Keywords agency is tracking include “body scanner,” “nationalist” , “police,” and “immigration”.

A Homeland Security training manual belies claims made by DHS representatives during a Congressional hearing last week that the federal agency is only monitoring social media outlets for “situational awareness,” and proves the fact that Bis Sis is also tracking online criticism of government, including discussion of airport body scanners.

“Analysts for a Department of Homeland Security program that monitors social networks like Twitter and Facebook have been instructed to produce reports on policy debates related to the department, a newly disclosed manual shows,” reports the New York Times.

The manual, entitled Department of Homeland Security National Operations Center Media Monitoring Capability Desktop Reference Binder, was obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center via a FOIA request.

The controversy over DHS spying on social media erupted last month following the release of 300 documents which detailed how DHS had hired an outside contractor, General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, to monitor social media outlets along with a list of websites, on a “24/7/365 basis,” in order to uncover “any media reports that reflect adversely on the U.S. Government and the Department of Homeland Security.”

During a subsequent Congressional hearing on the matter, DHS representatives Mary Callahan and Richard Chávez denied the fact that tracking criticism of government agencies formed any part of the program, and that the effort was merely aimed at developing “situational awareness” of potential threats, mostly related to extreme weather events.

However, the 2011 manual makes it abundantly clear that the program was a backdoor effort to keep tabs on what the American people were saying about not just the DHS, but a whole host of federal agencies, including the CIA, the ATF, the TSA, FEMA, as well as organizations outside of the U.S. government such as the United Nations and the Red Cross.

CONTINUED at Infowars. Written by Paul Joseph Watson.

MI5, MI6, GCHQ want official real time access to all communications.

The British government has dusted off previously shelved plans to create huge databases, enabling spy agencies to monitor every phone call, email and text message as well as websites visited by everyone in the country.

The Telegraph reports that under the plans, the government will force every communications network to store the data for one year. The plans also extend to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and gaming sites.

The plans, drawn up by MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, the government’s secret eavesdropping agency, may be officially announced as soon as May, according to details seen by the Telegraph. Those agencies would have real time access to the records kept by companies such as Vodafone and British Telecom.

The records would allow the spy agencies to monitor the “who, when and where” of every phone call, text message and email sent, while also allowing for internet browsing histories to be matched to IP addresses.

Unassumingly titled the Communications Capabilities Development Programme (CCDP), the new scheme is set to be implemented under anti-terrorism laws, with the spy agencies saying it will allow them to more closely monitor suspects ahead of the London 2012 Olympics in July.

Critics and civil liberties advocates are calling for mass opposition to the plans, noting that the scheme is open to abuse not only by spy agencies and communications companies themselves, but also by hackers and online criminals.

CONTINUED at Prison Planet. Written by Steve Watson.

Hawaii’s legislature is weighing an unprecedented proposal to curb the privacy of Aloha State residents: requiring Internet providers to keep track of every Web site their customers visit.

Its House of Representatives has scheduled a hearing this morning on a new bill (PDF) requiring the creation of virtual dossiers on state residents. The measure, H.B. 2288, says “Internet destination history information” and “subscriber’s information” such as name and address must be saved for two years.

H.B. 2288, which was introduced Friday, says the dossiers must include a list of Internet Protocol addresses and domain names visited. DemocraticRep. John Mizuno of Oahu is the lead sponsor; Mizuno also introduced H.B. 2287, a computer crime bill, at the same time last week.

Last summer, U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas)managed to persuade a divided committee in the U.S. House of Representatives to approve his data retention proposal, which doesn’t go nearly as far as Hawaii’s. (Smith, currently Hollywood’s favorite Republican, has become better known as the author of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA.)

Democrat Jill Tokuda, the Hawaii Senate’s majority whip, who introduced a companion bill, S.B. 2530, in the Senate, told CNET that her legislation was intended to address concerns raised by Rep. Kymberly Pine, the first Republican elected to her Oahu district since statehood and the House minority floor leader.

“I was asked to introduce the Senate companions on these Internet security related bills by Representative Kymberly Marcos Pine after her own personal experience in this area,” Tokuda said. “I would defer to her on the origins of these bills as she has done the research and outreach, and been the main champion of this effort.”

Pine, who did not immediately respond to queries, has been targeted by a disgruntled Web designer, Eric Ryan, who launched KymPineIsACrook.com and claims she owes him money, according to an article last summer in the Hawaii Reporter. Her e-mail account was also reportedly hacked around the same time. The article said Pine would advocate for “tougher cyber laws at the Hawaii State Capitol” as a result.

“We must do everything we can to protect the people of Hawaii from these attacks and give prosecutors the tools to ensure justice is served for victims,” Pine said at the time.

Whatever its sponsors’ motivations, the bill isn’t exactly being welcomed by Hawaiian Internet companies.

“This bill represents a radical violation of privacy and opens the door to rampant Fourth Amendment violations,” says Daniel Leuck, chief executive of Honolulu-based software design boutique Ikayzo, who submitted testimony opposing the bill. He adds: “Even forcing telephone companies to record everyone’s conversations, which is unthinkable, would be less of an intrusion.”

Mizuno’s proposal currently specifies no privacy protections, such as placing restrictions on what Internet providers can do with this information (like selling user profiles to advertisers) or requiring that police obtain a court order before perusing the virtual dossiers of Hawaiian citizens. Also absent are security requirements such as mandating the use of encryption.

Because the wording is so broad and applies to any company that “provides access to the Internet,” Mizuno’s legislation could sweep in far more than AT&T, Verizon, and Hawaii’s local Internet providers. It could also impose sweeping new requirements on coffee shops, bookstores, and hotels frequented by the over 6 million tourists who visit the islands each year.

“H.B. 2288 raises all of the traditional concerns associated with data retention, and then some,” Kate Dean, head of the U.S. Internet Service Provider Association in Washington, D.C., which counts Verizon and AT&T as members, told CNET. “And this may be the broadest mandate we’ve seen.”

Even the Justice Department has only lobbied the U.S. Congress to record Internet Protocol addresses assigned to individuals–users’ origin IP address, in other words. It hasn’t publicly demanded that companies record the destination IP addresses as well.

In Washington, D.C., the fight over data retention requirements has been simmering since the Justice Department pushed the topic in 2005, a development that was first reported by CNET. Proposals publicly surfaced in the U.S. Congress the following year, and President Bush’s attorney general, Alberto Gonzales said it’s an issue that “must be addressed.” So, eventually,did FBI director Robert Mueller.

Source: cNet.

It’s unclear exactly why, but the Department of Homeland has been operating a ”Social Networking/Media Capability” program to monitor the top blogs, forums and social networks online for at least the past 18 months. Based on a privacy compliance review from last November recently obtained by Reuters, the purpose of the project is to “collect information used in providing situational awareness and establishing a common operating picture.” Whatever that means. Either way, the list of sites reported by Reuters reveals in a Wednesday afternoon exclusive is pretty intriguing:

Social Networks

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Myspace

Blogs

• The Drudge Report
• The Huffington Post
• The New York Times‘s Lede blog
• Wired’s Threat Level
• Wired’s Danger Room
• ABC News’ investigative blog The Blotter
• “blogs that cover bird flu … news and activity along U.S. borders … drug trafficking and cybercrime”

Multimedia

• Hulu
• YouTube
• Flickr

In conclusion, the Department of Homeland Security is just like you. We’ve seen no reports of The Atlantic Wire being on the list. But if we are, hello Department of Homeland Security employees — thanks for reading!

Source: The Atlantic Wire.

Freedom of speech might allow journalists to get away with a lot in America, but the Department of Homeland Security is on the ready to make sure that the government is keeping dibs on who is saying what.

Under the National Operations Center (NOC)’s Media Monitoring Initiative that came out of DHS headquarters in November, Washington has the written permission to retain data on users of social media and online networking platforms.

Specifically, the DHS announced the NCO and its Office of Operations Coordination and Planning (OPS) can collect personal information from news anchors, journalists, reporters or anyone who may use “traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed.”

According to the Department of Homeland Security’s own definition of personal identifiable information, or PII, such data could consist of any intellect “that permits the identity of an individual to be directly or indirectly inferred, including any information which is linked or linkable to that individual.” Previously established guidelines within the administration say that data could only be collected under authorization set forth by written code, but the new provisions in the NOC’s write-up means that any reporter, whether someone along the lines of Walter Cronkite or a budding blogger, can be victimized by the agency.

Also included in the roster of those subjected to the spying are government officials, domestic or not, who make public statements, private sector employees that do the same and “persons known to have been involved in major crimes of Homeland Security interest,” which to itself opens up the possibilities even wider.

The department says that they will only scour publically-made info available while retaining data, but it doesn’t help but raise suspicion as to why the government is going out of their way to spend time, money and resources on watching over those that helped bring news to the masses.

The development out of the DHS comes at the same time that U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady denied pleas from supporters of WikiLeaks who had tried to prevent account information pertaining to their Twitter accounts from being provided to federal prosecutors. Jacob Applebaum and others advocates of Julian Assange’s whistleblower site were fighting to keep the government from subpoenaing information on their personal accounts that were collected from Twitter.

Last month the Boston Police Department and the Suffolk Massachusetts District Attorney subpoenaed Twitter over details pertaining to recent tweets involving the Occupy Boston protests.

The website Fast Company reports that the intel collected by the Department of Homeland Security under the NOC Monitoring Initiative has been happening since as early as 2010 and the data is being shared with both private sector businesses and international third parties.

Source: RT.

*Taken from Infowars. Written by Paul Joseph Watson.

The wave of civil unrest that has swept the globe over the past year has prompted the Department of Homeland Security to step up its monitoring of Twitter and other social networks in a bid to pre-empt any sign of social dislocation within the United States.

“Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary Caryn Wagner said the use of such technology in uprisings that started in December in Tunisia shocked some officials into attention and prompted questions of whether the U.S. needs to do a better job of monitoring domestic social networking activity,” reports the Associated Press.

Wagner announced that the federal agency would implement new guidelines that would focus on “gleaning information from sites such as Twitter and Facebook for law enforcement purposes.”

CONTINUED..

*Taken from the Economic Collapse.

The Federal Reserve wants to know what you are saying about it.  In fact, the Federal Reservehas announced plans to identify “key bloggers” and to monitor “billions of conversations” about the Fed on Facebook, Twitter, forums and blogs.  This is yet another sign that the alternative media is having a dramatic impact.  As first reported on Zero Hedge, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has issued a “Request for Proposal” to suppliers who may be interested in participating in the development of a “Sentiment Analysis And Social Media Monitoring Solution”.  In other words, the Federal Reserve wants to develop a highly sophisticated system that will gather everything that you and I say about the Federal Reserve on the Internet and that will analyze what our feelings about the Fed are.  Obviously, any “positive” feelings about the Fed would not be a problem.  What they really want to do is to gather information on everyone that views the Federal Reserve negatively.  It is unclear how they plan to use this information once they have it, but considering how many alternative media sources have been shut down lately, this is obviously a very troubling sign.

You can read this “Request for Proposal” right here.  Posted below are some of the key quotes from the document (in bold) with some of my own commentary in between the quotes….

CONTINUED..

My Two Cents: Your government hates you and they are taking steps to control you. Now be good little sheep and follow the shepherd of the cliff. Keep turning against your neighbors, keep snitching and keep buying into the fear and stupidity that you embrace. End Two Cents.

STORY 1:

*Taken from ABC News.

Attorney General Eric Holder has an urgent message for Americans: While he is confident that the United States will continue to thwart attacks, “the terrorists only have to be successful once.”

And while it is not certain we will be hit, the American people, he told ABC News, “have to be prepared for potentially bad news.”

“What I am trying to do in this interview is to make people aware of the fact that the threat is real, the threat is different, the threat is constant,” he said.

In a rare and wide-ranging interview, the attorney general disclosed chilling, new details about the evolving threat of homegrown terror, and touched on topics ranging from Wikileaks to the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

What was uppermost on his mind, however, is the alarming rise in the number of Americans who are more than willing to attack and kill their fellow citizens.

“It is one of the things that keeps me up at night,” Holder said. “You didn’t worry about this even two years ago — about individuals, about Americans, to the extent that we now do. And — that is of — of great concern.”

“The threat has changed from simply worrying about foreigners coming here, to worrying about people in the United States, American citizens — raised here, born here, and who for whatever reason, have decided that they are going to become radicalized and take up arms against the nation in which they were born,” he said.

In the last 24 months, Holder said, 126 people have been indicted on terrorist-related charges, Fifty of those people are American citizens.

“I think that what is most alarming to me is the totality of what we see, the attorney general said. “Whether it is an attempt to bomb the New York City subway system, an attempt to bring down an airplane over Detroit, an attempt to set off a bomb in Times Square … I think that gives us a sense of the breadth of the challenges that we face, and the kinds of things that our enemy is trying to do.”

Holder says many of these converts to al Qaeda have something in common: a link to radical cleric Anwar Al Awlaki, an American citizen himself.

Authorities suspect Awlaki helped mastermind last year’s Christmas Day underwear bombing plot in Detroit, and a recent scheme to blow up cargo planes travelling from Yemen to Europe and the United States.

“He’s an extremely dangerous man. He has shown a desire to harm the United States, a desire to strike the homeland of the United States,” Holder said. “He is a person who — as an American citizen — is familiar with this country and he brings a dimension, because of that American familiarity, that others do not.”

Holder said that as a threat to the United States, Awlaki ranks right up there with Osama bin Laden.

“He would be on the same list with bin Laden,” the attorney general said. “He’s up there. I don’t know whether he’s one, two, three, four — I don’t know. But he’s certainly on the list of the people who worry me the most.”

When asked whether the United states has a preference between killing or capturing and prosecuting Awlaki, Holder replied: “Well, we certainly want to neutralize him. And we will do whatever we can in order to do that.”

Awlaki is believed to be in Yemen, but thanks to the Internet, his reach is global, and his influence dangerous.

Authorities say his teachings and writings have been discovered on the computers of a number of radicals who have tried to carry out terror plots here in America. Holder said Awlaki is able to preach violence on al Qaeda websites, and reach new converts.

“The ability to go into your basement, turn on your computer, find a site that has this kind of hatred spewed … they have an ability to take somebody who is perhaps just interested, perhaps just on the edge, and take them over to the other side,” he said.

To combat the threat of Americans turning to al Qaeda and violence, the United States is monitoring scores of radicals and has set up stings to blunt the threat.

The increasing number of FBI stings, such as the alleged plot to detonate a bomb at a Christmas tree lighting in Portland, are not without controversy, but Holder vigorously defended them.

“Options are always given all along the way for them to say, ‘You know what, I have changed my mind. I don’t want to do it.’ Everyone that we have charged has said, ‘No I want to go forward,’” he said. “All those actions were designed to kill Americans.

“I have to have all those tools available to me to try to keep the American people safe, and to do the job that I’m supposed to do as a 21st century attorney general,” Holder said.

Holder said the United States has made great strides in improving its ability to detect and block attacks, which is shown by the number of would-be terrorists who have been stopped before they could kill Americans. The intelligence community is working around the clock, he said, with little time off.

“We are doing everything that we possibly can to keep the American people safe,” Holder said. “We are vigilant, we are doing everything we can to keep our homeland secure,”

Turning to how terror suspects are tried, Holder said he still believes the “decision as to how people get prosecuted, where they get prosecuted, is an executive branch function. Even if those suspects are being held now at Guantanamo Bay. Holder said Congress should not be interfering with that.

“It’s — from my perspective — a constitutional issue,” he said.

As for Julian Assange and Wikileaks, Holder said “it’s an ongoing investigation.”

“What Wikileaks did, at the end of the day, was harmful to American security, put American agents and properties … at risk … and I think for arrogant and misguided reasons,” he said.

STORY 2:

*Taken from Prison Planet.

While the establishment constantly invokes the contrived terror threat as justification for the announcement that your every activity is being sent to federal fusion centers, those same fusion centers have been busy defining peaceful assembly, non-violent protest and criticism of the government as domestic terrorism. According to the government’s own definition of what constitutes terrorist activity – you are a terrorist.

There’s no doubt that the Washington Post’s eight page “Monitoring America” story is correct when it states that Homeland Security is building a gargantuan database of every website you visit, every email you send and every phone conversation you have in order to genuinely hunt down terrorists.

The problem is, according to numerous law enforcement advisories, training manuals, seminars and other literature, the federal government defines political activism, flying American flags, wearing Levi jeans, being nice, looking “normal” and going scuba diving all as signs of domestic terror.

By encouraging Americans to “report suspicious activity” that includes such behavior, the feds are knowingly on a mission to chill political dissent, by making people afraid to exercise their constitutional rights in the fear that their neighbors will turn them in to the authorities unless they rigidly control their behavior and don’t risk even patently benign activities being misconstrued.

The following is a list of behaviors, actions or interests that the federal government, via centralized threat fusion centers that collate such information, considers to be potential signs of terrorism under the MIAC Report.

- Displaying bumper stickers and other paraphernalia associated with the Constitutional, Campaign for Liberty, and Libertarian parties

- Supporting Congressman Ron Paul

- Supporting former presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin

- Supporting former Congressman Bob Barr

- Opposing the implementation of a North American Union

- Owning gold bullion

- Displaying historical U.S. flags

- Opposing abortion

- Talking about the documentary Zeitgeist

According to an earlier document issued by the Joint Terrorism Task Force (page 1 – page 2), the following behaviors, actions or interests are also signs of terrorism.

- Being interested in animal rights

- Being a “lone individual”

- Making numerous references to the U.S. Constitution

- Defending the U.S. Constitution

- Claiming driving is a right, not a privilege

- Refusing to identify yourself to an authority figure

- Attempting to monitor the actions of police

- Being bald

Under the terms of a A Texas Department of Public Safety Criminal Law Enforcement pamphlet, the following behaviors, actions or interests are also signs of terrorism.

- Being a “nice guy”

- Wearing Levi jeans

- Communicating predominantly by cell phone, email or text message

- Looking “normal” in appearance

- Renting a car

- Staying in a hotel or apartment

- Renting a storage facility

- Using cash to make large purchases

- Using pre-paid cellphones or hand-held radios

- Owning large amounts of medicines, alcohol, or baby formula

- Gaining support for a cause by holding meetings, public rallies, or demonstrations

- Gaining support for a cause by using websites, posters, leaflets, or underground press publications

- Possessing a photo-copy of your drivers license, passport, social security card or birth certificate

- Possessing or purchasing GPS technology

- Walking, biking or driving near “potential targets”

- Taking photographs of “potential targets,” including bridges, power plants or government buildings

Under the terms of a Virginia training manual used to help state employees recognize terrorists, the following behaviors, actions or interests are also signs of terrorism.

- Being a property-rights activist

- Trying to influence government or social policy

- Undermining confidence in the government

- Using a sketch pad, camera, map, binoculars or scuba equipment

Do you fit into any of these categories? Do you wear Levi jeans, act like a “nice guy,” look “normal” or support Ron Paul? Maybe you’re a complete asshole, hate Ron Paul, look like a complete freak of nature, and only ever wear Lee jeans – but wait – you like scuba diving! Oh no, you’re a terrorist. Your name will be in a threat fusion database somewhere, and under the new definition of what constitutes a terrorist, which federal agencies are working under and promoting, your neighbor will be acting perfectly reasonably when they inform on you to the authorities because you rented a hotel room, used a large amount of cash, or possess a significant amount of alcohol.

Former FBI agent Michael German correctly identifies the fact that the “Monitoring America” program has more to do with discouraging Americans from engaging in any kind of dissent than it does with catching real terrorists.

“Treating innocent citizens as suspects flies in the face of our most fundamental American values and does not make anyone safer. Americans must to be able to meet and debate without fear that their associations and dissent will end up in a law enforcement database. Law enforcement already has the authority it needs to fight crime and terrorism without sacrificing the rights of those it seeks to protect,” said German.

This is about making every American in the country fear a knock on the door from Homeland Security because if they misbehave in any way, if they show any kind of dissent against the state, or even if they merely engage in completely innocent activities that are subsequently misconstrued by an informant society that has been trained to suspect anything and everything as possible terror, they could become a target.

Welcome to the new America – a decrepit and decaying banana republic where the government tells its people to spy on each other – a country where everyone is a potential terrorist and just as in Orwell’s 1984, will come under suspicion if they don’t rigidly conform and ensure that their behavior displays the maximum amount of fealty and subservience to the state.