DHS Monitors Social Media For 'Political Dissent'

[ElNono]

"Recently, TSA's 'Blogger Bob' Burns posted a rant against a cupcake (http://blog.tsa.gov/2012/01/cupcakegate.html) on the TSA blog. Perhaps it made you wonder if TSA and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, really understand what we're saying about them, especially online. Well, thanks to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, we now know a lot more about how they monitor online comments aside from 'Blogger Bob.' EPIC has received hundreds of pages of documents regarding DHS's online surveillance program. These documents reveal that DHS has contracts with General Dynamics for '24/7 media and social network monitoring.' (http://epic.org/2012/01/epic---foia-documents-reveal-h.html) Perhaps it will warm your heart to know that DHS is particularly interested in tracking media stories (http://epic.org/foia/epic-v-dhs-media-monitoring/) that 'reflect adversely' on the U.S. government generally and DHS specifically. The documents include a report summary that might be representative of General Dynamics' work. The example includes summaries of comments on blogs and social networking sites, including quotes. Then again, you might remember J. Edgar Hoover's monitoring of antiwar activists during the Vietnam War, which certainly wasn't for the protesters' benefit."

[boutons_deux]

America is so fucked, and unfuckable. DHS/TSA is unstoppable, as is the FBI/NSA/CIA.

[Capt Bringdown]

Excellent book-salon discussion of the topic at hand, with Tom Englehardt: The United States of Fear (http://fdlbooksalon.com/2012/01/14/fdl-book-salon-welcomes-tom-engelhardt/).


In The United States of Fear, Engelhardt takes on subjects of critical importance to Americans that somehow remain ill-covered, or sometimes uncovered, by the mainstream media. Among them, why our wonder weapons — most recently, pilotless drones — never actually win wars; why, in a dangerous world, the national security state is concerned with only one thing: terrorism (even though, since 9/11, terrorism has ranked above shark attacks and little else in terms of actual danger to Americans); or why the ongoing damage we inflict on civilians in other countries — including, for example, blowing away at least six wedding parties in Iraq and Afghanistan over the years — seldom gets paid much attention in the United States.

- more - (http://fdlbooksalon.com/2012/01/14/fdl-book-salon-welcomes-tom-engelhardt/)

[Wild Cobra]

I'll bet they have their hands full in this political forum.