Authorities scour social media for electronic evidence
it was the subject of a September survey of 728 law enforcement agencies across the nation, including Arizona, by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. It found that about 62 percent of agencies use social media for criminal investigations, and 40 percent use the technology to solicit tips from the public.
Social media has played an integral role in the criminal investigation of six Tuscon-area teachers charged with inappropriate relationships last year. In two of the cases, parents and authorities reportedly found inappropriate text messages sent to students.
Jennifer Whiting, 32, a Rincon High School teacher, was arrested in June and accused of sending sexually explicit photos and message to a 16-year-old student. The teen’s father notified police that his son might be having an inappropriate relationship with Whiting.
A month earlier, Christie Elliot, 25, who coached the cheer squad and taught English at Empire High School, turned herself in to Tucson police after a three-week investigation into her relationship with a 15-year-old boy.
Police began investigating Elliot at the behest of the Vail School District after a parent told the Empire High principal that Elliot had been exchanging inappropriate text messages with his son. Some of the messages referred to kissing and “the need to be more careful,” according to court documents filed by police.
David “Nick” Delich, accused of shooting Tucson police officer Erik Hite to death in June 2008, sent several threatening MySpace messages to some of his former friends in the months before the shooting.
Delich also posted a blog that said, “Soon, I plan to kill many police officers” and posted photos of handguns and assault rifles he owned.
Last September, Jared Lee Loughner, the man charged with the 8 January shooting rampage that killed six people and injured 13, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, was suspended from Pima Community College after campus officials learned of a YouTube video where he walks around PCC’s Northwest Campus, referring to the college as “one of the biggest scams in America” and a “genocide school.”
Loughner made more outlandish and threatening comments on his MySpace account in the weeks before the shooting. “WOW! I’m glad I didn’t kill myself. I’ll see you on National T.v. This is foreshadow […] why doesn’t anyone talk to me?” In another posting Loughner said he was “ready to kill a police officer!”
The growth of social media and other technology-based crimes has forced law enforcement agencies to work quickly to keep pace with criminals. Tucson police created the Internet Crimes Against Children unit in May 2009 after recognizing how technology presented numerous ways for sex offenders to interact with kids.
Detectives must understand technology in order to request warrants that properly detail what they’re looking for, said Detective Barry, one of three members of the unit. “It’s more technical type of stuff, knowing what to ask, knowing the right terminology,” he said.
Most agencies have detectives trained in using technology to identify and solve crimes. Some also turn to civilian criminal analysts who are trained in using computers to conduct criminal research, said Detective Dave Hubbard of the Tucson police fraud unit.
The FBI puts its cyber-squad agents through college-level classes on networking, software languages, and computer operating systems, said John Iannarelli, supervisory special agent who oversees the FBI’s cyber agents throughout the state, including in Tucson. The agency looks for new agents who have extensive computer science backgrounds, including those with master’s and doctorate degrees, he said.
But keeping up with the latest cyber-crime is tough. The law often moves slower than criminals, so the latest online bad behavior might not be technically illegal until new laws are passed.
Researchers who track the damage cyber-crime can do also have trouble staying up to date, said Bauman, the UA professor. “The innovations grow so quickly,” she said. “By the time you finish a study, it’s outdated.”
