This topic bugs me and I'm going to get on my high horse about it!

And my horse is bloody high - if I might add!

Everything that goes through a police station, goes through a chain of command... It's standard police protocol.

Things continuously change hand until they reach their required destination.

Now from what I understand (and correct me if I'm wrong as I'm no expert) for a standard issue cop to be trawling a web site like this, it's completely out of their realm of jurisdiction.

What I mean is, to have a site like this observed it would need to be done via request through the CHAIN OF COMMAND to reach the DEPARTMENT in whatever police headquarters or investigation unit to then be handed to a particular POLICE IT EXPERT to have them carry out the initial written request... That can take months!

Then - once information is gathered (which is usually months, if not years of mounted documentation) the info is sent BACK UP the chain of command the same way it was sent down.

A standard issue police officer, detective or whomever can not sit on their work computer and observe a forum or X amount of forums because it is NOT in their job description... There is a process - a protocol for gathering such information.

It would seem to me that if information was gathered in such a way, it would likely not even be legal.

It certainly wouldn't be condoned by the upper echelon of the police hierarchy.

It would be in my opinion that anything gathered this way for use in a DoCS case would be solely used on the fact that a POLICE OFFICER obtained.

I don't think it would hold up in court... Especially if a savvy legal rep asked said police officer how he/she obtained the information.

A good legal rep would hammer the police officer at trial about carrying out a task that was not one of their duties.

And make the DoCS witness look like an idiot.

I believe it's all bluff.

Honestly, if they wanted to put a stop to certain people posting here, they would take their issue to the owner of the web site - not to the people posting.