Techiezine

The FBI War on Social Media

You can almost hear the infamous Walter Schumann composition lead in…

Dum-da-dum, dum…dum-da-dum, dum…DUM!

We are living in the days of a virtual dragnet. Reports today suggest that the FBI is working on a sort of “early-warning system” based on information it collects from various social networks. This kind of terminology is nothing new. It is the staple of spy films and 50s-era hardboiled cop shows.

This story is on the heels of Google’s new policy change that was announced on Tuesday, which has garnered much criticism for its proposed tracking of users across various social media platforms. This is all in the name of optimizing search engine criteria, of course.

Both Google’s and the FBI’s move toward this type of social media integration points out the obvious: You need to be careful with what they put on the Internet.

That seems so simple, doesn’t it? But the truth is that we have ushered in this era of online social networking not only with little regard to what this means in terms of privacy but also with little understanding of how these mechanisms work and what we can do to safeguard our personal data.

Of course, the FBI is not after the hoi pollioi, like you or I. No, they are going after the fringe groups—you know, the criminals, terrorists, the pornographers, the usual suspects in the police lineups of our imaginations. Right? This is all they plan on doing with the technology, yes?

Well, not quite.

The FBI’s Strategic Information and Operations Center (SOIC) made an online request for a social-media application. The document was quickly “flagged” by New Scientist magazine. The language of the document is leading: “Social media has become a primary source of intelligence because it has become the premier first response to key events and the primal alert to possible developing situations.”

It goes on to say that the application should collect “open source” information and have the ability to:

• Provide an automated search and scrape capability of social networks including Facebook and Twitter
• Allow users to create new keyword searches
• Display different levels of threats as alerts on maps, possibly using colour coding to distinguish priority. Google Maps 3D and Yahoo Maps are listed among the “preferred” mapping options
• Plot a wide range of domestic and global terror data
• Immediately translate foreign language tweets into English

Like all well-meaning measures developed to monitor public behavior in the interest of safeguarding society as a whole, they come at a price. And the real problem is that we do not yet know what that price is or who will pay it, nor do we know whom to ask. And that is the kind of world we live in now. We run before we walk. We speak before we listen. We do before we think.

The FBI, the government, and all those keepers of our information (nay, of our identities) tell us there is nothing to worry. Just hit accept—because, of course, you agree with the information detailed in the minutia of the fine print—and everything will be fine. Like the ominous voice in the intro to the old Dragnet series used to say, “The story you are about to see is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.”

Well, if you believe that, forget the property in Florida I have for you to buy, just watch a little documentary called Hot Coffee. It will change the way you think about the fine print.