What do you think?
(Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's command center routinely monitors dozens of popular websites, including Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, WikiLeaks and news and gossip sites including the Huffington Post and Drudge Report, according to a government document.
A "privacy compliance review" issued by DHS last November says that since at least June 2010, its national operations center has been operating a "Social Networking/Media Capability" which involves regular monitoring of "publicly available online forums, blogs, public websites and message boards."
The purpose of the monitoring, says the government document, is to "collect information used in providing situational awareness and establishing a common operating picture."
The document adds, using more plain language, that such monitoring is designed to help DHS and its numerous agencies, which include the U.S. Secret Service and Federal Emergency Management Agency, to manage government responses to such events as the 2010 earthquake and aftermath in Haiti and security and border control related to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia.
A DHS official familiar with the monitoring program said that it was intended purely to enable command center officials to keep in touch with various Internet-era media so that they were aware of major, developing events to which the Department or its agencies might have to respond.
The document outlining the monitoring program says that all the websites which the command center will be monitoring were "publicly available and... all use of data published via social media sites was solely to provide more accurate situational awareness, a more complete common operating pictures, and more timely information for decision makers..."
The DHS official said that under the program's rules, the department would not keep permanent copies of the internet traffic it monitors. However, the document outlining the program does say that the operations center "will retain information for no more than five years."
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They could, they possibly do. They shouldn't.
What do you think?
Leaders of a congressional subcommittee are urging the Department of Homeland Security to extensively monitor social media sites like Twitter and Facebook to detect "current or emerging threats."
The top Republican and Democrat on a House counter-terrorism subcommittee last month sent a letter to Homeland Security's intelligence chief encouraging department analysts to pore over huge streams of social media traffic.
Representatives Patrick Meehan and Jackie Speier said in the letter to Caryn Wagner, undersecretary of homeland security for intelligence and analysis, that they "believe it would be advantageous for DHS and the broader Intelligence Community to carefully parse the massive streams of data from various social media outlets to identify current or emerging threats to our homeland security."
Meehan, a Republican, is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee's counter-terrorism and intelligence subcommittee. Speier is the panel's ranking Democrat.
The two lawmakers said such monitoring raises "privacy and civil liberties concerns" and suggested that the department issue guidelines which balance citizens' rights with the ability of analysts to identify threats.
Earlier this week, Homeland Security's National Operations Center published a long list of websites which they monitor for "situational awareness."
In an email to Reuters, Meehan said a hearing he had convened in December had "examined the evolving terrorist use of social media and effective intelligence and law enforcement responses."
Meehan added: "If terrorists are operating in Pakistan or communicating through social media sites like Facebook, we need to remain vigilant. Yet there are important civil liberties questions involving U.S. government monitoring of social media and Americans' Internet traffic. We are seeking answers on the Department's guidelines and procedures to ensure Americans' civil liberties are safeguarded."
Not without a warrant they shouldn't.
It's a website anyone can sign up for. Now to find out our personal contact info - that should take a warrant. Reading a public website? doubt it needs one.
Anyone can read it, no doubt about that. What would be the value in monitoring a site like this tho? I really don't think there is anything to be gained.
The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.
A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop what is described as an "online persona management service" that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world.
The project has been likened by web experts to China's attempts to control and restrict free speech on the internet. Critics are likely to complain that it will allow the US military to create a false consensus in online conversations, crowd out unwelcome opinions and smother commentaries or reports that do not correspond with its own objectives.
The discovery that the US military is developing false online personalities – known to users of social media as "sock puppets" – could also encourage other governments, private companies and non-government organisations to do the same.
The Centcom contract stipulates that each fake online persona must have a convincing background, history and supporting details, and that up to 50 US-based controllers should be able to operate false identities from their workstations "without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries".
Centcom spokesman Commander Bill Speaks said: "The technology supports classified blogging activities on foreign-language websites to enable Centcom to counter violent extremist and enemy propaganda outside the US."
He said none of the interventions would be in English, as it would be unlawful to "address US audiences" with such technology, and any English-language use of social media by Centcom was always clearly attributed. The languages in which the interventions are conducted include Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Pashto.
Centcom said it was not targeting any US-based web sites, in English or any other language, and specifically said it was not targeting Facebook or Twitter.
Once developed, the software could allow US service personnel, working around the clock in one location, to respond to emerging online conversations with any number of co-ordinated messages, blogposts, chatroom posts and other interventions. Details of the contract suggest this location would be MacDill air force base near Tampa, Florida, home of US Special Operations Command.
Centcom's contract requires for each controller the provision of one "virtual private server" located in the United States and others appearing to be outside the US to give the impression the fake personas are real people located in different parts of the world.
It also calls for "traffic mixing", blending the persona controllers' internet usage with the usage of people outside Centcom in a manner that must offer "excellent cover and powerful deniability".
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Just report possible threats/threatening posts and let the moderators take it from there. Zero tolerance.
I'd agree. I doubt the moderators would allow a lot of anti-government rhetoric and threats to flourish on here. So unless they're really bored, doubt they'd come here. Still, who knows what goes on in the basement? (I never go there)
What do you think?
What do you think?
No doubt they already do. Also your emails, and every other electronic communication you engage in. Have been for quite some time; expanded greatly in the last decade as well.
What makes you think they don't?
And you can bet the political forces are watching, measuring trends etc., learning the talking points
Don't you think its a waste to monitor a site like this for threats?
A waste? Perhaps, perhaps not. Unconstitutional? Almost certainly.
I'd agree. I doubt the moderators would allow a lot of anti-government rhetoric and threats to flourish on here. So unless they're really bored, doubt they'd come here. Still, who knows what goes on in the basement? (I never go there)
i wouldn't be surprised if they trolled all sorts of forums looking for wackos.
Don't you think its a waste to monitor a site like this for threats?
Don't you think its a waste to monitor a site like this for threats?
What kind of question is that?
If I am suggesting they already are then it is pretty clear I don't think they think it is a waste of time.
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