Federal Agents Urged to ‘Friend’ People on Social Networks
A privacy watchdog has uncovered a government memo that encourages federal agents to befriend people on a variety of social networks, to take advantage of their readiness to share — and to spy on them. In response to a Freedom of Information request, the government released a handful of documents, including a May 2008 memo detailing how social-networking sites are exploited by the Office of Fraud Detection and National Security (FDNS).
As of Thursday morning, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and Digg had not commented on the report, which details the official government program to spy via social networking. Other websites the government is spying on include Twitter, MySpace, Craigslist and Wikipedia, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which filed the FOIA request.
“Narcissistic tendencies in many people fuel a need to have a large group of ‘friends’ link to their pages, and many of these people accept cyber-friends that they don’t even know,” stated one of the documents obtained by the EFF. “This provides an excellent vantage point for FDNS to observe the daily life of beneficiaries and petitioners who are suspected of fraudulent activities,” it said.
According to the EFF, this memo — which specifically details how the government evaluates potential citizen requests — suggests there’s nothing to prevent an exaggerated, harmless or even out-of-date offhand comment in a status update from quickly becoming the subject of a full investigation.
Full Story Here:
Federal Agents Urged to ‘Friend’ People on Social Networks, Memo Reveals
I have been a bit hesitant to write this piece. Let’s face facts, you NEVER know who is listening to your phone calls and who is truly reading your blog or forum.
Given the current political climate in America, the desperation of the Dems and Hussein Obama to hold power, the eagerness of the GOP to wrest power from the Dems, and the propensity of the GOP to LIE to the American people regarding the true intentions regarding Conservatism, I wouldn’t put it past ANY of the *alphabet agencies* to actively attempt to infiltrate groups like the TEA Party and try to paint us as ‘Unruly Insurgents’, they already have you know.
Yet some Republicans worry that tea-party candidates are settling too comfortably into their roles as unruly insurgents and could prove hard to manage if they get elected. Paul, who beat GOP establishment favorite Trey Grayson in Kentucky’s primary, told the National Review that he would seek to join forces with GOP Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.) and Tom Coburn (Okla.), “who are unafraid to stand up” and who have blocked numerous bills advanced by both parties deemed by the pair as expanding government. SOURCE
Unruly Insurgents? Yeah, that’s ME… 
Picture the cast of the new movie, RED: Retired Extremely Dangerous. That’s how the those in the U.S. government would like to portray us. All because we are fed up with the lies and what we all see as corruption in American politics.
So, we speak out, we assemble, peaceably, we petition our grievances and we are labeled as some kind of INSURGENCY. How convenient…we can be labeled and then watched because we are, after all, EXTREMELY DANGEROUS, to those that are intent on destroying America.
With this revelation, the government joins a growing list of groups using social-networking sites for purposes other than social networking. As these sites have gained popularity, scammers and spammers have become rampant, and hackers are increasingly turning to networks such as Facebook to spread viruses and Trojan Horses.
The EFF also uncovered efforts by the Department of Homeland Security to monitor social media during the inauguration of President Obama. According to the documents, the DHS collected a massive amount of data on individuals and organizations explicitly tied to the event.
I have a friend that was contacted by an old friend of his recently. That ‘friend’ is known to be in the military intelligence business. And before any of my buddies go there, yeah, I know, it’s a double redundancy, military and intelligence are words that just don’t go together. I digress.
So, my friend is contacted by his friend and asked about how to become actively involved in TEA Party groups. I am sure it was a pure coincidence that this request came 3 or 4 days before this article from FOX News was published.
Yeah, coincidence.
The DHS notably attempted to ensure that its use of social networks was appropriate while gathering data online. The newly released documents cite the Fair Information Practices Principles, a 2008 policy memo by the Department of Homeland Security’s chief privacy officer that set guidelines for ensuring online privacy during the collection of information.
Well, I seriously appreciate their efforts to ensuring online privacy during the collection of information, that makes it SO much easier to take.
Make NO mistake America, we have enemies among us. The domestic enemies that this nation faces are as dangerous, are as big a threat to our freedoms, as are those presented by foreign enemies. We expect to be threatened by foreign enemies, but the threats we face from our own government, a socialist government that is in danger of being deposed on November 2nd, is at this time, more concerning to me than all of our foreign enemies combined.
Beware America, these are dangerous times, and we are very close to either losing our freedoms or being forced into igniting a revolution to save them.
The vote is still out on which way that effort will go…
What is most disturbing, is that many of our domestic enemies took the same oath to the Constitution that many of us here took when we went in the military or took some other public service job. Don’t know who can be trusted to protect the Republic within this govt. Got to keep your guard up.
minuteman26 — What angers me the most is the fact that OUR government looks at US as insurgents, yet they are afraid to call Islamic terrorists exactly what they are, Islamic terrorists…
The hypocrisy of our own government is beyond belief…
Fred,
As you may know, Japanese Americans were held in camps during most of WW2 to ensure they were not insurgents. Do you know what law was passed and who introduced it? If you say “it was done by the stroke of the pen by executive order of FDR” you win the kewpie doll.
If no law but an executive order was required during WW2 to effectively imprison American citizens, why do we think that a law will be needed at this time? Liberals own the courts (except for the narrowest of margins on the Supreme Court) and the White House. And if we allow the RINOs to have their way, they will (continue to) own the congress as well.
Keep your powder dry.
Texasperated
Texasperated — At this point in time, Executive Orders are MY greatest fear…
The good news is that I went down to vote today and and it was SRO all the way out of the room. There may have been as many people standing in line to vote as voted in May! (ok, an exaggeration, but you know how miserable turnout was for the city elections)
There was one instance I simply have to report. An older couple about my age brought her 94 year old mother to vote. I’m not sure how they got her in the car, but she could not get out of the car once she got to the polling place. One of the election judges went inside and got one of our iPad style voting machines and brought it out to her in the car. Yessir, people are voting who haven’t voted in a looooong time.
It rather reminded me of the story of Jim Bowie being lifted across the line in sand at the Alamo.
Keep your powder dry.
Texasperated
Obama has already demonstrated a real flair for abusing executive orders. What has given me hope on that is what Longstreet mentioned in his piece… shutting down the government as a tool to fight the agenda of the Obama Regime. We MUST be prepared to fight with every tool the founders left us. The first sign that Obama is going to jail US Citizens, I will consider it an act of war against the American people. I pray that that test never manifests, but, I won’t be surprised if it does, and I assure you, I will die free, rather than allow my grand children to live as slaves.
Before we know it, they will be in the bathroom. That’s it,
I’m shaving my but so they can get a GOOD look!
What if the government took control of an automobile manufacturer and this manufacturer had a “help” program in their automobiles that allowed their customers to contract them in an emergency since the automobile is always being tracked by GPS? What if the government co-opted that on board tracking system so they could instantly tell where the owner of the automobile was at any time in any place? What if the owner of that automobile was a conservative blogger or patriot who believed in the Constitution and owned firearms; considered an insurgent by Janet Napolitano? Naaaa, probably nothing to it.
This is what ALL governments everywhere and in every time do once the people relinquish their oversight. And, to restate the obvious, it’s also why they all itch to disarm their populace. I went to high school with the infamous Tommy “The Traveler” Tongyai, after which most of us except Tommy went to the ‘Nam. He began to infiltrate radical groups. Not so bad, right? Except for the fact that HE was the guy who taught them how to commit their felonies (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944082,00.html). The agent provocateurs are still out there, but now they’re bi-partisan.
Yep…BobF…you are right on them being able to track that vehicle wherever it goes….but they can also listen to every word that is spoken in that vehicle. Now don’t that make you feel safe and secure from the eyes and ears of BigBrother…?
I read an article online the other day that stated there was a list of over 500,000 people on Obama’s hate list ( outspoken people against this administration ) that could find themselves under arrest in the near future….so much for Freedom of Speech.
God Bless you all…and especially you Fred. I’m glad I found your blog so I can learn more and more in each topic you write on. Here’s hoping we take back America without even firing a shot.
You know if there any patriots within the Secret Service, FBI or the CIA; they could do this country a favor and help save the Republic by taking care of the Obama/Soros problem.
This matter is one about which I’ve been concerned ever since I started blogging.
Totalitarianism has to shut up the opposition — intimidation being one method of shutting us up. And, of course, government spying would be a big part of the power grab.
All I can say is: Bloggers and other dissenters, watch your backs.