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<div class="node-header"> <span class="submitted">[If this were a
developing country...?]<br>
<br>
Published on Thursday, January 26, 2012 by <a
href="http://www.commondreams.org">Common Dreams</a> </span>
<div class="node-title">
<h2 class="title">FBI Wants New App to Wiretap the Internet</h2>
</div>
<h3 class="subtitle">'Scraping' social network postings including
Facebook and Twitter</h3>
<div class="author"> - Common Dreams staff<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/01/26-3">https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/01/26-3</a><br>
</div>
</div>
<p>The FBI's Strategic Information and Operations Center (SOIC)
posted a 'Request for Information (RFI)' online last week seeking
companies to build a social network monitoring system for the FBI.
The 12-page <a
href="https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=c65777356334dab8685984fa74bfd636&tab=core&_cview=1"
rel="nofollow">document</a> (.pdf) spells out what the bureau
wants from such a system and invites potential contractors to
reply by February 10, 2012.</p>
<p><span class="image-right" style="width: 275px;"> <span
class="caption"></span></span>It says the application should
provide information about possible domestic and global threats
superimposed onto maps "using mash-up technology".</p>
<p>It says the application should collect "open source" information
and have the ability to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Provide an automated search and scrape capability of social
networks including Facebook and Twitter.</li>
<li>Allow users to create new keyword searches.</li>
<li>Display different levels of threats as alerts on maps,
possibly using color coding to distinguish priority. Google Maps
3D and Yahoo Maps are listed among the "preferred" mapping
options.</li>
<li>Plot a wide range of domestic and global terror data.</li>
<li>Immediately translate foreign language tweets into English.</li>
</ul>
<p>It notes that agents need to "locate bad actors...and analyze
their movements, vulnerabilities, limitations, and possible
adverse actions". It also states that the bureau will use social
media to create "pattern-of-life matrices" -- presumably logs of
targets' daily routines -- that will aid law enforcement in
planning operations.</p>
<p align="center">* * *</p>
<p><em>New Scientist</em> magazine <a
href="http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2012/01/fbi-releases-plans-to-monitor.html"
rel="nofollow"><strong>reports</strong></a> today:</p>
<p class="rteindent1"><span class="pullquote">"These tools that mine
open source data and presumably store it for a very long time,
do away with that kind of privacy. I worry about the effect of
that on free speech in the US" -- Jennifer Lynch of the
Electronic Frontier Foundation</span>The US Federal Bureau of
Investigation has quietly released details of plans to
continuously monitor the global output of Facebook, Twitter and
other social networks, offering a rare glimpse into an activity
that the FBI and other government agencies are reluctant to
discuss publicly. The plans show that the bureau believes it can
use information pulled from social media sites to better respond
to crises, and maybe even to foresee them. [...]</p>
<p class="rteindent1">The use of the term "publicly available"
suggests that Facebook and Twitter may be able to exempt
themselves from the monitoring by making their posts private. But
the desire of the US government to watch everyone may still have
an unwelcome impact, warns <a
href="https://www.eff.org/about/staff/jennifer-lynch"
rel="nofollow">Jennifer Lynch</a> at the <a
href="https://www.eff.org/" rel="nofollow"><strong>Electronic
Frontier Foundation</strong></a>, a San Francisco-based
advocacy group.</p>
<p class="rteindent1">Lynch says that many people post to social
media in the expectation that only their friends and followers are
reading, which gives them "the sense of freedom to say what they
want without worrying too much about recourse," says Lynch. "But
these tools that mine open source data and presumably store it for
a very long time, do away with that kind of privacy. I worry about
the effect of that on free speech in the US".</p>
<p align="center">* * *</p>
<p>The BBC <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16738209"
rel="nofollow"><strong>reports</strong></a>:</p>
<p class="rteindent1"><span class="pullquote">"Social networks are
about connecting people with other people - if one person is the
target of police monitoring, there will be a dragnet effect in
which dozens, even hundreds, of innocent users also come under
surveillance" -- Gus Hosein, Privacy International</span>The FBI
issued the request three weeks after the US Department of Homeland
Security released a separate report into the privacy implications
of monitoring social media websites.</p>
<p class="rteindent1">It justified the principle of using
information that users have provided and not opted to make
private.</p>
<p class="rteindent1">"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," it says.[...]</p>
<p class="rteindent1">The London-based campaign group, <a
href="https://www.privacyinternational.org/" rel="nofollow"><strong>Privacy
International</strong></a>, said it was worried about the
consequences of such activities.</p>
<p class="rteindent1">"Social networks are about connecting people
with other people - if one person is the target of police
monitoring, there will be a dragnet effect in which dozens, even
hundreds, of innocent users also come under surveillance," said
Gus Hosein, the group's executive director.</p>
<p class="rteindent1">"It is not necessarily the case that the more
information law enforcement officers have, the safer we will be.</p>
<p class="rteindent1">"Police may well find themselves overwhelmed
by a flood of personal information, information that is precious
to those it concerns but useless for the purposes of crime
prevention."</p>
<p align="center">* * *</p>
<p>The <em>Fierce Government</em> website <a
href="http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/story/social-media-primary-source-intel-says-fbi/2012-01-25"
rel="nofollow"><strong>reports</strong></a> on 'refining raw
social media into intelligence gold':</p>
<p class="rteindent1">The notion that the future can be predicted by
trends expressed in collective social media output is one that has
gained increased currency in academic writing. A January <a
href="http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/technical_reports/2012/RAND_TR1161.pdf"
rel="nofollow">analysis</a> (.pdf) published by the Rand Corp.
of tweets using the <a
href="https://twitter.com/#%21/search/%23IranElection"
rel="nofollow">#IranElection</a> hashtag during 2009 and early
2010 found a correlation between appearance of swear words and
protests. The study also found a shift that indicated the protest
movement was losing momentum when swearing shifted from curses at
the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to curses at an
opposition figure.</p>
<p class="rteindent1">A March 2011 paper published in the <em>Journal
of Computational Science</em> (<a
href="http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-79953102821&origin=inward&txGid=CaBklKH9fO5aqSmcUozjjdv%3a2"
rel="nofollow">abstract</a>) also posited that movements of the
Dow Jones Industrial Average could be predicted to an accuracy of
86.7 percent by changes of national mood reflected in Tweets. <a
href="http://www.economist.com/node/18750604" rel="nofollow">According</a>
to <em>The Economist</em>, British hedge fund Derwent Capital
Markets has licensed the algorithm to guide the investments of a
$41 million fund.</p>
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