The FBI Got Its Hands on Data That Twitter Wouldn't Give the CIA (theverge.com)

The FBI is using a tool called Dataminr to track criminals and terrorist groups on Twitter, according to documents spotted by The Verge. In a contract document, the agency says Dataminr's Advanced Alerting Tool allows it "to search the complete Twitter firehose, in near real-time, using customizable filters." However, the practice seems to violate Twitter's developer agreement, which prohibits the use of its data feed for surveillance or spying purposes. From the report:"Twitter is used extensively by terrorist organizations and other criminals to communicate, recruit, and raise funds for illegal activity," the FBI wrote in a contracting document. "With increased use of Twitter by subjects of FBI investigations, it is critical to obtain a service which will allow the FBI to identify relevant information from Twitter in a timely fashion." [...] Earlier this year, Twitter revoked API access to a tool called Geofeedia, citing the same clause in the Developer agreement, after a reports showed the tool had been used by police to target protestors in Baltimore. Facebook was also a Geofeedia customer, and used it to catch an intruder in Mark Zuckerberg's office. This isn't the first time Dataminr has run up against Twitter's anti-surveillance clause. In May, Twitter revoked CIA access to Dataminr, a move that was taken as part of a larger ban on US intelligence agencies using the product.

Comments

FBI != CIA

[khallow]

It's worth noting that the two organizations have different legal restraints. So it is possible for the FBI to have access legally via a court warrant which the CIA, not being a law enforcement agency couldn't get. This also indicates that illegal cooperation between agencies is a serious risk.

Re:FBI != CIA

[Anonymous Coward]

Information sharing between agencies was made completely legal by the Homeland Security Act. As long as the initial agency obtains the information legally, it can be shared with ANY other government agency, law enforcement or not, with no legal restrictions whatsoever.

Re:FBI != CIA

[geekmux]

It's worth noting that the two organizations have different legal restraints. So it is possible for the FBI to have access legally via a court warrant which the CIA, not being a law enforcement agency couldn't get. This also indicates that illegal cooperation between agencies is a serious risk.

Nothing is illegal anymore when it comes to combating "terrorism", and this is just another example of offering up a proxy in order for the CIA to obtain the information they asked for.

Re:FBI != CIA

[myowntrueself]

Information sharing between agencies was made completely legal by the Homeland Security Act. As long as the initial agency obtains the information legally, it can be shared with ANY other government agency, law enforcement or not, with no legal restrictions whatsoever.

Then theres Five Eyes. So basically anything the CIA or FBI have access to, the NZSIS, ASIS, CSIS, MI5, MI6 and GCHQ all have access to. And anyone else who has hacked them, like the Russians and Chinese or IBM.

Re:FBI != CIA

[rtb61]

Five eyes is all about the US having five eyes. There is a whole bunch of stuff the US keeps secret from the others whilst demanding full access. Let's be honest if there is one government in the world which should most definitely not be trusted, it is the US government and this not because of by far the majority of honest people working in those organisations but because of corporate contractor access and control and the political corporate appointees who make it possible.

Only the foolish plot criminal schemes on twitter and Facebook, safer for everyone when they are caught before they can chaotically achieve nothing but harm along the way to failing. Data mining is extremely vulnerable to database poisoning and 'er' competing organisation can quite readily inject in false data to have them chasing their own tales arresting completely innocent people.

GIGO rules and one the computers are far more readily capable of, is producing false data and turning data miners into acts of futility. You can quite readily produce more false data than anything else you can do with a computer, orders of magnitude greater (think DDOS in data terms, simply flooding those data bases out).

The only way out, get rid of the contractors as fast as possible and go back to agents in the field. In fact using mobile technology those agents in the field, getting a feel of what is going on, should be able to interact with the office, as if they were in the office, even though they are out in the field directly interacting with what is going on. A good agents senses being far more reliable than a readily corrupted computer program and data set and team of good agents is way more useful, than a bank of computers. The computers lack the creativity the agents have especially when a team of agents work together but then where are the profits for the corporations in that, hence the entire contractor debacle, just another thing fucked over by corporate greed and corruption.

Let me get this straight

[PvtVoid]

The data is too sensitive and the potential for privacy violation is too high for the FBI or CIA to be given access, but it's perfectly fine for hedge funds, advertisers, newspapers, and, well, any other asshole with a checkbook?

Really?

The FBI Got Its Hands on Data That Twitter Wouldn'

[rickyslashdot]

Talk about a tempest in a teapot - - - Twitter is so totally open, with it's datastream virtually wide open, that this issue is basically just a 'news bleep' that just isn't news.
Give me a break - so the CIA (or whomever) can access the 'firehose' at Twitter - well, so can just about anybody else.
Besides, Twitter not only gives access to this data, they also data-mine the stream for advertising and sales purposes.

ANYBODY using Twitter (or any other 'social media') that expects any kind of effective data security is so totally out of touch with reality that there is just no realistic communication with them. With the openness of the social media craze, I have very little sympathy for any of that crowd that gets hammered with loss of password / name / credit card data / etc from breaches in the social media's systems - since the social media orgs are basically setting themselves up as targets for any script kiddie that wants to 'give it a whirl' using any of the vast number of hacking / cracking tools available off the web. When you get to the level of state sponsored intruders, the social media orgs are just plain old 'low hanging fruit'.