Not you. I mean you. You intelligence and law enforcement folks said to be looking at blogs as an information source …
As a result, some analysts say U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials might be starting to track blogs for important bits of information. This interest is a sign of how far Web media such as blogs have come in reshaping the data-collection habits of intelligence professionals and others, even with the knowledge that the accuracy of what’s reported in some blogs is questionable.
Still, a panel of folks who work in the U.S. intelligence field – some of them spies or former spies – discussed this month at a conference in Washington the idea of tracking blogs.
“News and intelligence is about listening with a critical ear, and blogs are just another conversation to listen to and evaluate. They also are closer to (some situations) and may serve as early alerts,” said Jock Gill, a former adviser on Internet media to President Clinton, in a later phone interview, after he spoke on the panel.
Some panel and conference participants, because of their profession, could not be identified. But another who could is Robert Steele, another blog booster. The former U.S. intelligence officer said “absolutely” that blogs are valid sources of intelligence and news, though he said authenticating the information in blogs “leaves a lot to be desired.”
Well, yeah. But it’s an idea, at least, not unlike cops picking up “the word on the street.” That “word” needs to be verified, not taken at face value, and may be manipulated (or just wrong). But it’s data worth considering.
There are some concerns, of course:
While blog postings are voluntary and available to anyone to read, some observers say blog monitoring by governments or the media raises civil liberties and privacy issues. One such critic is James Love, director of the Ralph Nader-affiliated Consumer Project on Technology.
“When you’re conducting surveillance where you have no expectation of illegal activity, there has to be some threshold to justify such surveillance,” Love said.
To some degree, though, doesn’t that depend on the intended use of the information? And since we’re talking about stuff that’s, well, posted to the Internet, it would seem to me that any presumption of privacy is thrown out the window. (Though, to be honest, it’s an easy false mindset to get into to think that nobody reads — or can see — your blog except for the folks you intend to have read it. Folks have gotten into a lot of trouble that way.)
Interesting, anyway.
(via Rantingprofs)
Maybe this explains some of those searches. The G-men are checking to see if you’re blogging about hot-wiring cars for the Godfather with your confederates, “Jake-a-nap” and “Nut-hook”!
Yeah ***Dave …I am reading this. Question is–will a “searching glance” find anything worthy of being classified as “intelligence”? 😉
This illustrates precisely what went wrong prior to 9/11 and the infamous “wall”. If you limit everything to probable cause then you will limit what you can find out vis-a-vis terrorism. We are more concerned about stopping people rather than prosecuting them. In fact, since probable cause would not be used then any such evidence could not be used if there was any prosecution. Add to that the side effect that government is actually listening to what people have to say and I see this as a good thing.
Maybe they need to have ISPs give their customers Miranda-style warnings. The old rule of would you want what not you say repeated on the front page of the New York Times (uh, ***Dave Does the Blog) then don’t say it applies.
Rich–do you really think that monitoring blogs equates with “actually listening to what people have to say?” (Perhaps I misunderstood what you were saying?) If they were to do this in any effective manor, it would be automated, no? How would they sift out useful info from jack-a-nap nut-hooking drivel? Sounds like it would require many geeks and a mega-computer system that sucks enough power to light up NYC just to whittle it down to an intelligible amount of info. That said, I tend to agree that there IS info to be found out there, people blogging are offering it up for public use, and finding a way to sort through it just might save lives. Do you feel the rule about the NY Times extends to email? How would you feel about the government monitoring that? Would that be a good thing, too?
I don’t think anyone is talking about full-blown CARNIVORE-like sifting of every web page/blog out there, just — well, browsing. What are people saying about subject X? Find some good clearing-houses of info, track comments and articles and ideas. Again, it’s not like having a bug on every corner, but hanging out and getting the word on the street.
(I keep having “Police Squad” flashbacks here. “So, Benny, what you hear about al-Qa’eda?” “I dunno — I hear a lot of things …”)
The choice between no data and sifting all data is a false one.
Check out the August 6, 2001 PDB. Intelligence included media reports. For better or worse, the media now includes the Internet. See Command Post for example. They even scooped all the media on the POW rescue last year. Personally, I would rather see George Tenet gleaning info from ***Dave than Achmed Chalabi. But that is what intelligence is: the art (not science) of gleaning useful information from unreliable sources. I have to admit, though, “connecting the dots” from the Internet will end up looking like a Jackson Pollock painting.
There is also a fundamental difference between e-mail and web sites (and the expectation of privacy). That being said, I wouldn’t depend on my e-mail being private. Thus, my NYT comment. It is naive in the extreme to expect anything we say on the ‘net to be close to private.
Well, any time George wants to drop me a line, he’s welcome to …
http://www.govtech.net/news/features/news_feature.phtml?docid=2003.02.18-41036&channel=23
The above link will take you to the story I was thinking of as I wrote my post. The project described is closer to my concept than your “friendly cop on the beat” concept, no?
Right. TIA is, for the moment, DOA. Whether that turns out to be a good thing or bad thing (I can probably argue it either way) remains to be seen.