IMHO, posting picks of a grow on FB and claiming it was in your basement rises to the level of reasonable suspician needed to obtain a warrant.
For comparison, I tell a someone that I killed a local missing person and buried them in my back yard. That someone reports my statement to LEO. You think they wouldn’t have a cadaver dog and shovels in my back yard in short order?
Not too long ago there was a story about a photo of a young boy posing with a gun on FB resulting in a visit from CPS with police as backup.
re: wife making accusations to the police. Different situation. She’s making a false statement directly to the police with the intent to cause trouble for STBX. Once facts are sorted, it’s her butt on the hot seat.
Personally I’d be more concerned about local thugs attempting robbery before I’d worry about the law takign an interest.
It’s trivially easy to create a facebook account and claim to be someone. I’m having a tough time believing that I could do that for someone I dislike and lead police to a search of their house based on that. It may be true, but I’d like to see an account of it happening as described.
Yes and no. If someone wrote the* ‘there is pot being being grown here’* and then wrote an address on the page…that would not be enough. If they wrote 'Here is my basement Pot greenhouse.… I believe that the first step would be to contact FB and get the name of the person who actually owns the account. Due diligence and all.
How do you get someone’s real name from a Facebook account? I can set up any fake email address and say that’s me.
Presumably someone with a grudge recognizes you from your other posts/photos on FB and dimes you out to the police.
“Hey! I saw on Telemark’s FB where he was bragging about the grow room in his basement! He lives at …”
To sign up for an online account of any kind, you have to give some information. Your login info, including your IP address is captured every time you sign in. I believe the Straight Dope Staff can tell if more than 1 person signs in from the same IP address. Most servers keep logs of the IP addresses that hit it. LE may not be able to tell your actual name for a certainty from this info, but they can find where the computer you logged in with is located. They can tell if you used a laptop with a broadband card or used Starbucks wifi. They can find your ISP and find who the service is billed to.
Granted, there are some very clever computer criminals who make this difficult. But they are not the kind of folks who brag about having a pot crop growing in their basement.
Or am I watching too much Law and Order SVU?
Yes, that’s pretty much fantasy for anything short of a murder investigation.