DHS Social Media Keywords

KEYWORD EXERCISE #1

SKIN   RIP   PEEL   WARNING   BLOOD   KILL   MUTILATED   BOMB

“The whole car trip I was cold right down to my skin. The wind would rip along so hard I thought it would peel the roof off. And here’s a warning: Don’t ever travel with relatives. Blood may be thicker than water, but trying to kill time listening to Uncle Harry’s mutilated jokes bomb was just too much”¹

KEYWORD EXERCISE #2

TIDY   PRETTY   FLOWERS   BEAUTIFUL   WELCOME

“Tidy up your affairs and buy some pretty flowers, because God has ordered me to take you to his beautiful place, where he is anxious to welcome you.”

Intuitively, which of these two keyword exercises seems more alarming to you? If you chose the second, you’re correct. It was written by a fifty year old man to a ten year old girl that lived near him. Although all of the words in the first entry may denote serious danger, their connotations are harmless. The same cannot be said of the second entry. Assessments focusing on keywords are not a real good threat assessment method. So, it is not surprising to know that the U.S. government does just that.

Most of us know that the government tracks internet communications. What we don’t know is what they monitor, until now (at least ostensibly). The Electronic Privacy Information Center decided to peer into the governments social media tracking through the use of the Freedom of Information Act. What it produced was a thirty-nine page document titled Analyst’s Desktop Binder 2011. Within this document are three pages of keywords that the Department of Homeland Security monitors. If you keep in mind, the overall mission of the DHS, most of the strange words will make sense. Also note that this document only addresses the DHS and not agencies like the CIA, NAS, etc. I also doubt full disclosure.

Social media outfit, Mashable.com, asks the questions: Do you feel safer with U.S. Intelligence watching over what people say on the Internet? Or do you feel it’s a violation of privacy?

I don’t really have a problem with my communications being monitored as a concept. All things are eventually brought to light and exposed for good or bad. If I have anything to say or do before God, I certainly should not have a problem with doing it before someone lesser. Regardless, I certainly do not feel any safer. And that is where my apprehension rests.

A government that rules in the interests of the common good, either by Monarchy, Aristocracy or Republican forms poses no real problem. But a government that rules for its own benefit either by Tyranny, Oligarchy, or Democracy poses an extreme danger to life, property, and liberties. America no longer exists as a republic (if we ever did). We have morphed into more of a mixed form of government that leans toward the latter three forms instead of the preferred former structures. This is why I fear the U.S. governments tracking of its citizens social media activities through the use of keywords. I don’t feel that our best interests are the focus. 

The U.S. government is moving quicker and with greater strides toward the oppression of its citizens in the name of governmental self-preservation than most imagine (recall how quickly the Jews went from equal citizenship in Germany to mass murder by Hitler.) I stand alert with respect, but also with suspicion and fear of the twisting, misrepresentation, and persecution from the human interpreters of such keywords that are robotically preserving the government instead of its citizens. Not only do I not feel safer, I feel the danger level is greater.

PM

1 The Gift of Fear by Gavin deBecker

KEYWORDS