Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Obama's CIA Monitoring Your Facebook And Twitter Postings And Chats

Perhaps their monitoring might underline how ridiculous some of their foreign policy decisions are in the eyes of the rest of the world.  So, let me repeat, for the avoidance of doubt, how foolish it is for the US to punish UNESCO for recognising the Palestinian state, but to do nothing about the expansion of settlements being pursued by Israel (this time under the excuse of the proposed Palestinian state - as if it needed any excuse, mind you) except offering some ineffectual expressions of concern.  Ditto, the proposal to bomb Iran over its alleged nuclear programme on the excuse that it's President doesn't think that the state of Israel should exist.  After all, Israel clearly doesn't think that the state of Palestine should exist, it HAS nuclear weapons, but ... anyway, you get the picture.  So CIA, if you are monitoring, hope you can recognise the common sense view of most of the rest of the world o!

Ayo

I invite you to follow me on Twitter @naijama

On 5 Nov 2011, at 01:58, Abdul Karim Bangura <theai@earthlink.net> wrote:

Oh well, only the naive will not know that our listservs are being monitored by the CIA on a daily basis. But now Obama's CIA is monitoring your Twitter and Facebook postings and chats. Welcome to "Yes, We Can" and "Change We Can Believe In."

Be Careful What You Tweet: CIA Monitoring Twitter, Facebook

• By Sara Yin
• November 4, 2011 02:20pm ET

Before you tweet an inside joke about a terrorist movie like "United 93" or "Munich," you should know—the CIA might start following you.

CIA employees known as "vengeful librarians" monitor Facebook and Twitter feeds, TV news channels and radio stations, Internet forums and chat rooms, and pretty much any form of media that's open to the public, according to the Associated Press, which received an exclusive tour of the nondescript brick building in Virginia where all this takes place.

Like the rest of us Twerps (defined: people on Twitter), these librarians anticipated the uprising in Egypt in February and obsessed over first-person accounts of the London riots and Vancouver brawl over the summer.

The department falls under the Open Source Center (OSC), which was created in 1995 by the Director of National intelligence upon the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission.

Its mission is to collect information available from "the Internet, databases, press, radio, television, video, geospatial data, photos and commercial imagery," according to its Web site, and analyze the information, which is often used in the President's daily intelligence briefings. For instance, after Osama bin Laden was killed, the intelligence unit looked at social media to brief the White House on public opinion towards the matter.

The OSC began monitoring social media outlets in 2009 after seeing the role Twitter played in Iraq's Green Revolution, OSC director Dough Naquin told the AP.

As its director, Naquin can be publicly identified but the exact location of the center is classified information to prevent attacks, AP reports.

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