Whether or not the officer in question really did use excessive force, the main point here is that the things you write about online can come back to haunt you in the most unexpected ways.

Officer Ettienne said he is now being careful to mask his identity on the Web and that he has curbed his tongue because of the acquittal. “I feel it’s partially my fault, he said. It paints a picture of a person who could be overly aggressive. You put that together, it’s reasonable doubt in anybody’s mind.”

Even your “private” Facebook or Myspace account isn’t so private under the force of a subpoena.

Well this is different. I knew that posting online can have severe negative effects on the poster, but I hadn’t considered the effect on the parents.

“Whether we’re talking about dad’s work secrets or problems between mom and dad with their relationship,” Sgt. MacDonald said.

We asked him to show us just how easy it is to find incriminating posts. It didn’t take long.

“Not only do I have to live with my nagging mom, my dad does drugs. This person, Tara, says her parents are lazy alcoholics,” reads Sgt. MacDonald.

He says it’s not hard for police, or employers, to uncover the identity of teens from the details in their profiles.

While drugs and underage drinking are likely problems that should be dealt with, some other things should remain private:

even innocent-sounding news can do damage. “They may be talking about how their father is losing a job, and perhaps a neighbor who’s the mortgage broker for the father isn’t aware that the father’s job is in jeopardy,”