The U.S. government’s move to seek information from social media sites has prompted concerns about a possible crackdown on privacy and free expression. Government agencies have maintained they are not trying to quell dissent and just want to monitor crises and be able to disseminate security-related material.
Up to this point, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the research agency for federal intelligence efforts--the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency (IARPA)--and others have wanted to see what’s on the web for indications of public views about subjects related to their various areas of activity.
Viewing Social Media for Information and Opinions
DHS, for one, is watching tweets on Twitter as well as Facebook posts and comments. According to an article by Mark Hosenball, “Homeland Security watches Twitter, social media,” January 11, 2012 on Reuters, “such monitoring is designed to help DHS and its numerous agencies, which include the U.S. Secret Service and Federal Emergency Management Agency, to manage government responses to such events as the 2010 earthquake and aftermath in Haiti and security and border control related to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia.”
In addition to certain keyword search terms used, the department is interested in such sites as the Drudge Report, WikiLeaks, Hulu, Jihad Watch, NYTimes Lede Blog, Newsweek Blogs, the Huffington Post, YouTube, Flickr, Foreign Policy, Live Leak, Vimeo, Cryptome, Global Security Newswire, Google Blog Search, LongWarJournal, Plowshares Fund, Popular Science Blogs, STRATFOR, Technorati, and Terror Finance Blog.
The U.S. Department of Justice, for its investigation into WikiLeaks head Julian Assange, has asked for data on three individuals accused of aiding WikiLeaks in providing classified information to the site.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a privacy advocacy group, filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request regarding the Homeland Security Department for more information about its online surveillance program. EPIC wrote, “DHS has stated that it will routinely monitor the public postings of users on Twitter and Facebook. The agency plans to create fictitious user accounts and scan posts of users for key terms. User data will be stored for five years and shared with other government agencies. The legal authority for the DHS program remains unclear.”
Advocates for Monitoring of Certain Material Posted Online
Some conservative bloggers who are critical of the Obama administration, argue it would be helpful for the government to monitor particular sites to see information appearing there. They specifically cite writings by U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan on forums before he was charged with carrying out the deadly shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, and blogs on drug cartels along the U.S.- Mexican border.
A post on the Facebook page of a Peoria, Arizona, police sergeant showing a photograph of high school students in his hometown, with some holding guns and one with a T-shirt with a bullet-riddled image of President Barack Obama, prompted a U.S. Secret Service investigation of the matter. The picture, which was also on the Facebook page of one of the students, was posted just prior to a visit by the president to the state.
Given its role as a vehicle for information on worldwide protest movements--such as in Egypt, Bahrain, Tunisia, Syria, Iran and Occupy Wall Street in the United States--Twitter has come under fire for its plans to allow country-specific censorship of tweets about government crackdowns on dissidents that might violate local laws. Under the new policy, a tweet breaking a law in one country could be disabled there but still seen elsewhere.
This move is also seen as potentially chilling journalism sources online. The debate continues overall as to whether the U.S. government’s monitoring of social media sites could extend to examining views expressed there on news events beyond watching how news is reported, and if it’s being done to follow potential threats or public reaction to prospective governmental actions.
Questions About Privacy on New Facebook Feature
Aside from questions about what the government is doing, EPIC has expressed doubts too about how scrupulously Facebook is sometimes following privacy guidelines. Appearing on the January 10, 2012, Diane Rehm Show on National Public Radio, Marc Rotenberg, executive director of EPIC, said of Facebook: “They have privacy policies and people rely on those policies. We think this is very important, actually critical. Some people might choose to post a lot, other people might choose to post very little, but whatever choice a user makes, Facebook should respect.”
He noted Facebook has not always adhered to individual privacy considerations in making users' photographs available to others, and then requiring anyone who didn't want their pictures seen by those unknown to them go in and change their privacy settings back to the original preference.
Other observers have pointed out that when Facebook made people’s friend lists public, some from Iran who had family members studying in the United States and who could be identified from Facebook posts on their pages were arrested by Iranian authorities.
In addition, Rotenberg has criticized Facebook’s new “Timeline” feature for removing control from the user about which information is being made publicly available. This kind of action has led to companies selling what users consider their personal information without consent, posing considerable difficulty for individuals in removing such information, he said,
In "FTC asked to probe Facebook Timeline for privacy violations,” on January 9, 2012, ZDNet’s John Fontana wrote: “EPIC sent a letter to the [Federal Trade Commission] on Dec. 27th asking it to investigate Facebook’s new ‘Timeline’ feature to insure that it meets with the terms of a Nov. 29th FTC-Facebook settlement that requires the social networking site’s privacy practices be audited every two years for 20 years by an independent third-party. The settlement also barred ‘Facebook from making any further deceptive privacy claims, and requires that the company get consumers’ approval before it changes the way it shares their data’.”
EPIC’s letter to the FTC stated that Facebook “has now made information that was essentially archived and inaccessible widely available without the consent of the user.”
Facebook users can update to the new feature but otherwise will eventually be moved to Timeline automatically. It cannot be disabled once it is activated.
This new feature, which tracks users’ entire catalog of Facebook activity from when they first joined, has options to hide posts from public view. But it automatically makes public the following information: every “public” event to which a user has RSVP’d on Facebook, the date a user’s Facebook page began, and when users signed on to particular Facebook applications.
Sources:
- Mark Hosenball, “Homeland Security watches Twitter, social media,” Reuters, January 11, 2012
- Ellen Nakashima, “DHS monitoring of social media concerns civil liberties advocates,” Washington Post, January 13, 2012
- John Fontana, “FTC asked to probe Facebook Timeline for privacy violations,” ZDNet, January 9, 2012
- Diane Rehm Show, National Public Radio, January 10, 2012
John Seidenberg - John Seidenberg has worked on newspapers, newsletters, radio news, and produced specialized news publications as well as freelance ...
