QLD Police: a TV is not a Facebook pic!

David Heath
Wednesday, 18 May 2011 21:51

Opinion and Analysis

Today's assertion by a Queensland Police representative that receiving a (potentially) ill-gotten image derived from Facebook is akin to receiving a stolen TV completely beggars belief.  Queensland Police, you're wanted on the phone, it's the 21st Century calling.

Australian press has covered the Ben Grubb 'incident' in great detail today, so a recap probably isn't necessary.  For any reader not familiar, checked the linked articles, the original piece and Grubb's own account then come back quickly.

OK, here we go.

First we have the "he was arrested," "no he wasn't" "yes he was" debacle played out by the Queensland Police Media Unit's twitter account.  For the record, Grubb WAS arrested but it would seem only for the purposes of formalising the interaction with him.  At the time.

Then we have this morning's media conference, hosted by Detective Superintendent Brian Hay who offered an interesting analogy to describe why Grubb became a person of interest.

"Someone breaks into your house and they steal a TV and they give that TV to you and you know that TV is stolen"

"The reality is the online environment is now an extension of our real community and if we go into that environment we have responsibilities to behave in a certain way."

Hay added, "I think the cyber environment represents the greatest challenge to law enforcement in the history of policing."

This is astonishing.