I'm here with Jennifer Lynch of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He's been involved in a fascinating project with the Samuelson Legal Clinic at Berkeley about what rights and what procedures the government uses to spy on us through our social networks. The IRS looks at social media, US Customs and Immigration Services uses social media. So it's become prevalent throughout all aspects of the federal government. Did any of the government agencies have pretty strict policies about requiring a warrant before going on to social media to get information? We asked the federal agencies if they would give us copies of the law enforcement guides that they were getting from social media companies. And so we got a bunch of copies of these different guides, Facebook, Myspace, Yahoo, eBay, a whole bunch of different ones. And we also got several copies of the guides from certain companies. So for example, we have three different years of the Facebook guides. So we can see how they changed over time and how the Myspace guides changed over time. Facebook has this very interesting policy. In their terms of service, they are very clear that they prohibit any kind of anonymous profiles. They prohibit pseudonomous profiles. And that extends to law enforcement. So law enforcement are technically in violation of Facebook's terms of service if they are creating fake profiles on Facebook. Which law enforcement I'm sure is doing to conduct investigations. We're in one state that actually were not able to get jurisdiction over someone who'd left the state and they kept monitoring her high school reunion blog and actually caught her when she posted she was coming back for the reunion. More and more I'm seeing in criminal cases, they will take some evidence, for example, if you have a wallpaper in the shape of a marijuana leaf or a junior high child who is wearing gang colors, that was thought to really be evidence that he was a gang member. So should there be limits or should there be something to prove the authenticity of what they're using the social network information for? In terms of authenticity, these photos are authentic. The real question is, are they appropriate as character evidence of what the defendant is doing and what does the defendant have to do to rebut that? I think about a alleged killer in Connecticut who had gone to a Halloween party in a double costume with his face being it red. And so that was used to show what a horrible person he was. So should the police be able to get that information in the first place or only information really related to the crime? Well, it's hard to know where that line is, unfortunately. I mean, I had read about another case where a woman was convicted of drunk driving where somebody in another car was killed. And subsequent to the accident, she had posted pictures on her Facebook page or her MySpace page showing herself drinking at a party and living it up at a party. And that was used as evidence in the case that she didn't show any remorse. In that situation, it's hard to know what the right answer is because if that photograph had been posted before the accident, then it doesn't really relate to the accident except maybe to show that she has sort of her propensity for drinking. But after the accident, it just sort of goes to her character and it does sort of go to her judgment in the situation. Another thing I'm seeing is similar things in civil cases where any personal injury case now, defense lawyers want through discovery, all social network information. And anytime anybody puts quality life at issue, they take into evidence like a smiling photo of you from your MySpace page to say, oh, you couldn't be harmed if you've been photographed smiling. But I think people should be able to have a stiff upper lip and the web or show themselves in some way. I mean, is it an issue now where we're trying to figure out where the appropriate line should be drawn and what's relevant evidence? You know, this is a part of our lives and so it's going to come into court. And I think that the real challenge is that it's hard to anticipate how this is going to come into court. So I think for example of teenagers who will post everything on their Facebook page, they'll tweet everything. They'll send text messages to their friends with stories of their lives and all of that information lives on. It doesn't go away. What do you think of judges who as a condition of probation require juvenile offenders to friend them? And the judges' notion is that that way the child would be less likely to post drinking photos. I don't know if it means they'd be actually less likely to drink, but they assume that someone will be better behaved if the judge is looking at that page. Well, I think I sort of think about this two ways. So the first is yes, I definitely think it takes away any kind of free speech rights of the child and it's very intrusive and very privacy invasive to have the judge have access to a juvenile's page. But then I have to say that my other thought is that I'm not sure how much that would affect what the child is actually doing on Facebook or MySpace because we are very quick to forget who's in our friend list. Absolutely. And I think for example, it's very common now in criminal cases for defense attorney to say to her client, make sure that you restrict what you do on your MySpace page because you never know who's going to be watching and inevitably the defendant will post something about the case on her MySpace page. And some of those defendants who in the middle of a crime go on Facebook and leave it open in the house of the person that robbing. I have no idea. I was like, yes, one took two diamond rings and went on his Facebook page and another bank robber actually posted on the run, robbed a bank. And so what do you have to gain with the litigation that you're doing against the Department of Defense and others? Are you hoping to just see the circumstances in which they use social network information or do you want to ultimately change it and narrow the circumstances in which they can poke around in people's MySpace? So the point of the litigation at this point is to really find out how the government is using social media, how much the government is becoming involved in our daily lives on social media. And I think also to bring that to the public's attention and hope that that will affect how people use social media if they know that the government can access their information. Thanks so much. Thank you. It was work and thank you for spending time with us. Thank you.