Department Of Homeland Security Compiles List Of All Bloggers, Journalists, & "Social Media Influencers"
Department Of Homeland Security Compiles List Of All
Bloggers, Journalists, & "Social Media Influencers"
by Tyler Durden Mon, 06/04/2018 - 16:26 Authored by
Michael Snyder via The American Dream blog,’
Many were hoping that once Barack Obama was out of office
we would see less of this Big Brother surveillance nonsense, but instead it
seems to be getting even worse.
In fact, the Department of Homeland Security has just
announced that it intends to compile a comprehensive list of hundreds of
thousands of “journalists, editors, correspondents, social media influencers,
bloggers etc.”, and collect any “information that could be relevant” about
them.
So if you have a website, an important blog or you are just
very active on social media, the Department of Homeland Security is going to
put you on a list and will start collecting information about you. The DHS has already announced that it will
hire a contractor to aid in monitoring media coverage, and they will definitely
need plenty of help because it is going to be a very big job…
As part of its “media monitoring,” the DHS seeks to track
more than 290,000 global news sources as well as social media in over 100
languages, including Arabic, Chinese and Russian, for instant translation into
English. The successful contracting company will have “24/7 access to a
password protected, media influencer database, including journalists, editors,
correspondents, social media influencers, bloggers etc.” in order to “identify
any and all media coverage related to the Department of Homeland Security or a
particular event.”
“Any and all media coverage,” as you might imagine, is
quite broad and includes “online, print, broadcast, cable, radio, trade and
industry publications, local sources, national/international outlets,
traditional news sources, and social media.”
If this sounds extremely creepy to you, that is because
it is extremely creepy.
I run several prominent websites including The Most
Important News and The Economic Collapse
Blog, and so without a doubt I will be on this list. And if I was just a name on a list in some
database somewhere, that would be bad enough, but instead it sounds like the
DHS will be collecting any “information that could be relevant” about all of
us…
As Gizmodo noted, the DHS’ vagueness is also a concern.
It leaves itself an opening for collecting “any other information that could be
relevant” about these influencers, and there’s no hint as to what that could
be.
Is it strictly functional information like work
histories, or sensitive data that could be abused? Either way, the database
could be troublesome for bloggers and social media stars who aren’t usually
under such close government scrutiny.
This is one of the reasons why I wanted to get to
Washington. This kind of Orwellian
monitoring of our freedoms is unnecessary, it is a colossal waste of taxpayer
dollars, and it violates our most basic freedoms.
So why does the Department of Homeland Security need to
do this?
The explanation that they are giving the public is
extremely week. The following comes from
Forbes…
DHS says the “NPPD/OUS [National Protection and Programs
Directorate/Office of the Under Secretary] has a critical need to incorporate
these functions into their programs in order to better reach Federal, state,
local, tribal and private partners.” Who knows what that means, but the
document also states the NPPD’s mission is “to protect and enhance the
resilience of the nation’s physical and cyberinfrastructure.”
But we are not supposed to ask questions about government
programs such as this.
In fact, just a few days ago a Department of Homeland
Security representative stated that those that are questioning this program are
“tinfoil hat wearing, black helicopter conspiracy theorists“…
If you find yourself skeptical of this proposal of mass
state monitoring of the press, consider yourself a bonafide member of the
“tinfoil hat wearing, black helicopter conspiracy theorists,” DHS
representative Tyler Houlton said Friday. It’s all very routine, he argued,
casting the project as an innocent means of “monitoring current events.” Just
shut up and let us do this, crackpots.
That kind of response should make all of us very angry.
If the government is going to monitor us and put our
information in a database, we should have the right to ask questions.
Freedom of speech is one of our most foundational rights,
and many are concerned that “monitoring and tracking” are initial steps that
could lead to a significant crackdown on Internet activity. Just check out what is about to happen over
in Europe. The Internet has made it
possible for ordinary people to communicate with one another on a massive
scale, and any efforts by national governments to interfere with that must be
greatly resisted.
Unfortunately, it appears that this new Department of
Homeland Security program is moving ahead rapidly. In fact, it is being reported that seven
different companies have “already expressed interest” in participating…
Seven companies, mainly minority- or women-owned small
businesses, have already expressed interest in becoming a vendor for the
contract, according to the FedBizOpps web site.
All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to be
nothing. Please spread word about this
creepy new surveillance program to everyone that you know, because what they
are doing is not right.
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