Facebook doesn’t want the government creating fake accounts

Remember how the Justice Department decided it was just fine for a Drug Enforcement Administration agent to steal a woman’s identity and set up a fake Facebook account to chase subjects? Well, Facebook’s not OK with that. In a letter sent to the Drug Enforcement Administration on Friday, Zuckerberg & Co. have made their position very clear: if agents want to use the service for whatever reason, they have to use their proper name. “We regard the DEA’s conduct to be a knowing and serious breach of Facebook’s terms and policies,” explains security office Joe Sullivan in the letter.

Facebook wants assurances from the Drug Enforcement Administration that it’s not operating any more fake profile pages as part of ongoing investigations. Facebook’s chief security officer, Joe Sullivan, said in a letter Friday to DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart that law enforcement agencies need to follow the same rules about being truthful on Facebook as civilian users. Those rules include a ban on lying about who you are. Sullivan’s letter was in response to a New York woman’s federal lawsuit claiming that a DEA agent created a fake online persona using her name and photographs stored on her cellphone. In court filings, Sondra Arquiett said her pictures were retrieved from her cellphone after she was arrested in July 2010 on drug charges and her cellphone seized. Arquiett said the fake page was being used by DEA agent Timothy Sinnigen to interact with “dangerous individuals he was investigating.” Arquiett is asking for $250,000 in damages.