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DHS Monitors Social Media For 'Political Dissent'
OverTheGeicoE writes "Recently, TSA's 'Blogger Bob' Burns posted a rant against a cupcake on the TSA blog. Perhaps it made you wonder if TSA and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, really understand what we're saying about them, especially online. Well, thanks to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, we now know a lot more about how they monitor online comments aside from 'Blogger Bob.' EPIC has received hundreds of pages of documents regarding DHS's online surveillance program. These documents reveal that DHS has contracts with General Dynamics for '24/7 media and social network monitoring.' Perhaps it will warm your heart to know that DHS is particularly interested in tracking media stories that 'reflect adversely' on the U.S. government generally and DHS specifically. The documents include a report summary that might be representative of General Dynamics' work. The example includes summaries of comments on blogs and social networking sites, including quotes. Then again, you might remember J. Edgar Hoover's monitoring of antiwar activists during the Vietnam War, which certainly wasn't for the protesters' benefit."
this is why free speech can sometimes necessitate anonymous speech. Tt seems that the people in charge of the government are fearing revolution by the people more each and every day to me.
By posting an equivalency between the Nazi Germany Gestapo and the US Department of Homeland Security, I am declaring myself as belligerent. As such, according to recent legislation, this US citizen may be subject to military detainment without counsel or trial. Please inform my .......
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
You're so right!
-The Choir
For the exception the occasional "law and order" conservative, very few of us here will disagree with you. Here's the thing, I know many people who think the government is really out to protect us. They really think that this monitoring of us is necessary and that if you do nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about - really, I'm paraphrasing a programmer I used to work with and she's actually quite talented, too.
This security theater appeals to many people's emotional need to feel safe and there's no reasoning with them. I would be surprised if intelligence has anything to do with it because I've this fear pervade all levels of society. And as a democracy, excuse me, a republic, we are doomed to live under the tyranny of the scared huddled masses who feed off of the fear that is fed them by an irresponsible, profit hungry, corrupt media.
History is loaded with examples of people using people's fear to override their reason and their intellect. It has worked since the beginning of history and it saddens me that it will be true until the day we are extinct.
I'm getting tired of copy-pasting this for people, but fine:
SEC. 1021. AFFIRMATION OF AUTHORITY OF THE ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES TO DETAIN COVERED PERSONS PURSUANT TO THE AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF MILITARY FORCE.
(e) AUTHORITIES.—Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.
Source.
Either the law doesn't allow anyone from the US to be detained, or else it already did allow it and this law didn't change it. Considering that the Supreme Court already ruled that detainees in Gitmo have habeas corpus rights, there's no way a law taking those rights from citizens could stand.
I know it's popular around here to pretend the US government is some dystopic comic book empire, but open your eyes. It's simply not true.
The government has been doing this for decades, i.e. the comments about Hoover. The old joke that there were more CIA agents in the Communist Party at one point than communists.
The tools change is all. The only worrying thing is how flippant and overt the government is becoming about this. It is like they don't even want to bother pretending to do this covertly any more.
by Anonymous Coward: I, for one, welcome the shift from car analogies to pizza analogies. um.. overlords?
This is the triumph of feelings over reality. Build a huge security apparatus that does nothing for the reality of more security, as long as it makes people FEEL safer. Punish people who dare to say things that are true, but might make someone FEEL bad.
When you put feelings over reality, you live as much in a fog as any religion-obsessed friar in the Dark Ages did.
I long to see anyone running for office stand up and say "To hell and gone with your FEELINGS." Or perhaps, "No, I don't FEEL your pain!"
Fuck feelings. The wolves gnawing on your vitals don't give a damn how you feel, only how you taste.
What to do with dissidents? A body in the ground is useless unless they talked to the press. A body in a cell for 10-15 years is of value to private US prison investors, as prison labor, as a warning to others. ...
The East Germans did kill dissidents in the West, but at home they like to mess with peoples minds long term- tell a joke 10 years, protest 10++ years, cover for an escape ect.
You also lost your job, risked your wider family and friends been pulled down with you.
If you did "hang yourself" during protective custody - a sealed coffin and no questions.
If a family member got to the West and made problems, they did like to use family/friends who where left behind.
Set up a meeting in the West (visa out), tell us when and where and your free...
Your child will not disappear into state care
As for the US, the no fly list is a start, freezing bank accounts, targeted raids over state or federal laws, diesel therapy (shackled and been being transported from prison to prison over weeks, months), does your lawyer have a security clearance, psychiatric care...
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
A larger percentage of the Police States of Amerika's population is jail than ever where in STASI and KGB heydays.
In all fairness to the KGB and STASI, the reason that they didn't jail as many people as the the US does now is because they didn't have the same level of African-Americans, Aboriginals or Latinos to disproportionately imprison.
I make a reasonable middle-class wage by going to work and not spamming blogs with scams.
Why is Snark Required?