Capitol Police examine backgrounds, social media of some who meet with lawmakers

Everybody else looks at your social media profiles when it comes to decisions such as hiring, dating, etc. It's public information and the police have the same information the rest of us.

I was running a blog for the Tompkins County Green Party in the run up of the 2nd gulf war. I was covering protests frequently and wasn't offended at all when the local sheriff's department signed up for our mailing list.

It is a social problem, however, that people are leaving such a public trail. You see people doing really shameful things on TikTok, people boasting about alcohol-fueled antics on Facebook, etc.

One time I encountered a person who'd left about 10 hours of audio and video recording online, none of it shameful, documenting their childhood, education, relationships, and career. It created an awkward situation. I didn't know that much about this person but I knew too much. That person would 'disclose' things about themself that I already knew. Probably I should have come clean that I'd done this research but instead I fed back less than 5% of the information that I knew indirectly, knowing I'd really have trouble if I fed back any more.

As it was this caused that person a great deal of distress. Certainly I have some blame for how I used this information but, on the other hand, when people post huge amounts of information about themselves other people are going to look at it and it's going to have consequences.