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

Bad US Army Intel.

[iamwhoiamtoday]

Go sit in the corner. If it's taken them THIS long to realize that the internet is nothing but a gigantic communications tool... geez....

Re:Bad US Army Intel.

[foobsr]

A hypothesis would be that they are trying to implement hooks to restrict 'free speech', the latter being a potential 'operation tool' for 'terrorists'.

CC.

Re:Bad US Army Intel.

[electrictroy]

I imagine they are discussing those so-called "domestic terrorists" who believe such wacky ideas like "Don't Tread on Me", or that the Constitution is the Supreme Law, or that Human Rights are inalienable, or that juries have the power to nullify prosecution brought against innocent persons. ( http://www.pa-aware.org/who-are-terrorists/domestic-6.asp [pa-aware.org] )

Re:Bad US Army Intel.

[qw0ntum]

I don't think anyone is stupid enough to have missed that the internet is a gigantic communication tool (for more than just porn). Obviously there are people in the military bureaucracy who have never heard of Twitter, and this report is going to be their introduction. What is its purpose? To inform decision makers that it is possible to create or use tools like Twitter to broadcast information point-to-multipoint, and how this capability can be abused by terrorist groups. I am sure that there are people in the Pentagon, due to their age or lack of experience with modern web apps, who have never considered this possibility and it's probably good they are made aware.

Does this mean that someone is going to misinterpret this report to mean Twitter is a terrorist organization? I'm sure (would it really be so bad if it got taken down? :P ), but those people are already beyond help. Does this mean that no one in the Pentagon had ever heard of Twitter? No. Does it mean that fighting Twitter is about to become a priority for the Army? Emphatically, no. What it means is that the Army intelligence service was trying to inform the chain of command about modern applications on the internet and their potential to be used as a weapon. And guess what? That's their job. So I, for one, am glad they are doing it. With full knowledge, I might add, of the past abuses of civil rights that the US intelligence community has committed.

When I worked as a software designer for Big Company, I remember they gave me a kind of cheesy pamphlet describing a day in the life of the target customer for our product, interspersed with market information. I bet to a marketer, everything in there was a "no shit Sherlock" fact, but to me as a developer it was new and valuable information. Same with this, to /.'ers this is a "no shit" idea, but to people whose lives are primarily spent off the internet it would be valuable.

Re:Bad US Army Intel.

[flyingsquid]

What are you doing?

Husayn is trying to figure out these stupid remote triggering devices. Anything to avoid spending Ramadan with his wife's sisters!

Ali is watching Coalition troop movements. Bo-ring!

Kamel wishes the carpet bombing would stop soon. The cave is cold. And the other martyrs smell bad.

Akbar is thinking about the 72 virgins awaiting him in Paradise. They better not be fat like his sister Fatima, or he is going to feel very mislead by his imam.

Commander Tariq says his Mujahedin should stop using the Zionist tool Twitter and get back to fighting the infidels, or he will beat them like the cowardly she-goats they are.

Re:Bad US Army Intel.

[harry666t]

Actually, the last one being the only effective one.

Terrorists are literally no longer terrorists if you are not afraid of them.

By that definition, US govt is more of a terrorist than an average terrorist. I'm actually more afraid of what could a government do to "try to stop the terrorists" than what terrorists themselves might do to me.

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.

Paper and pencil

[BSAtHome]

Sorry, but I get tired of these messages. Terrorists could potentially use paper and pencils to communicate too. Lets outlaw that too. The hammer and the screwdriver are terrible weapons. Let us outlaw anything that has a potential. And please start with my hands because they are the most lethal of all.

Common sense; it is so rare, it is a god damn superpower.

Re:Paper and pencil

[h4rm0ny]

Hey, my descendents could be terrorists. Does that mean my balls can be classed as terrorist weapons? Maybe Bush, Blair and Cheney should get down there and have a look at them just in case.

I mean what the fucking Hell is it with people who consider Twitter a potential terrorist tool? And they're complaining that it's being used for disseminating extremist ideologies? Oh no - Bad Thoughts! We must eliminate Bad Thoughts.

Lord help us all!

[im_thatoneguy]

- Buying explosives. Thanks tom!
- Shaping explosvies.
- Milling bomb casing.
- Filling bomb casing.
- Rigging fuse. Hehe I made the + terminal blue instead of RED! That'll get'em!
- Putting bomb in suitcase. This new Ralph Lauren suitcase design is DYNOMITE! :D
- Getting in car. We sould really put some Al-Qaeda funds into something better than an 92 GeoMetro. This thing sucks.
- Leaving on Airplane. Phone off! ByeBye for now! Don't want to crash plane.
- Landed! The big apple awaits!
- Picked up food at McDonalds on third street. Mmmmmm McFlurry goodness.
- Bomb planted on 5th and James. They should make larger trashcans. Those things are TINY!1!
- Bored. Waiting at Starbucks. Prices are insane!

Ah, the magic funding-word.

[EWAdams]

In chemistry, you can get funding for anything as long as you can relate it to cancer, no matter how tenuously.

"Terrorism" is the "cancer" of security folks -- magically gets them support and funding. Used to be Communism, but that is SO 20th century.

If we ever reach a state where we don't have anything to be afraid of, the security-freaks will have to invent something in order to keep their jobs. Oh, wait...

Re:Ah, the magic funding-word.

[Anonymous Coward]

Funding, of course, but also the "justification" for more power over the people:

"Twitter is already used by some members to post and/or support extremist ideologies and perspectives", the report said

Extremist ideoligies such as freedom of speech, freedom to move about unrestricted, freedom from arbitrary search and seizure, and of course the most extremist of all ideologies: limits on government power and government revenue. These will all have to be monitored to keep the radicals from compromising the power pyramid, without which society would collapse.

Re:Why not be honest

[the eric conspiracy]

It is that - just the Army doing their job. Evaluation of security implications means analysis of capabilities. Is twitter capable of being used for nefarious purposes? Of course.

If you bother to read TFA you'll see that the same analysis is being applied to several other ubiquitous technologies including GPS.

This sort of thing is very routine; nothing to see here, move along.

Never mind the Ruttles

[Anonymous Coward]

If this story is alleging that twitter is useful for something, then I call bullshit on the whole thing.

Re:Moderator terrorists

[h4rm0ny]

Never have I been so sincere in saying this, but: I wish I had mod points. :D

This is it!

[Daimanta]

We finally have an excuse to ban Twitter and send him and his sockpuppets to Gitmo!