I've been hearing news reports this morning on Norwegian national
broadcasting about Facebook in another context.  The perpetrator of
the bombing of the government office building and shooting massacre of
dozens of young people on Utøya July 22 was very active on Facebook
right up until that day.  His FB account was shut down just hours
afterwards and Norwegian authorities have been trying ever since to
get access to his profile, etc. there.  Since the man himself has not
been willing to sign a waiver of confidentiality, giving FB permission
to release the info to the Norwegian police or to anyone else, it's in
the court system, waiting for a California court to deal with the
case.

I think it's a good thing that FB maintain confidentiality of its
members, as the potential for abuse is frightening if they were to
roll over to police any time they were asked.  But given the resources
they devote to harassing people who post images of breastfeeding on
their profiles, it seems odd if they don't have similar reactions to
people planning massacres of unarmed teenagers at summer camp, or
bombings of governmental buildings in relatively peaceful countries
with democratically elected leaders, a functioning legal system and
one of the most equitable distributions of resources in the world
(whatever your political views, these are facts that are difficult to
dispute). I only hope the reason he was allowed to continue using FB
as a contact forum is because he was not openly communicating the
nature of his plans.

If I had been aware of this before I wrote my own letter to Facebook,
I would have mentioned it, for sure :-(

Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway

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