It was a great honor to speak at the 1st annual SMILE conference a little over a week ago in Washington DC. I was fortunate to meet a bunch of folks who I have met on Twitter, but had never met in person. I would also like to thank Lauri Stevens from ConnectedCops.net for organizing and running an excellent social media law enforcement conference. If you were unable to make it to the event here is a brief run down of Thursday 04/08/10 presentations.
The morning started off with Jack Holt from the DOD discussing how this organization is reacting to the changes in communication that is occurring via the internet. Social media networking sites, blogging, real time information and how the leaders at the DOD are dealing with this new media. The next set of presentations was a tag team effort by Chief Alexander of Boca Raton PD and his PIO Mark Economou. They discussed together “building a brand” as a law enforcement agency and how the Boca PD is adapting to the new media change. It was definitely enlightening to hear how their department has adapted to the new media changes. One specific example is how they only distribute press releases via Twitter or Facebook. They have conditioned the “media” to adapt as well and there has to be some satisfaction on being able to better control your communications plan. The morning came to an end with my presentation on podcasting. This was a 101 level presentation to explain what “podcasting” is and how easy it is to actually do. Podcasting is a digital media file (audio or vide) that can be subscribed to, but ultimately is downloaded from the web. A podcast is extremely easy to share because it ends up as a URL, which can be Tweeted, sent out as a status update, or emailed, etc. Mike Bostic, former LAPD Deputy Chief with Raytheon and Matthew Le Veque of the Rogers Group discussed social media and systems integration, which frankly is mind blowing. Sgt Tim Burrows from the Toronoto PD had a great chat about maximizing social media results with the minimal tools at hand, ain’t that the truth. The most interesting, yet scary presentation was from Peter Berghammer who discussed “hacking” attacks and how to deal with them. The day wrapped up with our European friends Mike Alderson, Marga van Rijssel, and Gordon Scobbie all discussing various efforts they are making in social media across the pond.
The evening “town hall” style conversation MC’d by Mark Economou (excellent job) was a fantastic conversation regarding social media in law enforcement and social media and national security issues. Thought such as, “what happens if power goes down, cell tower connectivity goes down, or you are hacked beyond immediate repair, huh? These questions are tough to answer and as Jack Holt eloquently stated “we have a of a lot of duplicate technologies, but not a lot of resilient technologies.” Social media and new media are changing the way people become informed so much so that in the near future you will probably see law enforcement officers wearing camera’s as part of their normal duty gear to protect against altered video from a citizen. Scary, but reality. MV
Fox 23 news station out of Tulsa, Oklahoma had a recent story that peaked my interest. Gang members in Tulsa are using “social media” outlets like MySpace and Twitter to further their criminal enterprise. This activity is called “cyber banging”, how appropriate. Some law enforcement agencies have been involved in social network sites like MySpace or chat rooms mostly to find sexual predators. However, now you are seeing uneducated gang members (for the most part) adapting their criminal activities to use FREE social media network tools to aid their business efforts. Truly amazing and definitely a challenge to traditional law enforcement efforts. Were the Tulsa police in those social networks prior to “cyber bangers”, probably not. Law enforcement has to adapt to “social media” enforcement now that there are significant criminal activities occurring in these social networks.
Has law enforcement done anything to monitor, obtain intelligence, and or evidence from “cyber banging”? My post on on Social Media Police Officer may not be so far fetched after all. The criminals are not waiting for law enforcement to get into social media. In fact the criminals appear to be ahead of law enforcement in social media. The fact that real gang members are into social media is not surprising. Why? As Assistant Chief LePere mentioned to me in our interview, “social media is a cultural communication change”. People are changing how they communicate and why should criminals be any different. That fact that for years some law enforcement agencies have been going undercover online into chat rooms to find sexual predators is evident that law enforcement is aware of this. But, why the slow response to adapt and to assimilate social media into their overall law enforcement efforts?
Budgets, buy in from executive staff, time, new technology are but a few quick reasons why law enforcement is being dragged into social media. The police in the Tulsa area that are going into the “social networks” where they have identified this activity are having to crack codes to determine what the “cyber bangers” are communicating to each other. These criminals are organized and sophisticated enough to identify the usefulness of using “social networking” Whether it is to communicate a drug transaction or to communicating a retaliation attack on an opposing gang. Think of the ramifications of a well built “social media” criminal network. Faster communication through farther geographical distances, gangs with similar interests may be able to join through networks, better organization of larger gangs, etc. This criminal activity is not exclusive to “cyber bangers”, heavens no what about Al Qaeda. National security is a perfect area for exploitation and use of “social media” tools.
Law enforcement both local and national is going to have to come to grips with the idea that “social media” is being used by criminal elements. There is a need to get into these conversations as undercover officers/agents so law enforcement can attempt to mitigate the criminal activity that is blossoming from “social networking” by criminals. Law enforcement is reactive most of the time, because criminals continue to be creative. The fact that many law enforcement agencies are not jumping into the “social media” pool without first looking to see if the pool is empty is understandable. However, they better look quick and make a decision before they have to play catch up. I look forward to having a robust debate and to continue to be a proponent of law enforcement adopting “social media”.
A little over a week ago the U.S. Marine Corp banned all social media, or as they call it “social networking sites” from the Marine Corp enterprise network. Marine Order Banning Social Networks Let me clarify what the Marine order constituting the ban gives as a “social network site” example: Twitter, MySpace and FaceBookNow. These are truly the powerhouse’s of social media and obviously the most commonly used amongst the general Marine population. This story to someone not involved in social media may be viewed as just another news story, but really this is much more. The ban by the U.S. Marine Corp of all “social networks” for one year is monumental challenge against our culture. I am not trying to get all “Kumbya” here, but let the Marine ban sink into your “Cerebellum” for a moment. If the Marine ban goes well, perhaps this action could be picked up by mainstream U.S. businesses and perhaps not. If U.S. businesses pickup the ban it will be interesting to watch how our culture changes. You would see a huge work around by individuals to continue their social media fix. On the other hand, perhaps this does not go well for the Marine administration and they suffer a morale setback, not sure if that is possible (Marines are damn tough). I sympathize with the Marines’ who will now be unable to communicate with family and friends through their work computers. How about those Marines that cannot afford a personal computer and are away from loved ones. How are they supposed to stay up to date with those loved ones? Is this going to be good for Marine morale, not likely. Working in the National Security Industry I am sensitive to the possibility of someone trying to obtain information from Marines’ through “social network sites.” But, is it possible that “classified” information is less likely to be lost this way than through traditional personal issues such as financial problems, drug problems, alcohol problems, etc. Personally, I don’t think even the U.S. Marine Corp can stop their Marines from being involved “in the conversation”. The social media revolution is here! The Marine administration can take the Marine enterprise network out of the social media, but the conversation will take place without the Marine’s being involved. Michael Vallez
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