Source: RT
Freedom of speech might allow journalists to get away with a lot in
America, but the Department of Homeland Security is on the ready to make
sure that the government is keeping dibs on who is saying what.
Under the National Operations Center (NOC)’s Media Monitoring
Initiative that came out of DHS headquarters in November, Washington has
the written permission to retain data on users of social media and
online networking platforms.
Specifically, the DHS announced the
NCO and its Office of Operations Coordination and Planning (OPS) can
collect personal information from news anchors, journalists, reporters
or anyone who may use “traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed.”
According
to the Department of Homeland Security’s own definition of personal
identifiable information, or PII, such data could consist of any
intellect “that permits the identity of an individual to be directly
or indirectly inferred, including any information which is linked or
linkable to that individual.” Previously established guidelines
within the administration say that data could only be collected under
authorization set forth by written code, but the new provisions in the
NOC’s write-up means that any reporter, whether someone along the lines
of Walter Cronkite or a budding blogger, can be victimized by the
agency.
Also included in the roster of those subjected to the
spying are government officials, domestic or not, who make public
statements, private sector employees that do the same and “persons known to have been involved in major crimes of Homeland Security interest,” which to itself opens up the possibilities even wider.
The
department says that they will only scour publically-made info
available while retaining data, but it doesn’t help but raise suspicion
as to why the government is going out of their way to spend time, money
and resources on watching over those that helped bring news to the
masses.
The development out of the DHS comes at the same time
that U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady denied pleas from supporters of
WikiLeaks who had tried to prevent account information pertaining to
their Twitter accounts from being provided to federal prosecutors. Jacob
Applebaum and others advocates of Julian Assange’s whistleblower site
were fighting to keep the government from subpoenaing information on
their personal accounts that were collected from Twitter.
Last
month the Boston Police Department and the Suffolk Massachusetts
District Attorney subpoenaed Twitter over details pertaining to recent
tweets involving the Occupy Boston protests.
The website Fast
Company reports that the intel collected by the Department of Homeland
Security under the NOC Monitoring Initiative has been happening since as
early as 2010 and the data is being shared with both private sector
businesses and international third parties.
