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America's FBI Wants To Build a Social Media-Monitoring Tool (engadget.com) 114

Posted by EditorDavid from the friend-requests dept.
America's FBI "wants to gather more information from social media," reports Engadget. Friday, it issued a call for contracts for a new social media monitoring tool. According to a request-for-proposals (RFP), it's looking for an "early alerting tool" that would help it monitor terrorist groups, domestic threats, criminal activity and the like.

The tool would provide the FBI with access to the full social media profiles of persons-of-interest. That could include information like user IDs, emails, IP addresses and telephone numbers. The tool would also allow the FBI to track people based on location, enable persistent keyword monitoring and provide access to personal social media history. According to the RFP, "The mission-critical exploitation of social media will enable the Bureau to detect, disrupt, and investigate an ever growing diverse range of threats to U.S. National interests."

But a tool of this nature is likely to raise a few red flags, despite the FBI's call for "ensuring all privacy and civil liberties compliance requirements are met."
Back in 2011 a video by The Onion jokingly described Facebook as "the massive online surveillance program run by the CIA." Looks like they had the right idea -- but the wrong government agency.

On Twitter the ACLU's senior staff attorney highlighted some key phrases from the FBI's request for proposals -- including "constant monitoring of social media platforms." He added that "They're not beating around the bush in terms of how pervasively they're monitoring social media content:"
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America's FBI Wants To Build a Social Media-Monitoring Tool More

America's FBI Wants To Build a Social Media-Monitoring Tool

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  • Hear, hear!! (Score:3, Informative)

    by gtall ( 79522 ) on Sunday July 14, 2019 @02:40PM (#58925308)

    Maybe they'll keep an eye on Trump for us. Last we heard, he was telling American born congressmen/women to go back to where they came from. Apparently they don't look white. Classic preparation for a terrorist attack. Can his ass before he carries out any nefarious plans.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      He said "Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe...", not "American born congressmen/women"

      But hey, keep spinning it your way.

    • Why does he need to be monitored/tracked? He shared his tweet with 5M followers, hardly a secret that eludes the attention of gov't.

      Tweeting a wrong statement isn't a crime, doesn't need to be investigated.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Somewhere some idiot added that tweet to his manifesto, which we will eventually get to read when it gets entered into evidence at his trial.

        When you are POTUS you have to be careful what you say. You will influence people and you have some moral, if not legal, responsibility for that.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by bblb ( 5508872 )
      Last we heard, FBI agents were already actively conspiring against Trump to no avail... Funny how you're so upset about Trump but don't have shit to say about those antisemitic, antiamerican congresswomen looking to undermine our democracy. So thoroughly liberal of you... foreign influence in elections is bad if it's Russia, but it's totally ok when it's liberals and illegals influencing elections. Condemnation of people for their ideology or nation of origin is bad if it's Trump talking about Ilhan Omar

      • "So thoroughly liberal of you"

        Corporate Progressives and Social Just-Us Nazis are empathically NOT liberals. Real liberals want nothing whatsoever to do with those anti-freedom wingnuts.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Well, technically... (Score:3)

    by JBMcB ( 73720 ) on Sunday July 14, 2019 @02:43PM (#58925324)

    Back in 2011 a video by The Onion jokingly described Facebook as "the massive online surveillance program run by the CIA." Looks like they had the right idea -- but the wrong government agency.

    Technically, if the government wants to monitor US citizens in this manner, the FBI has to do it. And then, again technically, only if a specific individual is under current investigation.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by DogDude ( 805747 )
      Technically, if the government wants to monitor US citizens in this manner, the FBI has to do it. And then, again technically, only if a specific individual is under current investigation.

      Couldn't they just buy the data like anybody else?

    • Technically, in Soviet America commoners have no rights.

  • Well then, this is absolute proof... (Score:4, Funny)

    by 3seas ( 184403 ) on Sunday July 14, 2019 @02:45PM (#58925332) Homepage Journal

    ... The NSA doesn't share

  • American FBI as opposed to? (Score:3)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Sunday July 14, 2019 @02:46PM (#58925342)

    some other FBI?

      Maybe they could get their act together and talk to the NSA, or DHS, or the CIA so they don't duplicate efforts to monitor social media any more than the US already does.

    Or they could sub-contract China or Russia to report on US citizens...

  • perfect (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TimothyHollins ( 4720957 ) on Sunday July 14, 2019 @02:48PM (#58925350)

    This if anything should serve as a blatant reminder that when you communicate on social media, you aren't having a one to one private conversation. Everything on Twitter is public, even if you are sitting in the comfort of your own home. You are actively inviting the smelly weirdo on the bus to comment on your thoughts, you are actively asking the deranged (femi-)nazi to twist your words into something you never intended. And on top of that, you are begging a whole slew of companies to analyze your every move in order to sell you things or send you personalized propaganda for political or ideological purposes.

    Personally I think FBI has a great idea. It's yet another nail in the coffin, and I hope it gets so bad that the entire concept of social media is abandoned all together.

    • And on top of that, you are begging a whole slew of companies to analyze your every move in order to sell you things or send you personalized propaganda for political or ideological purposes.

      I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume you haven't read/seen A Series of Unfortunate Events.

      Being afraid of advertisements is an irrational fear. If I may ask, how do you feel about Realtors?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DogDude ( 805747 )
        Being afraid of advertisements is an irrational fear. If I may ask, how do you feel about Realtors?

        For me it's not "fear". It's about my basic human dignity. I don't want a whole bunch of marketing bros knowing everywhere I go and everything I do. If you want to livestream your bathroom habits, go right ahead. I'm not going to, though.

        • I don't want a whole bunch of marketing bros knowing everywhere I go and everything I do.

          It’s pretty much an inescapable fact of modern life at this point. Google keeps track of any links you click in their search results. Most retailers track your purchase history with a credit/debit card (and I’d assume the card companies do the same). Cell phones track your approximate location just by the nature of how cell networks work, and many smartphone apps send everything about your interactions with the app back to the developer.

          Someone trying to market something to you with all this

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by DogDude ( 805747 )
            It’s pretty much an inescapable fact of modern life at this point

            Not at all! Don't use Google. Buy things with cash, locally. Don't use a "smart" phone. That gets you 95% of the way there. It's not difficult to do.
  • Post all your bullshit on social media then complain that the government (or anyone, really) scrapes it all up for whatever purpose, nefarious or otherwise.

    The fuck is wrong with people?
  • I mean, seriously? I would bet money that someone at Amazon knows when I take a shit just because I play trivia games on the toilet with my Echo, so I find it highly amusing that some government agency thinks they need even more.

  • Instant political solutions (Score:3)

    by Empiric ( 675968 ) on Sunday July 14, 2019 @03:07PM (#58925414)

    "Turn them all off."

    --Rev. 13:17

  • The article doesn't make clear if the FBI will simply be monitoring PUBLIC postings on social media, or whether they will have special access to private postings as well. For example, on Facebook I can post things on my public feed, or I can choose to post things that only friends can see, etc. Similarly, on Twitter, I can have a public account or I can have a private account which people need to request to follow, and my tweets are available only to followers. Also, on Twitter, I can send direct message

    • All your information on Facebook is public. Don't even try to pretend you have any privacy.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DogDude ( 805747 )
      But I would be more concerned if they will coerce social media providers to give them special access to additional information, which in addition to private posts can be things like: IP address of account holder, location of account holder based on GPS data available to apps running on tablets or phones, payment information for paid services, etc.

      You do understand that none of this data is your, right? It belongs to Facebook, and Facebook regularly sells it to anybody who wants it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Livius ( 318358 )

      The article doesn't make clear if the FBI will simply be monitoring PUBLIC postings on social media

      This gets tricky because monitoring postings that are explicitly public is a legitimate counter-terrorism activity, and an automated tool that finds red flags could be valuable.

      It still sounds creepy, and there is potential for abuse, false positives, selection bias, etc., plus the risk that it could be extended to unlawful surveillance.

    • Spying works better if you have more information to sift through, so clearly the FBI will want full access. Facebook's business model is selling your privacy, so they clearly want to sell everything. This positive feedback loop ensures the FBI gets full access.
  • Good, I'd otherwise have no clue which of the numerous FBIs of the world this is about.

  • I don't see how you have much justification for complaining who reads it.

  • As was stated by others, a sign that the players aren't sharing. While the pawns don't know the game, it's interesting to see the shadows on the board sometimes.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Livius ( 318358 )

      a sign that the players aren't sharing.

      I think a more likely explanation is that too much of what the NSA gathers would not be admissible in court, either at trial or even just to get warrants, so the FBI needs to 'independently' find the same information. That doesn't mean there information is shared that could point the FBI in the right direction. (In theory that would still make evidence inadmissible but it would probably be too hard to prove.)

  • As long as you think what they want you to think,
    say what they want you to say,
    want those in charge in charge,
    don't mind the system. ... for everyone else it's a problem.

  • Wasn't Social Media one of the things being tracked at that massive datacenter in Utah?

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]

  • How are they not doing it already?
  • No seriously why put "america's" ?
  • Zuckerberg already has several that he'll gladly let the FBI use.
    For a nominal fee and a few periodic ad views.

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