Archive for September, 2012

Think He’s Cheating? How To Know For Sure

There’s only one thing worse than finding out that your partner’s cheating: suspecting that your partner’s cheating. Unfortunately, it’s not always as simple as just asking your partner for the truth. One of the most common ways for unfaithful partners to deflect accusations of cheating is to dismiss their partners’ concerns as paranoia. Some even turn the tables and accuse their partners of pondering infidelity.

If you can’t catch your partner in the act, there are red flags to look for (suspicious errands, a sudden change in grooming or appearance, etc.), but what if you’re not 100 percent sure? Should you end your relationship without any hard evidence of infidelity, or wait passively for the truth to come out?

In the past, worried spouses hired expensive private detectives to do the dirty work, if they could afford to pay thousands of dollars. Now Infidelity DNA Testing, operated by the national DNA testing company Paternity Lab Center, makes it easy for any man or woman to scientifically confirm cheating, CSI-style. All it involves is sending in an item that’s potential evidence, like dirty underwear, bedsheets, condoms, or even cigarette butts, and having it tested for DNA. Should viable DNA be detected, you can then pay an additional fee for a comparison test to see if the DNA on your partner’s item matches yours. If not, you know someone’s got some ‘splainin’ to do. The whole process costs $600 at the most.

The whole process sounds icky and even sneaky, yes. But we’re talking about cheating! It comes with the territory. And while not all cheating partners are dumb enough to leave incriminating, bodily fluid-soaked undies around, many of them are. You deserve to know the truth, and no one can deny the validity of DNA. Even better, you’ll know the truth within five business days. And then you can move on with your relationship… or not.

Kip Charles, owner of the Paternity Lab Center, reports that the majority of people who call Infidelity DNA Testing are men who suspect their girlfriends or wives are cheating.

“More men call to find out how the process works, but most don’t actually go through with it,” Charles says. “Women are more likely to pull the trigger and actually submit an item for testing.” He says that about 70% of clients confirm that their partner was cheating as they suspected. “Maybe 30% of clients are wrong about their suspicions, but I’d say the rest already know something’s wrong. They know there’s a serious decision they have to make, but they have to be sure.”

The lesson: If you think your partner is cheating, follow your gut, but don’t forget all the technology—or dirty laundry—at your disposal.

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A 29-year-old Ethiopian housemaid allegedly smothered her newborn baby girl born through an adulterous relationship by putting her in a bag and keeping it closed for about six hours, the Dubai Criminal Court heard.

JAA is accused of premeditatedly killing her one day-old baby girl by wrapping her in a cloth and putting her in a bag and closing the bag with the intention to kill her. The accused denied killing the baby and claimed that she was born dead. However, the forensic report said the baby was born alive and she was fed milk and the cause of her death was suffocation.

AMI, 17, Emirati student, testified that the accused had been working for the family since July 2011 and used to stay in the helpers’ quarter in their villa’s yard. On April 26, the maid excused herself from housework, saying she is tired. On the following day, the family asked her to go out with them and were in fact intending to deport her.
“When the maid went to the bathroom, my grandmother started searching her bags. She searched the first bag and was opening the second one when the maid came out of the bathroom. She tried to prevent her from carrying on with her search but my grandmother insisted. Then the maid pulled out a wrapped piece of cloth and towel and said that there is a baby in it. She claimed that she brought the baby from outside. Checking the wrap we found a dead baby,” he testified.

The grandmother, AHS, 60, repeated the same testimony.

Police investigated the case and found out that the baby must have born alive after nine months of pregnancy. Forensic reported that the baby’s lungs were in ‘floating’ condition which clearly indicated that she had breathed air after delivery, contrary to the mother’s claim that she was born dead. Also, milky residues were found in her digestive organ in addition to hard waste in her intestine which means that the baby was fed more than once.

Forensic report that, from the wet condition of the umbilical cord, it appears that the baby was born either on April 25 or 26. Suffocation, and not the baby’s head injury, was the cause of her death, the report said.
The accused confessed before the police that the baby was the result of her adulterous relationship with AK who is being prosecuted by the Misdemeanor Court with JAA for adultery.

Records did not mention how JAA met AK and whether she continued her relationship with him after joining her employer. It also did not mention whether he asked her or encouraged her to kill the baby.

The accused claimed that the baby was born dead on April 26.

“She was not moving when she was born. I cut the umbilical cord with a knife which was in the room. I wrapped her in a cloth and put her on the bed at 8am. I was very scared that my adulterous relationship with a man would be discovered. I wrapped her body in a towel and put her in a bag and closed it until 2pm,” she testified.

Later the accused admitted before the police to giving birth to a live baby girl in her room and that nobody was with her when she delivered the baby girl on April 26, testified police officer Saeed Salem.
She admitted that she had put the baby in a bag and closed the bag so that nobody would discover her illegal and illicit relationship with a man that resulted in the baby.

She confessed to having adulterous relation with a man in August 2011. Police arrested AK with whom who she claimed she had adulterous relationship.

Forensic reported that AK was the real father and the accused was the real mother of the baby.

The accused, however, again giving birth to a live baby when she appeared before the prosecution and on Monday when she appeared in court.

“I gave birth to a stillborn baby. I did not kill my baby but she was born dead,” JAA told the jury presided by judge Hamad Abdullatif Abdul Jawad who ordered the appointment of a defence lawyer and to reconvene on October 15.

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The statistics are staggering. The latest National Retail Security Survey states that 45 percent of losses to retailers are attributed to theft by employees. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) reports that 5 percent of revenues of a typical organization are stolen by company workers. The average internal fraud scheme goes undetected for 18 months. Small businesses are particularly vulnerable since they don’t have the resources or the processes in place to avoid and/or detect fraud activity.

With no formal loss prevention programs in place, many owners and managers rely on their experience and expertise to react to incidences of employees stealing. Others rely on their beliefs, perceptions and ideals that their employees would not steal from them for a number of reasons. The following are myths associated with those ideological thoughts:

My employees would not steal from me because …

1. They Like Me – While it is true that good relationships with the boss may deter a small percentage of employees from stealing, research has shown that dishonest employees are driven by a number of factors. Loss Prevention professionals cite the presence of the Theft Triangle as the breeding ground for employee theft. When these elements are present in the workplace, employees may be tempted to steal or become involved in other counterproductive behaviors.

Theft Triangle

Motive – Potential gain and use for the cash or product
Opportunity – Ability to quickly and safely steal the cash or product
Low Risk of Detection – Perception of low probability of getting caught

The employees may genuinely like the manager or owner, but if the three factors are present in the work environment, the temptation to steal may override friendship.

2. They’re My Best Employees – Many managers and employers perceive that because certain employees are self-motivated, hard workers, they do not have any integrity issues. They are above reproach simply because they exceed expectations in their performance. And because of that belief, those employees are not scrutinized for compliance to the rules, nor suspected of counterproductive behavior or theft. Without accountability to the rules, even the best of employees may take advantage and steal.

3. I Show That I Trust Them – It is essential that trust be developed throughout any organization. It is the foundation of every great relationship. In the world of business, the trust must be validated with accountability. Unfortunately managers and owners may interpret showing trust as not checking up on employees. Without a check and balance process or audit system, employees may perceive that there is low risk of getting caught. All incidences of employee theft violate trust. Show your employees that you trust them, but follow up on the performance expectations you have established.

4. They Have a Clean Background – Pre-employment background checks are significant in establishing a comprehensive loss prevention program. Hiring employees without criminal convictions may be a good start in creating an environment of honesty and trust. High integrity must permeate the organization. With a culture devoid of strong policies and procedures supported by compliance processes and effective supervision, employees may steal with a compelling motive, opportunity and the perception that they won’t get caught. The ACFE reports that of the 1,388 internal frauds investigated by Certified Fraud Examiners in the past year, 87 percent of them were perpetuated by first time offenders. They cited the lack of internal controls as the key factor in the crimes that triggered the criminal behavior.

5. I Pay Them a Higher Wage – Assumptions are made that paying employees a higher wage than their counterparts with other companies will make them happy. If employees are happy with their wages they won’t steal. It’s another myth. Sociological studies have shown that employees are influenced by the culture established by the work environment. Approximately 10 percent of the employees are morally incorruptible. They don’t bend or break the rules. They don’t steal given any opportunity to do so. Additionally, approximately 10 percent of employees bend and break policies and procedures with regularity and are prone to steal. They are the challenge of Human Resource personnel in medium and larger size businesses and a big problem for the smaller companies. The remaining 80 percent of the employee’s behavior in the workplace is influenced by the culture and attitudes. If the rules are clear and compliance is expected, employee behavior gravitates to following those rules. If the counterproductive behavior of the small percentage of the problem employees is not addressed and allowed to flourish, other employees will be influenced by that behavior. Ninety percent of the workforce can be positively influenced to compliant behavior with well written rules, clear expectations and effective follow-up.

We want to believe that employees won’t steal from us. We really do. We use these reasons to support our views. But, on their merits, these views are indeed myths. Sociological studies on workplace behavior, criminal investigations on employee fraud, and anecdotal stories have proven that the workplace environment must be controlled to avoid counterproductive behavior and theft. Policies and procedures must be well written. Compliance to the rules and behavior expectations must be clear. Internal controls must be established and audited. Counterproductive behavior must be addressed effectively, and the elements of the Theft Triangle must be eliminated. It must be known in the work environment that opportunities to steal are low and the probability of getting caught is high. You then might be right when you say; my employees won’t steal from me.

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By 2014, China will become the world’s largest national homeland security and public safety market; China’s homeland security and public safety market reached $40 billion market in 2011, and it is set to grow to $45 billion in 2012; the trend will continue, increasing market value to $58 billion by 2015 and $105 billion by 2020.

Homeland Security Research Corp., a homeland security technology and market research group, has just issued two market research reports — China Homeland Security & Public Safety Market —2012-2020 and U.S. Homeland Security & Public Safety Market – 2013-2020 – which forecast that by 2014 China will become the world’s largest national homeland security and public safety market.

The China report reveals that:

-Two out of every three new airports built in the world are in China
-According to China’s “Twelfth 5-Year Plan (2011-2015),” China spends more on “HLS & Public Security” than it does on defense
-China’s government 650 “Safe City” cumulative 2013-2020 market will surpass $180 billion
-The country’s public transportation system, which is the world’s largest, is poised to undergo a $20 billion security upgrade
-The U.S. Department of Commerce assists and encourages the export of American homeland security and public safety products to China
-Companies such as FLIR, GE, Honeywell, Panasonic, Samsung, Siemens, Bosch, and EADS are already active in this market

Homeland Security Research says that while Chinese manufacturers supply low and mid-end security products, the high end-premium security related technologies are provided by foreign manufacturers, contributing to $24.3 billion in sales in 2011. For example, China’s smart video surveillance market, the world’s largest and the cornerstone of the Safe City and perimeter security markets, is dominated by foreign-based corporations, which supply artificial intelligence-based video content analysis systems.

According to Dan Inbar, the report’s lead analyst: “Three decades of dramatic economic growth have bred social tensions, ethnic frictions and domestic terror which led the central government to invest “whatever it takes” to defend the economical-social-political fabric of China. This has resulted in the massive $40 billion market in 2011 and $45 billion in 2012, a trend which will reach $58 billion by 2015 and $105 billion by 2020. As I speak, China is transforming itself into the global leading source for business opportunities to suppliers of homeland security & public safety products.”

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Mother of 5 finds ex-boyfriend living in her attic

A Rock Hill woman says she found an old boyfriend living in the attic of her home after being released from jail recently.

A mother of five said her children are afraid to sleep in their own rooms after finding the man living in the attic of their home.

She asked Newschannel 36 not to identify her by name because her old boyfriend who was living in her attic is still on the loose, but said she heard a thump coming from the ceiling after she put her children to bed Saturday night.

“Then all the nails just popped out of the ceiling over my bed. Like ‘bing, bing, bing,’” said the woman.

Thinking it was an animal, she asked her older sons and adult nephew to check out what was happening upstairs.

“They found a man. He had packed all the old coats and jackets into the heating unit and was sleeping in the heating unit,” she said, adding that the man ran downstairs and out of the house before police could get there.

Officers did find several “Route 44″ Sonic cups filled with feces and urine in the attic. The man also appeared to have rigged the ceiling vents so he could see into the woman’s bedroom.

The only entrance to the attic is inside the home — in the hall that connects her children’s bedrooms.

Officers are trying to determine just how the suspect was able to get inside the house to go up in the attic each day.

The woman says she had broken off a relationship with the man years ago, though he had done some work on her home about a year ago.

He was convicted of stealing her truck earlier this year. He finished serving that sentence and was released from jail two weeks ago.

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The Chicago Crime Commission is strongly urging two practical responses to address the daily deadly gang violence that continues to plague the city of Chicago. The Chicago Crime Commission proposes that the city move immediately to increase the number of sworn police officers by 1,400 and work to prosecute armed gang members to the fullest extent of the law. These responses are designed to refocus the dialog on realistic solutions that will have a long-term effect on reducing violent gang-related crime in the city.

“Every day of every week Chicago is experiencing a heartbreaking tragedy. Gang bangers armed with guns are killing and wounding innocent men, women and children as well as other gang members,” according to Art Bilek, Executive Vice President of the Chicago Crime Commission.

“In 2011, 147 people were killed in Chicago in gang-related homicides. More alarming, those fatality levels will likely be eclipsed this year considering the fact that 120 people have been already been killed in gang related homicides in the first five months of 2012,” he added.

“While we commend the efforts of the Chicago Police Department, the new federal strike force and other law enforcement agencies, the plain truth is that local law enforcement is simply understaffed and overwhelmed,” Bilek continued. “Increasing manpower by 1,400 sworn officers will provide law enforcement leaders with the flexibility necessary to respond with increased police presence in gang hot spots while maintaining an adequate law enforcement presence throughout the rest of the city,” he commented.

Art Bilek and Loyola University Associate Professor Robert Lombardo worked together to reach these proposed manpower figures by comparing the number of sworn officers actually working in patrol operations with the number of established beats and nationally recognized norms for police patrol manpower.

Figures for sworn police personnel in the Chicago Police Department are usually reported as 12,500. However, there may be only 7,500 officers working in patrol positions, which are the workhorses and backbone of the department. “The unfortunate truth is that many beats in Chicago go unmanned every day due to manpower shortages. The recommended increase in police manpower will allow for fully staffed police beats 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The proposed staffing levels will also allow law enforcement management to have the flexibility to respond with 400 specially trained officers who will work two gang strike forces – one on the West Side and one on the South Side,” Bilek said.

“The conversation must stop about whether the death and injured rate is up or down for the month or the year. The truth remains that 20 to 30 dead and 100 wounded a month are intolerable figures. The time has come to take extraordinary measures to reduce these numbers. We’re talking about saving human lives,” Bilek continued. “We applaud Mayor Rahm Emmanuel and his pledge to control taxes by limiting spending. However, when it comes to law enforcement and community public safety needs, the city’s circumstances have changed and must be addressed,” Bilek stressed.

“Today many residents of the city live and work within gang operation areas. Gangs constitute an entire sector of Chicago’s population, yet even the law enforcement organizations that watch them daily cannot precisely gauge the extent of their presence. Gangs’ mode of operation exists fully apart from civil society, but the repercussions of their gun and drug related activities directly affect society’s and the community’s well-being,” Bilek added.

“In an attempt to aid in the gentrification of squalid neighborhoods, the city tore down many of its gang-ridden housing projects and forced families to seek residence elsewhere, usually in areas where they were unfamiliar,” said Bilek. “Now, due to the massive relocations caused by the closing of public housing, accountability between gang leader and gang member has weakened. Street gangs, both large and small, have splintered into factions who controls only a few blocks. If displaced gang members want new territory, they have to fight for it, which in turn has resulted in one of the nation’s highest homicide rates for any major city,” he continued.

The second part of the Chicago Crime Commission’s proposal focuses on a renewed effort to prosecute armed gang members to the fullest extent of the law and with the maximum penalties allowed. The Cook County State’s Attorney and the U.S. District Attorney must assist in training the police to develop appropriate evidence for successful gun violation offenses and direct major resources to properly prosecute these cases. “The Chicago Crime Commission proposes prosecuting offenders under federal laws when applicable,” Bilek said. “If consequences include hard time in federal prison without the possibility of parole and away from family and friends, gang members are going to think differently about carrying guns. Every gun carrying gang member that is removed from the city’s streets means one less opportunity for actions with tragic consequences,” he noted.

“By increasing law enforcement manpower levels and taking a tough stand on prosecutions, we will send a message to the gang bangers that law enforcement means business and will not tolerate this senseless violence any longer. Similarly, local residents and businesses will become safer and able to live and work securely in Chicago’s neighborhoods as a result of this powerful two-pronged approach,” Bilek concluded.

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The e-mail arrived two weeks ago.

“I am a Nanny/Babysitter,” it read, “looking for a live out position starting ASAP.”

It was from a woman named Flavia Wasescha. She was responding to an ad on Craigslist posted by Venus Clemons, who was looking for a baby sitter for her 18-month-old son, Jamie.

Ms. Clemons replied with an e-mail that practically sighed with relief. Yes, the position was still open. She was away, she wrote: Her mother had died two weeks earlier, in England, and she was there with Jamie for a little while longer before returning to New York and her engineer husband, Artis. They were originally from California.

She apologized in advance for a long list of questions that she wanted Ms. Wasescha to answer. “A child is not what you leave in the care of just anyone,” she wrote.

Do you smoke? Do you drink? Do you like pets? Do you know CPR? There were 24 questions in all.

Ms. Wasescha replied, expressing condolences on Ms. Clemons’s loss and introducing herself as a 26-year-old immigrant from Switzerland. She had lived and worked in the New York City suburb Hastings-on-Hudson since 2009, and had recently married her boyfriend.

She did not smoke, drank occasionally, was eager and willing to learn CPR and spoke two dialects of German as well as English, and with a few refresher lessons, “I think I could have a conversation in French as well,” she wrote.

The back and forth continued. Ms. Clemons thanked the nanny for her time in filling out the questionnaire and promised a quick decision, as her husband was leaving for China on business very soon and wanted this sorted out. She gave her cellphone number for texting and attached a family portrait, all wide smiles outside a stucco house in California, and two photos of the little boy. In one, he wore a cute costume in the backyard, with claws and horns and three googly eyeballs.

The nanny wrote, “You have a cute little monster :) .” She attached a picture of herself hugging a giant M&M.

The decision came the following day. “Congratulations to you,” Ms. Clemons wrote. “You have the position as you seem nice and very sincere.” The nanny could start as soon as Ms. Clemons and Jamie returned from England. “We all look forward to having you join our family,” she wrote. Her husband’s assistant would mail a check for the first week’s pay to Ms. Wasescha’s home.

The nanny replied, “I will not disappoint you!” She said she did not have a bank account but would open one soon.

Ms. Clemons sent her flight itinerary from KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. She and Jamie would be home the following Wednesday, Sept. 5. Ms. Wasescha suggested that they meet the next day, and Ms. Clemons agreed.

The scam was going perfectly.

Ms. Clemons wrote the day before the flight. Had the check arrived? There has been a mistake, she said. Her husband’s assistant, named Kuan, had sent the week’s pay of $900, as agreed, but had also mistakenly added Ms. Clemons’s airfare, for a total of $2,980.

Ms. Wasescha confirmed that yes, the check had arrived, in the unexpectedly large sum. “What can we do?” she asked. “How can I send you that money?”

Keep your $900 and send me the rest, Ms. Clemons suggested.

Wait, Ms. Wasescha said. I never deposited this check. Tell Kuan to send you the money himself. And by the way, don’t you have a credit card?

“Wow,” Ms. Clemons replied. “You sound really cold.”

Ms. Wasescha never heard another word from Venus Clemons. She was stunned, she said later. All those questions, the photos, all the e-mails. The dead mother, the cute boy — somebody else’s kid.

I went with Ms. Wasescha as she took the check to a bank in Manhattan and asked a manager if it was fake. The manager ran it through a machine and pointed a special light at the paper, and said yes, it was a fake, a photocopy of a real check.

Ms. Wasescha said she had reported the case to the F.B.I. The routine is known as the “nanny scam,” its perpetrators preying on young women who quickly deposit the too-big check at an A.T.M., where some money might be immediately available, before the fraud is detected days later. Some of these nannies, eager to help the new employer, wire money to the fake mother. Efforts to reach the person using the name Venus Clemons were unsuccessful.

Ms. Wasescha has since answered another ad for nanny work. She was relieved when the mother suggested she visit the family’s apartment for a face-to-face interview.

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Near-constant surveillance is the new normal. We’ve come to expect it. On the bus to work, I used to take note of the number of speed and surveillance cameras, private and public, along the two-mile route. My tally passed eleven, then twelve, then thirteen, then I lost count.

Most of us regard the trend as inevitable, save a few reactionaries like one Maryland resident who’s taken to destroying them (that won’t work because municipal governments can just respond as Prince George’s county is, by buying cameras to watch the cameras). Perhaps it is. But the voting public might be a bit more outraged if they were aware of the extent of government surveillance that goes on without their knowledge. Here are eight examples:

1) Cell Phone Tracking

The Supreme Court ruled in January that law enforcement couldn’t attach GPS tracking devices to cars without a warrant. But if perp in question has a GPS-equipped smart phone, that might not even be necessary. Last year, cell phone companies responded to 1.2 million information requests from law enforcement, according to the New York Times. Not all of them required warrants, and GPS data was frequently a subject of the requests. A federal appeals court reaffirmed last month that warrantless tracking was permissible under the Constitution.

2) Accidental Military Drone Surveillance

The Air Force occasionally operates domestically for training purposes, missions pertaining to disaster relief, and to do a handful of other things. As drones have become a permanent part of the military infrastructure, it’s reasonable to expect they will have a role in the future for some of those same types of domestic missions. Drones belonging to intelligence agencies and the military aren’t supposed to photograph citizens in this country, but should they do so by accident, they have three months to get rid of them. As Wired’s Spencer Ackerman put it, “if an Air Force drone accidentally spies on an American citizen, the Air Force will have three months to figure out if it was legally allowed to put that person under surveillance in the first place.” In the meantime, whatever the drone collects could be turned over to domestic law enforcement with a court order. Privacy rules for domestic drones will likely be different.

3) Reading Your Social Media

Use words like “riot,” “pipe bomb,” “plume,” “toxic” or “chemical burn” in a tweet or status update and there’s a decent chance it will get picked up by DHS contractors who are paid to monitor social media. Technically, this data is usually supposed to be stripped of information that can identify individuals, but there are exceptions. In January, the FBI put out a call for an “Open Source and social media alert, mapping, and analysis application solution,” which is to say, software that processes tweets and status updates.

4) X-Ray Vans

You know those TSA X-Ray machines? Imagine one of those, but twice as powerful and on a truck. While the main customer for Z-Backscatter Vans has been the military, domestic law enforcement agencies including the NYPD have been getting in on the action too.

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When HR or supervisors investigate claims of employee misconduct or harassment, it’s common for them to ask employees to “keep this information confidential.”

But an important ruling from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) says that such a blanket confidentiality rule barring workers from discussing ongoing investigations could violate federal labor law. The NLRB says such confidentiality requests can’t be made unless “legitimate and substantial justification exists” for the ban.

The case: The HR director for Banner Heath Systems typically asks workers involved in in-house investigations to not talk about the investigation with co-workers. She made that request of James, who was interviewed as part of an insubordination charge.

James filed a charge with the NLRB, saying this policy was an unfair labor practice that violates Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act. Section 7 gives employees—in both union and nonunion shops—the right to discuss the terms and conditions of their employment with other employees.

The NLRB sided with James, saying that for a company to justify such a confidentiality request, it must show the existence of a substantial business justification.

How to respond? Avoid blanket requests for employees to keep investigations confidential. And don’t discipline employees for failing to maintain confidentiality.

The Fisher & Phillips law firm says a better approaching woudl be “to limit such requests to situations where there is a legitimate and demonstrable safety concern, a concern about witness tampering, or a risk of lost evidence. Even in such instances, the request should ideally be limited to time (i.e. the duration of the investigation) and scope (i.e. during work time and on company property).”

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The New York Police Department has, for the first time, laid out rules for using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter during investigations.

New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly issued a memo that makes it OK for cops to register fake aliases to cruise social media, as long as they keep the department informed.

The five page memo says officers involved in probes involving social media may register their aliases with the department and use a department-issued laptop whose Internet-access card can’t be traced back to the NYPD, the New York Daily News reports.

Trolling the Internet can give police a tipoff to an imminent threat or give cops a leg up if they are conducting undercover work that requires deception, such as posing online as a teen to nab a rapist.

According to the paper, Christopher Dunn, an associate legal director for the New York Civil Liberties Union, pointed out that police work on the Internet is ripe for abuse.

“Electronic undercover work is fine. But we worry about the ease with the police can use deceit on the Internet to monitor private communications. Police infiltration of social media should be closely regulated,” the paper quoted him, as saying.

Jethro Eisenstein, a lawyer, whose lawsuit led to the Handschu Guidelines, a consent decree that governs how police investigate political activity, also stressed that using aliases violates those guidelines.

The NYPD memo comes as police have made headlines for how it uses and deals with the Internet.

The memo says officers can use subpoenas, court orders or search warrants to obtain certain electronic evidence, the paper said.

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