[kitchencabinetforum] YOU ARE MONITORED!

The Mexican newspaper El Milenio reported on a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Operations Coordination and Planning (OPC) initiative to monitor social media sites, blogs, and forums throughout the world. The document, obtained by El Milenio through a U.S. Freedom of Information Act request, discloses how OPC's National Operations Center (NOC) plans to initiate systematic monitoring of publicly available online data including information posted by individual account users on social media. http://venitism.blogspot.com

Katitza Rodriguez of EFF points out the NOC monitors, collects and fuses information from a variety of sources to provide a real-time snap shot of Uncle Sam's threat environment at any moment. The NOC also coordinates information sharing to help deter, detect, and prevent terrorist acts and to manage domestic incidents.

The NOC has initiated systemic monitoring of publicly available, user-generated data to follow real-time developments in U.S. crisis activities such as natural disasters as well as to help corroborate data received through official sources with on-the-ground input. http://venitism.blogspot.com

Governments of many repressed countries, such as the Cradle of Kleptocracy, use marilizardist tools to manipulate netizens. Marilizard Libel is accusing dissident bloggers of treason, Marilizard Spaghetti is hurling charges against innocent people, Marilizard Tower is a stack of imaginary charges to scare a blogger, and marilizardism is terrorizing dissident bloggers. October 18 is the international day against marilizardism, and October-18 Mafia is the marilizardist government of Greece. http://venitism.blogspot.com

Rodriguez notes the monitoring program appears to have its basis in a similar program used by NOC in its Haitian disaster relief efforts, where information from social media sources provided a vital source of real-time input that assisted NOC's response, recovery and rebuilding efforts surrounding the 2009 earthquake.

The new initiative attempts to leverage similar information sources in assessing and responding to a broader range of crisis activities, including terrorism, cybersecurity, nuclear and other disasters, health epidemics, domestic security, and border threats.

While the addition of real-time social media sources can be extremely beneficial in disaster relief-type efforts, the breadth of activities covered by the initiative as well as the keywords and websites scheduled for systemic monitoring raise potential concerns, and the safeguards put in place by the initiative may not be sufficient to address these.

Marilizardism has metastasized in many repressed countries. The most disgusting marilizardist countries on Earth are Argentina, Bahrain, Belarus, Burma, Central African Republic, China, Colombia, Cuba, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Greece, Guatemala, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Libya, Malaysia, Mongolia, Morocco, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Yemen, and Zimbabwe. http://venitism.blogspot.com

The NOC report, entitled Privacy Impact Assessment of Public Available Social Media Monitoring and Situational Awareness Initiative, reveals that NOC's team of data miners are gathering, storing, analyzing, and sharing de-identified online information. The sources of information are members of the public first responders, press, volunteers, and others who provide online publicly available information.

To collect the information, the NOC monitors search terms such as United Nations, law enforcement, anthrax, Mexico, Calderon, Colombia, marijuana, drug war, illegal immigrants, Yemen, pirates, tsunami, earthquake, airport, body scanner, hacker, DDOS, cybersecurity, and social media. The report also contains a list of sites targeted for monitoring, including numerous blogs and news sites, as well as Wikileaks, Technorati, Global Voices Online, Facebook and Twitter.

Marilizardists use charge stacking, which is the ability to charge a large number of overlapping crimes for a single course of conduct, building a Marilizard Tower of charges. This is the most disgusting tool used by the freakish October-18 mafia to jail innocent dissident bloggers. Combining crimes enables prosecutors to get convictions in cases where there may be no misconduct at all. By stacking enough charges, freakish marilizardists try to jack up the threat value of a trial and thereby induce a guilty plea, even if the government's case is weak. http://venitism.blogspot.com

Rodriguez points out that while the monitoring envisioned by the report is broad in scope, the initiative includes a number of safeguards that attempt to address privacy concerns. But these safeguards do not go far enough. Furthermore, while the NOC is attempting to limit the circumstances under which agents are permitted to collect or disclose personal data, these limitations only apply to DHS agents operating under this specific initiative. DHS may use social media for other purposes including law enforcement, intelligence, and other operations. Other U.S. government agencies and initiatives have different rules and regulations that are subject to change.

With respect to the safeguards, NOC agents on social networks are prohibited from posting information, actively seeking to connect, accepting invitations to connect, or interacting with others including responding to messages sent by other users. It is not clear, however, that this prohibition is sustainable in light of the NOC's objective. For example, NOC agents are authorized to establish user names and passwords to form profiles and follow relevant government, media, and subject matter experts on social media sites. Social networking sites are premised on the concept of interacting with others. Distinctions such as following a user on Twitter and connecting with such a user are not clear-cut.

Genuine attempts are being made to limit monitoring to publicly available information while excluding private sources. For example, agents may be prohibited from collecting information found on Facebook profiles which are restricted to friends only. However, problems may arise with respect to more ambiguous semi-public spaces that are emerging in many online venues. If NOC agents are authorized to follow a user on Twitter, are they allowed to friend a Facebook or Google+ user whose profile contains purely public relevant government, media, and subject matter? What about information posted by other people following that user under the extended friends of friends setting? The NOC initiative may find it difficult to navigate such distinctions.

Global Tax Revolt points out the marilizardist persecution of dissident bloggers is unquestionably a serious attack on freedom of speech, and contrary to Article 2 of Lisbon Treaty, Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights, and Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The disgusting October-18 Mafia cannot bully the blogosphere without repercussions and blowbacks. The international civil society got a shock and awe from the brutality of the freakish October-18 Mafia on October 18, 2010. http://venitism.blogspot.com