US Army Sees Twitter As Possible Terrorist "Operation Tool"

Mike writes "A draft US Army intelligence report has identified the popular micro-blogging service Twitter as a potential terrorist tool. A chapter titled 'Potential for Terrorist Use of Twitter' notes that Twitter members reported the July Los Angeles earthquake faster than news outlets and activists at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis used it to provide information on police movements. 'Twitter is already used by some members to post and/or support extremist ideologies and perspectives,' the report said. The report goes on to say, 'Terrorists could theoretically use Twitter social networking in the US as an operation tool.' Just wait until the Army finds out about chat rooms and email!"

Comments

Re:Bad US Army Intel.

[Artifakt]

I held a military intelligence slot for a year or so, and one thing that was incredibly basic, is MI is about capabilities, not intentions. The whole reason Military Intelligence is not really an oxymoron is summed up in this rule. It's the job of Intelligence to be a staff, not command position, and to report capabilities to commanders. At highest levels, it's Intelligence's job to report capabilities to civilian oversight. Commanders or civil governments are the people who decide if somebody is likely to use a particular capability in a particular way. And all the biggest decisions are reserved to the civilian government.
      A good military intelligence report to congress might list all the countries with H-bombs, how many they have, what Megatonnages they go to, how reliable their trigger mechanisms are thought to be, and so on. It won't say anything about whether Great Britain is less likely to use them against the US than, say, Pakistan. It's up to the US Congress to decide whether there is a real risk from some countries or not. That way, the military carefully avoids telling the government when to go to war, and it stays the civilian government's decision.
      If some guy in MI does his or her job right, he or she notices that twitter works at faster speeds in some real world case or other than some of the other communications methods. He or she reports that up the chain because it's a capability. The command chain and civilians are the people who need to decide if there's anybody intending to misuse this technology, and what should be done about it. Congress might go "ZOMG, Osama haz Twitterz! W3R3 D00MED!" and screw everyone's rights. But the MI guy did his or her job correctly.