(Newswire.net — October 21, 2014) — Sondra Arquiett was oblivious to the fact that the DEA impersonated her on Facebook and was speaking to her friends. The DEA even posted photos of her with her son on Facebook and another photo of her alone in panties and a bra. Therefore, she sued the DEA agent who set up the account.
However, the Justice Department is backing the up the DEA agent, claiming federal agents have the right to do such things, but Sondra now has Facebook on her side.
“The DEA’s deceptive actions…threaten the integrity of our community”, said Facebook’s chief security officer Joe Sullivan. He wrote a letter to the DEA head, Michele Leonhart, “Using Facebook to impersonate others abuses that trust and makes people feel less safe and secure when using our service”, said Sullivan. In the letter, Facebook informed the DEA of their shutting down the fake Arquiett account.
The DEA declined to comment and referred all questions to the Justice Department, which has not returned calls, CNN reported.
The question is, how did the DEA end up with this woman’s phone, anyway. Well, Arquiett was arrested in 2010 on cocaine distribution charges but she pled guilty and received probation.
A federal prosecutor said that legal documents show that Arquiett “implicitly consented by granting access to the information stored in her cell phone and by consenting to the use of that information to aid in an ongoing criminal investigations [sic].”
However, Facebook said in its letter, that it is “deeply troubled” by that legal position.
“It’s one thing to strike a deal and become an informant. It’s another to lose complete control of your online identity”, said privacy researcher Runa Sandvik, who advises the Freedom of the Press Foundation. “Isn’t this the definition of identity theft?”, Sandvik asked.
This is not the first time the technology firm Facebook has collided with the federal government defending civil liberties issues.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has called President Obama complaining about civil liberties and asking for more transparency concerning the NSA spying on Americans. Meanwhile, Facebook is fighting in court to have the Manhattan district attorney’s office justify it’s seizure of 381 Facebook accounts.