The country’s premiere law enforcement organization is looking to develop an early warning system for domestic and global threats drawing on information from social networks. The Federal Bureau of Investigation released details of the planned system in a request for information from private contractors who are qualified to help build it.
Your typical FBI Special Agents (Click Image To Enlarge)
The FBI's Strategic Information and Operations Center said the RFI was intended to determine the capability of industry to provide an “Open Source and social media alert, mapping, and analysis application solution.” As indicated here, the system would be able to scrape material from social networks about emerging threats and then superimpose the information graphically on maps, giving FBI analysts a spatial sense of the threat landscape.
Among other capabilities, the proposed system should:
- Be able to provide an automated search and scrape capability of both social networks and open source news sites;
- Allow users to create, define, and select new keyword search parameters;
- Display different threats on maps, color coded to distinguish the threat level, preferably including Google Maps, Google 3D maps, Yahoo Maps, and ESRI;
- View and plot historic and current foreign and domestic terror data “mashed with geo coordinates”;
- Instantly translate foreign language tweets into English;
- Display video feeds from traffic cameras.
The RFI emphasizes that
"Flexibility is critical because the users must have the ability to select and display to a common operating picture or dashboard both unclassified open source feeds, and social media vetting and analytical tools in support of a breaking event or crisis."
The platform must also be able to "view terrorist activities by location, terrorist group, and type of attack," and “change search parameters and geo-locate the search based on breaking events or emerging threats."
As far as privacy concerns go, the RFI notes that
"Information posted to social media websites is publicly accessible and voluntarily generated. Thus the opportunity not to provide information exists prior to the informational post by the user."
Of course, U.S. government agencies like the CIA and NSA are probably also engaged in surveillance of ostensibly private social media content in at least some cases where a serious terrorist threat is felt to exist.
The FBI certainly isn’t alone and is monitoring social media for security threats. The Department of Homeland Security has admitted in a public statement that it creates profiles to monitor “publicly available online forums, blogs, public websites, and message boards,” including social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, in what is known as the “Publicly Available Social Media Monitoring and Situational Awareness Initiative.” The aim is to “to provide situational awareness” for the federal, state, and local governments; the DHS “may also share this de- identified information with international partners and the private sector where necessary and appropriate for coordination.” Crucially, the DHS statement also reveals that participating agencies may reveal personally identifying information about Internet users in emergency, life-and-death situations.
The DHS is also using social networks to ferret out fake “green card” marriages between U.S. citizens and immigrants for the purpose of obtaining residency or citizenship for the latter.
COMMENTARY: The Patriot Act is really the force driving the FBI's strategy to developan “Open Source and social media alert, mapping, and analysis application solution.”
The original Patriot Act was signed into law during the Bush administration October 26, 2001 following the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. The title of the act is a ten letter acronym (USA PATRIOT) that stands for Uniting (and) Strengthening America (by) Providing Appropriate Tools Required (to) Intercept (and) Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001.
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On May 26, 2011, President Barack Obama signed a four-year extension of three key provisions in the USA PATRIOT Act: roving wiretaps, searches of business records (the "library records provision"), and conducting surveillance of "lone wolves" — individuals suspected of terrorist-related activities not linked to terrorist groups.
Opponents of the Patriot Act have criticized its authorization of indefinite detentions of immigrants; searches through which law enforcement officers search a home or business without the owner’s or the occupant’s permission or knowledge; the expanded use of National Security Letters, which allows the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to search telephone, e-mail, and financial records without a court order, and the expanded access of law enforcement agencies to business records, including library and financial records. Since its passage, several legal challenges have been brought against the act, and Federal courts have ruled that a number of provisions are unconstitutional
It does not surprise me that the FBI now wants to directly tap into social network profiles and databases in order to gather information in their criminal investigation and counter-terrorist activities.
What concerns me the most is whether this is a first step towards government censorship. We know that the Patriot Act has pretty much destroyed the Bill of Rights as we know it. We really don't have any rights, because the Patriot Act gives the government the authority to spy on us at will, arrest us, hold us indefinitely without the rights of Habeaus Corpus.
Of course I see a need for criminal surveillance, including wire taps, but this must all be done under court order, but the FBI doesn't need such authority to carry out the mission of the Patriot Act.
If China, Iran, Syria, North Korea and other countries can censor what its citizens say and do online, this new move by the FBI gets us one step closer to censorship and an even deeper violation of our privacy.
I know some of you believe in a strong America, believe there is a terrorist hiding in every closet, a scheme our government concocted to pass the Patriot Act. The theory goes like this: If we can be made to fear terrorism, are reminded of it constantly, we will be less reluctant to give up our individual, Constitutionally-guaranteed rights. I am really sick and tired of my government constantly using the fear card. And, low and behold, that's exactly what we did under Bush, and now under Obama.
This is the sort of thing I have been warning everybody about for years now, so be careful what you post on Facebook, Twitter or Google+ for that matter. Government spying and censorship is sure to follow. Shit, the FBI will probably read what I say on my blog, and label me a "person of interest."
In an earlier blog entry dated January 26, 2012, I told you about how Washington insider Erskin Bowles was added to Facebook's board of directors recently.
Big Brother Is Watching......YOU!!
Courtesy of an article dated January 26, 2012 appearing in MediaPost Publications The Social Graf
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