Big Brother monitored tweets, too (PA Homeland Security)

[RamboLiberal]

Source: PennLive.com

Tracking the Twitter activity of law-abiding citizens was part of the Pennsylvania Office of Homeland Security’s intelligence surveillance program.

According to internal Homeland Security e-mails produced through a Right-To-Know request, one of the targets of such surveillance was the Berks Peace Community, a 50-year-old group of Quaker-affiliated senior citizens. They gather on the Penn Street Bridge in Reading every Friday and quietly hold signs questioning America’s “war habit.”

The e-mails also indicate that monitoring the tweets of law-abiding citizens was “part of the intelligence effort that is conducted daily... on behalf of the PA Office of Homeland Security.”

Those were the words of Mark Perelman, co-founder of the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response, the contractor hired by Homeland Security to provide intelligence for the state.




Read more: http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2010/11/big_brother_monitored_tweets_t.html

[speppin]

1. I am sure our Dem. President will say it is fine!!

[Kolesar]

6. flame bait...eom

[RedSock]

10. only if "flame bait" now = "truth" ... eom

[speppin]

22. LOL

[xchrom]

2. What do we pay in labor, equipment used, etc for this kind of horseshit? Nt

[MikeMc]

9. And they swamp intel's computers, with useless info, that human resources can not wade through.

This activity makes their bosses (we, the people), less safe.

[Demeter]

3. How Much will this Cost in VA Benefits for Those Driven Insane?

I'd rather shovel shit than have to read or listen to it for hours on end....

[MineralMan]

4. I don't understand Twitter, so I have to ask:

Is twitter activity a public thing? Can anyone follow anyone they wish? If it is public, then I don't see how this is much of a problem, frankly. It's like DU. Posts here are public, and can be read by anyone who cares to read them. I assume that there is some government agency watching DU, looking for specific keywords.

When you speak in public, anyone may be listening, from your friends to your enemies. The government has access to all public data. Why would anyone be surprised if they used that access.

If you have communications you want to be kept private, then private channels are where you should be communicating. Now, if some Twitter activity isn't public, I have a different opinion.

[DoctorK]

7. do you consider email private?

Obama's administration doesn't, and has argued they shouldn't need a warrant to read your email.

www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/15/doj

[MineralMan]

11. Yes, I do consider it private, but that has nothing to do with

this Twitter business. Of course, they'd be cosmically bored with my email, but I still don't think they should have access to it. Publicly published postings, however, are just that. Anyone can see them, so I have no problem whatever with anyone seeing them. Personally, I don't use Twitter, and can find no earthly reason to use it.

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. As far as I know, all Twitter posts are completely public

And I agree, if you're telling the world, any government has the right to listen (they shouldn't have the right to demand to know who is the real person behind a Twitter name, of course, unless it's necessary to prevent an imminent crime).

I have only used Twitter for a way to check with others if DU is available for them, or to inform them that it is back up. For that, a brief public message like Twitter seems ideal. I'm not convinced it's the brilliant future of communication; it's one tool of limited use.

[DoctorK]

19. it is the same mentality

Privacy needs justification, the state's surveillance does not.

It's a mindset at complete odds with the 4th amendment.

To bad the government doesn't at least have to fill out a FOIA request and let you process it first, eh?

[jberryhill]

18. Yes, it is public

This story is about as interesting as finding out government agents read newspapers.

[urgk]

5. Shouldn't Quakers be in the clear by now?

I mean, when has a Quaker organization (not a rogue, hawkish Nixon) ever, ever presented a physical threat to ANYBODY?

Quit wasting our tax dollars, you "intelligence" gathering jacka**es. Just to save time and money, I'll tell you who else doesn't merit a long-term investigation - knitting circles. Quilting bees. The Girl Scouts. Paula Dean. Richard Simmons. A capella groups. People who go around telling everybody not to blow things up!

And who does? Mother****ing Australian billionaires who try to drive our elections by creating vast networks of propaganda. How about warrant-less wire-tapping the people who are overtly stirring up hate against our President?!?!?!

Think, people! Think!

[MikeMc]

8. Inadequately surveilled with the Merton's Molly R. in Pitt.

During Poppy bush's Iraq war, when 'Operation Desert Shield' became 'Operation Desert Sword' (or Storm), I received a protest arrest (on Forbes Ave. by Market Square) for 'obstruction of traffic'. I chose to perform community service hours with the Mertons out on Penn Ave, because I liked their Plowshares involvement with Berrigan, their backing from our Labor Priest, Father Rice, and their involvement with CISPES and liberation theologists (who opposed all of the '80's - '90's death-squad 'unpleasantness' that l'il bush transplanted to Iraq a few short years ago, with the Negroponte-era 'Salvador option'.) The current pope declared open season on lib theologians down Central America, recently.

At the time, the Reagan FBI's Cointelpro had just been caught (illegally) surveilling the Catholic Archdiocese of Cleveland, the United Auto Workers (Coca cola is killing labor union members in Colombia today), and the Maryknoll Sisters (pistol-packing nuns, supposedly) -- those groups were targeted along with 200 of the other 'usual suspect' orgs.

While I worked for the Merton's, their phones would constantly emit odd sounds (bleeps, buzzes, partial rings, etc.), audible to everyone in the room, even if nobody was on the phone with a caller. I brought it up around seven office staffers, including the heavy hitters. They said they had been having those telecom problems quite frequently, lately. I complained that we were getting ripped off as taxpayers, because the TIA-style budget, that we paid taxes for, should be letting the gov surveil us without annoying tell-tale 'squeaks'. No laughs. What a bunch of humorless people.

Rummy (allegedly) shit-canned the Poindexter Total Info Awareness program, once media caught on to its existence. But like Negroponte, his Iran Contra co-defendant, Poindexter didn't die or fade away.

Philosophically speaking, the best thing to do is say this -- "Where's the mike? Where's the camera? We are right. We're not afraid."
Then laugh, because we are better than repugs, nazis, teabaggers, and the rest of the mutants. I may never know you, but I have your back for all legal anti-nazi repug activity in Pgh.

[queerart]

12. I Hate To Be The One To Bring This Up.......

But does "anyone" doubt that DU posts aren't being crawled day and night with all messages being stored?


Anyone who has their own domain in which they can view bandwidth logs knows that it is happening.... (so I know it's going on)


Spying is big business..... the housing market went bust... so companies simply move to war profits, and spying....


http://pubrecord.org/nation/8297/israeli-company-hired-state-government/
http://open.salon.com/blog/onebyland/2010/07/19/exposed_private_it_companies_in_spy_operations
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/10/att-doj-foia/
http://www.polemics.us/is-google-spying-on-you-for-the-government/
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/googles-wi-spying-and-intelligence-ties-prompt-call-for-congressional-hearing-98769559.html


... and these links could go on forever.....

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. It's all public, so, yes, it is

Hell, there's a bunch of DU-obsessed RWers who are already doing that. They produce stats on how much each of us posts, and put highlights on their website. I'm sure there's one or more government computers doing the same thing. Whether anyone sane bothers to look at the stats is the question ...

[queerart]

17. You Are So Correct!

... and I'm one poster that the zealot Christians watch very closely.....

.... and they (watch and collect) photos of DU posters for any of you out there that is unaware of that fact....

... and you are "so very correct" about government computers on the logs... as I have had many of them make a visit.... day before last my site had a visit from a "State of Colorado General Government Computer" in a "bot mode"......

[Arctic Dave]

13. Homeland Security is full of Nazi shitbags, who would of guessed.

The entire department was nothing but a right wing Gestapo from the get go.


Save the US taxpayer money and dissolve this atrocity.

[denem]

15. How stupid are you lot? The whole internet is monitored. Continuously.

By Google for a start. What the fuck do you think the NSA is up to? If it's somewhere on the net, it's public for all intents and purposes. Google CEO Schmidt said that if Facebook wouldn't share their user data Google would obtain it 'by other means'. Comprehende? DoD projects are not connected to a inter-network. I wonder why?

[boppers]

20. Many DoD projects are connected, actually.

The connection boundaries are tightly monitored, however. I know this because I spent a chunk of my career writing software for monitoring systems.

That being said, *all* international traffic can be legally monitored without a warrant as soon at it crosses the border, and a great deal of internet traffic does.

[leveymg]

21. Domestic Right giving DHS funds to an Israeli Right-wing group to spy on U.S. pacifists.

That is what this thing boils down to.