How the Feds use internet social networks to spy on us.

As technology advances, the government always uses it to keep even tighter controls on its people. With the advent of social networking sights, it seems the people are only making their jobs that much easier. Who needs to spy on people when they will report their every activity to the world on their own right?

Social Networks, Personal Profiles

EFF, a donor-funded non-profit founded to defend consumers’ digital freedoms (free speech, privacy, innovation) and educate the press and the public, notes that the FOIA documents reveal two ways government tracks people online. One is to use social networks to investigate citizenship status and another is to analyze social network communications as was done during Obama’s inauguration.

DHS established a Social Networking Monitoring Center to mine social networking sites for “items of interest," and outlined its effort in a series of slides (pdf). One of the slides emphasized that Personal Identifiable Information (PII) wouldn’t be collected or stored, and notes that “openly divulged information excluding PII will be used for future corroboration purposes and trend analysis during the Inauguration period.” It is uncertain whether PII was later deleted.

Other groups have expressed concern that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is using deceit in instructing its agents to “friend” citizenship petitioners in an effort to uncover fraudulent activities. While any government agency should use all legal means to detect illegal conduct, BlackListed News notes, “First, the [memo] makes no mention of what level of suspicion, if any, an agent must find before conducting such surveillance, leaving every applicant as a potential target. Nor does the memo address whether or not DHS agents must reveal their government affiliation or even their real name during the friend request, leaving open the possibility that agents could actively deceive online users to infiltrate their social networks and monitor the activities of not only that user, but also the user’s friends, family, and other associates.”

Documents obtained by the EFF via FOIA requests have previously shed light on how law enforcement agencies and the Internal Revenue Service are taking advantage of publicly posted data on social media sites to ferret out criminals and tax evaders.”

The New American


Stories like this make me so glad that I never fell into that social networking trap.

While I dont use social networking sites, I still think its a gross invasion of privacy.

The problem I fear is that verious organisations around the world either indivudally or collaborativey will use information provided on not just social networking sites, but also on a range of other sites inlcudes sites like ATS, to develop a social, cultural and polictical idology profile of internet users, much the same way as insurance companies use health data to create insurance risk profiles.

Such profiles or data would then made avialble to big brother organsiatons such as goverments, political parties, employers, insures, mitilarity organisations etc to determine whether not an individual is a sutiable suitable employee, security risk etc.

For example; I have critised a former leader of my country on ATS and made comments on ATS topics that some may regard as anti busienss. These comments, if collected and traced back to me, could be made available to my current or future employers who may decide they are not going to have anyone on their payroll who has an anti busienss disposition.

This could cause people to either self-censure or make statments or allegations they dont beleive in themselves simply so as to 'send the right signals' to the rigtht people. Is'nt this what we were told people in Russia had to during the communist era?

Imagine your employer being able to discover through a subscription service that you participated in a demonstration or criticised on an internet forum, a piece of goverment legisation that provides more corproate welfare to a big company such as a bank or oil company?

Sometimes I think that while western goverments were very critical of the communist Russian goverment; they were also very good students of it.

cheers

reply to post by bussoboy


The ADL already has plans to create anti-masking laws to force Internet users to stop posting what they consider to be hate speech anonymously.

www.abovetopsecret.com...


It won't be long before people everywhere are scared to speek their minds.

National Security is a BIG deal people. People are paid to do anything and everything for national security. Even if that means breaking the law, people will ensure national security at all costs. Evil or good, legal or not.

With that in mind, just remember one thing. Feel free to use social sites as much as you want. Just remember that anything you say, type record, broadcast, personal messages or whatnot "WILL be used against you in a court of law, or a court above the law.

This is to some degree the same I would imagine with local and state agencies. But not to the utmost degree as federal.

Be careful and above all, have fun!

reply to post by bussoboy


Well i,ve finally found my 1st website that im sure the feds are probably watching, i imagine i'll find many more as time goes by. This is my 1st post (or reply) im not good on computers or typing. i hope the guys that run this thing don't cut me off the first time? by the way i don,t do paragrapghs very well (by choice) no um, don,t like em! however im not stupid. Anyway, regarding the FEDS, how could there be a doubt that "big brother" is not alive and very very well in the start-up phase of the 'NEW WORLD ORDER' (para?)lol


I hope i've wasted no one's time but i've given my above statement some thought (about 2hr?) and i kinda figer I need to concinder my words very carefully. I've been on this site for hours,then became a member, then became overwhelmed !!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's fine with me. If you don't have anything to hide, then why should you be scared? Everyone should live a completely transparent lifestyle so government can dig around any time they want, unless you're super rich or super powerful. If you're one of them, you should have extra rights because you contribute more to society than the regular people.

reply to post by American_Soviets


"So you are the kid of American_Soviets?..."
"yes Sir I am..."
"well we looked in his history and he has not been a model citizen according to the corporations laws of today, he formed an opinion we cannot agree with in history present or future, because of that we deny you access to our eduction, you can't buy stuff from our stores and well about your health, we will not fix it before you pay us... Ohw wait... you cannot earn that money legally since you are not allowed to work for our company...

But Sir I'm only 5!

We don't care kid, blame your parents""