"The Los Angeles police department (LAPD) has directed its officers to collect the social media information of every civilian they interview, including individuals who are not arrested or accused of a crime... LAPD officers are instructed to record a civilian’s Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media accounts, alongside basic biographical information..." https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...ngeles-police-officers-gathering-social-media
Can't this ceiling be raised? Like a lot? I can see those facing major charges like murder, domestic terrorism, etc being subjected to social media data scraping and it's prob. routine everywhere. But for a traffic stop or just a stop? No, that's a potential floodgate of lawsuits and trouble. What a ridiculous and time-consuming, money-wasting directive, imo--an outgrowth of paranoia and general loss of control. For every potential "hit" there may be thousands of misses. California's already burning up.
We had field interrogation cards when I was a cop. I guess they're called interview cards now. They were used in high crime areas, late at night (early morning) when we saw suspicious activity such as someone in an area no pedestrian should be at that hour. We took the info from their driver's license and added the reason for the contact, the time and location of the incident. If there was a break-in or vandalism there, that was a person of interest. It's not law enforcement's business what social media a person uses. That's over the top, and I'd think the ACLU would be all over that.
