Police view Facebook, bust college parties

STACEY TURNBULL ASST COPY EDITOR STT722@CABRINI EDU

The next time loyal Facebook.com addicts send out campus-wide party invitations, unexpected visitors just might show up. Local police and campus security officers are now acquiring .edu e-mail addresses to find out where the party is. The police can now “stumble upon” on-campus and off-campus parties since now, they too, have a Facebook of their own and bust parties for underage drinking.

Facebook is the ninth most visited site on the Internet according to the Nielsen/Net Ratings and there are over 5 million users across the nation. Party invites are sent out to everyone on a campus to have a good turn out and this gives the police the opportunity to see where they can

“They have bigger things to worry about that they neglect and they shouldn’t be nit-picking and worrying about Facebook users,” sophomore psychology major Kristen Mongan said. Legwork is practically non-existent for these officers because they don’t have to go searching for the parties; they are already “invited.” They are able to see all of the campus parties posted in the “My Events” section on Facebook. They are also able to see all of the college’s student profiles, which now include photo albums.

Kyle Stoneman, a senior at George Washington University in Washington, promoted a party he was having on Facebook.com last year, which was broken up a short time after it got under way by the police due to underage drinking according to the nytimes.com. Stoneman and his friends fought back: they used Facebook to chat up a beer bash.

When the police arrived at this party, they were not greeted by a bunch of intoxicated college kids, rather, they were greeted by an arrangement of cake and cookies with the word “beer” written on the with icing.

The police and public safety officers of campuses nationwide are using these photo albums as a way to persecute underage college students who are consuming alcohol and posting the pictures of their night on their Facebook. “It would be one thing to be caught drinking because you are being loud or because you brought the party outside. It is a completely different issue when you are being persecuted after the fact,” says Mongan.

“Facebook should be for students only since it is made by students,” Victoria Burke, a freshman secondary education major, said. “Students wouldn’t knowingly put themselves out there to be prosecuted by the law.” Burke said that the pictures that are posted on student’s Facebook pages are in the past and they should not get in trouble for the things that they have done. “If public safety could not stop the party while it was happening, they should not be allowed to use our pictures against us after the fact.”

Many can argue that it is a public page open for viewing pleasure for those that attend the same college. Marcel Bassett, a senior English and communication major, said, “You make it a public domain yourself. So you’re basically setting yourself up for the kill.” Others say that it is an invasion of their privacy.

Those who feel that their privacy is being invaded say that it is bad enough having their Internet use being monitored by the government; it shouldn’t have to be monitored by the campus security. “I think that we are old enough to not have someone baby-sit us anymore,” Burke said.

There is now a probability that students will stop using Facebook because of the repercussions it could cause. Some students are now afraid to post anything on their profiles in case it is viewed and they could end up in trouble.

Mongan says, “I know that underage drinking is a problem on most campuses, but I don’t think monitoring our Facebook profiles and reading our party invitations is going to solve anything or stop them from using the site. Underage drinking is still going to happen and people will just learn to be more careful about what they put up because they know that their privacy could be violated at any time.”