue to bust parties so they can keep employing (possibly) too many police officers and have something to do?

Why not just tell the cops that it wasn't beer - that he, being the law abiding citizen that he is - poured the beer out and filled it up with Pepsi Cola. It is college after-all, so glasses/cups are luxury items. The fact that he was holding a beer bottle isn't a crime - so how could those dirty pigs (those cops) be sure that there was beer inside of it. Very strange story!

And you know what else just occurred to me - isn't there some sort of a rule on facebook which deters people from activating and operating an account under false pretenses? I don't know, just thinking...

Colleges do this as well. With Hawaii Pacific University being one of them.

"I was enjoying a bottle of non-alcoholic ginger beer officer. Besides, can you prove that it was alcoholic beer in that bottle?"

Since all the evidence is gone the cop can't do anything.

Then again, most 19 year olds today aren't really smart enough to create such a simple yet effective defence. That's how they get caught.

Pretty sad tactic's if you ask me. I don't think the Law has the right to even enter facebook, it was created to connect people not introduce them to the law. We get plenty of law enforement out on the streets, we don't need it in facebook. I would love to see the government step in on this one like they are on Heath Care.

but how do they know he didn't photoshop the beer in? If i goto the police station with a picture of myself holding a pot plant can I go to prison? I can easily photoshop a pot plant into my hands, just like a beer bottle. I don't doubt that the beer is actually real in this case; my point is that there is no way of PROVING that the beer is real since its possible digitally manipulate photographs very, very well these days--especially a picture off of the internet.

...and like the above posts said: the fact that the bottle may not have alcohol at all inside

point is, this kids sang, that's why they got caught.

Meh, whatever they need to do to catch people doing wrong things. People would be praising the police if it was catching a pedophile, why all the negative reaction to this?

Actually, I think the important information in the article was: "...busted by the local authorities for sporting underage drinking on Facebook...". English is not my native language, but to me it looks like they were busted for PROPAGATING underage drinking on FACEBOOK. So it doesn't matter if there was an alcoholic beer inside the bottle or not, or if there was any bottle at all before image manipulation. So the photographs are evidence.

HOLD. THE police made a fake account with some girls picture and caught this kid with a beer bottle in his hand. I think it more of an entrapment case to me.

Nothing you post on a social networking site is ever truly private. If someone posts pictures or blogs about doing something that they could get arrested, fired, divorced or deported for doing, it's their own damn stupid fault when they get caught.

In this case, the important takeaway point isn't whether or not the police should or defensibly could use this tactic. The important takeaway point in this case is that this idiot kid shouldn't have been drinking in the first place, and since he was stupid enough to do it in the first place *and* stupid enough to post pictures of it online, he deserves what he gets.

Someone should fine the police for breaching Facebook's Terms and Conditions by using a fake profile...

So the police use Facebook. No surprise really even though imho it is somewhat of an invasion. I mean it sounds like the cops just seem to spam people with requests and whoever accepts they go to their page and look for something they can arrest people for, all while being a hot college student or whatever. Oh and let's not forget employers who use it to keep track of employees activities outside of the workplace. CNN did a report on a teacher who went on vacation to Europe, personal vacation not a school one, and she posted a couple of pics two of which where of her holding up some Guiness and some other beer. She was fired for it. School said that was "inaporpriate" behavior for teacher in their school.

Personally I think you should ever believe, what you see or read anyway on these social sites. For all you know that nice looking 19 year old college student could be Bubba

[quote="bogcotton"]I don't understand why the legal age is still so high?
Is the law kept just so they can fine people to get revenue to bust parties so they can keep employing (possibly) too many police officers and have something to do?[/quote]

In USA we have something called 'log rolling'. Essentially it is legal bribery. Since the Federal Government is prohibited to force states to set a minimum drinking age, they tied the age of 21 into Federal Aid to road construction/maintenance. Meaning if you want the Fed's help to pay for your state roads, then you must change the legal age to 21. Only state that I know of that did not accept was Louisiana. Their age limit is still 18 I believe.

[quote="bogcotton"]I don't understand why the legal age is still so high?
Is the law kept just so they can fine people to get revenue to bust parties so they can keep employing (possibly) too many police officers and have something to do?[/quote]

In USA we have something called 'log rolling'. Essentially it is legal bribery. Since the Federal Government is prohibited to force states to set a minimum drinking age, they tied the age of 21 into Federal Aid to road construction/maintenance. Meaning if you want the Fed's help to pay for your state roads, then you must change the legal age to 21. Only state that I know of that did not accept was Louisiana. Their age limit is still 18 I believe.

What a joke. That "evidence" is nothing of the sort.

Cop: "Son, we got a picture showing you doing some underage drinkin'!"

Teen: "What that? That's not beer. It's sparkling apple juice. Didn't want my friends to think I was a wuss. You have that bottle so you can actually ascertain what I was drinking, right?"

Cop: "Uhhhhhh"

Judge: "Case dismissed."

Quote from Facebook TOS

"You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission."

and

"You will not solicit login information or access an account belonging to someone else."

It appears to me that the police are in the wrong in this case unless that "Good looking girl" was employed by the police department and she was the only one accessing the account.