When C.L. Lindsay prepares to speak at a college, he looks for local photos online.

In less than two minutes he has dozens of photos of underage students drinking or smoking marijuana.

"I totally get that you want to take pictures," said Lindsay, who is an attorney and college student advocate. "But you do not want to put 10,000 copies up on campus."

When a person posts photos online, it is the equivalent of hanging thousands of copies, he said. Lindsay spoke at Bismarck State College at noon, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Thursday. He spoke about privacy on the Internet and other legal issues.

Besides finding photos of debauchery, Lindsay finds identifying information, like where the person lives. He recommends people set their personal Web page security to private, so only friends can see. Then he recommends people be cautious of what they post.

Across the country, students have been kicked off sports teams, kicked out of school or suspended for items posted on their social networking Web site, Lindsay said.

Employers also are starting to screen social networking sites to weed out candidates. Lindsay cited a survey of employers that showed 40 percent of employers eliminated candidates based on online information.

People should think about what they post in terms of whether it is illegal if they did it "offline" and if they would want future employers to see it, he said.

If a person does get in trouble for something they've posted online, there are varying degrees of guilt that must be proved. At a college disciplinary hearing, a person must "most likely" be guilty of what they're being charged with compared to being found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal trials, he said. Some online photos could get students into legal trouble, such as one photo he showed of a girl holding two bags of marijuana, with a caption describing that was what she had, he said.

He also advised students to choose Web site profile photos that do not appeal to online sexual predators and to check friend's pages for photos that might have them in it. If there are photos on a friend's page, he said students should ask the friend to take the photos down.

Other legal issues include term paper Web sites. Students are plagiarizing when using these sites. They also end up getting scammed by having the company charge them more than once, he said.

"'Non-plagiarized' means they cited their sources," Lindsay said about the tactic the sites use in calling the papers "non-plagiarized."

He recommends students cancel their credit cards if one of these sites has charged their card for more than one paper. This tends to happen a month after they first use the service, he said.

He also discussed copyright law as it pertains to the Internet.

"I thought it was really good," social work student Jasmin Mellert said about the presentation. "It made you think. I'm going to change my MySpace page to private."

She also plans to tell her friends to do the same, she said.

In 1998, Lindsay founded the Coalition for Student & Academic Rights, a national organization that helps students win their legal problems free of charge. The BSC Board of Governors and Office of Student Development sponsored the program.

(Reach reporter Sara Kincaid at 250-8251 or sara.kincaid@;bismarcktribune.com.)