Old Fuff said:
The Old Fuff has found an easy solution to this problem.
He doesn't have a Facebook page, doesn't frequent social media, and has never posted a picture of himself or anyone else - with or without a firearm.
Those who are foolish enough too do so leave themselves wide open because of the way things are relative to government and other surveillance and snooping....
old lady new shooter said:
I hate to break it to you, but forums like THR are a form of social media. And yes, we know that some law enforcement agencies do monitor such forums.
gun_with_a_view said:
...Free speech can be restricted if it can be expected to incite an immediate violent reaction against the speaker by the person the speech is directed at. It's hard to see how that could happen if the victim of the threat is reading about it on the internet. ...
Speech may be free, but it still has social and legal consequences. It can be evidence of motivation, predisposition, state of mind, intent, character, etc.
As outlined
here by Massad Ayoob:
...I know for a fact that we DO have the technology to pull things out of your hard drive that you thought were deleted. We DO have the right to ask you, under penalty of perjury, whether you post on any Internet forum, and under what name, and we DO have the power to subpoena any posts via your IP from the Internet hosts, who under law have no choice but to "give you up." Don't let the seeming anonymity of the Internet delude you: when things get serious, you won't be anonymous anymore....
He was trying to make the point, in general terms, that any notion you might have that you can't get caught for what you write over the Internet is hooey. Some folks would be very surprised by the amount of useful information the police and prosecutor can get from your computer and your Internet presence. Note that he mentions a subpoena. That is another form of compulsory process used to gather evidence. Or sometimes the police will need a search warrant, which they'll be likely to get; and sometimes they won't. But however they have to get it, if it's there they can and will get it.
I've taken a bunch of continuing legal education classes about effective use of evidence from social media (like Internet forums). Similar classes are offered to prosecutors and police officers. I know a number of police agencies around here that have assigned officers to regularly monitor various Internet sites.
The "take-home message" is that plaintiff lawyers, law enforcement and prosecutors know all about social media and have been learning to use it effectively in civil litigation, criminal investigations and prosecutions. See
this article headlined "Bay Area prosecutors increasingly using social media posts in criminal cases" from the 16 August 2013 edition of the
Contra Costa Times:
PLEASANTON -- A teenage driver originally accused of vehicular manslaughter now faces a murder charge in the death of a bicyclist, partly because prosecutors say he bragged on Twitter about driving dangerously.
His case is part of a growing trend of social media posts being used as evidence against suspects, authorities said Friday.
....
As suspects feel compelled to post their misdeeds online for audiences to see, investigators have taken advantage, using the online quasi-confessions to bolster their cases, Bay Area prosecutors said.
In San Francisco, a cyclist in March fatally struck a 71-year-old pedestrian in a crosswalk after speeding through three red lights in the Castro District. Chris Bucchere, who eventually pleaded guilty to felony vehicular manslaughter, received a stiffer charge after he posted his explanation of the crash on a cycling group's website....