DEA Sued for Stealing Online Identity: The Places the DEA Will Go For An Arrest

The DEA has done some pretty questionable things throughout the years to catch suspects, and with the advent of the digital age, they are sinking to new and even more questionable lows. The latest stunt they pulled was to pose as a fake profile online in order to catch a drug dealer.

A girl named Sondra Arquiett was arrested in 2010 for intention to distribute cocaine in New York State. She plead guilty to helping her boyfriend distribute and sell, and her phone was confiscated. The DEA decided to use the information in her phone to illicitly track down more people who were involved in the operation.

Once they had access to her information, the DEA posed as Arquitte on facebook, messaging here boyfriend that she missed him in order to gain information about what he was up to, posted pictures as her to make the profile seem more believable, and messaged other friends about both personal information and drug activity. 

Once Arquiette learned of this, she was appalled, and is now suing the DEA for $250,000 for the emotional distress she claims they caused. The case is still pending, and it is hard to say which side will win. The DEA tends to pull rank in these kind of situations by claiming they were trying to protect the best interests of everyone in the nation, but in this case, it is evident that they violated facebook’s terms of use by using a fake account, they claimed the account was private and it was not, and Arquiette has stated they put her at risk by making dangerous criminals think she was cooperating with the police. 

It would be frightening if the courts decide to side with a breach of civil liberties of this magnitude, but stranger things have happened in the justice system. Let us hope that Arquitte gets her settlement and the DEA learns their lesson about meddling in other people’s lives.