Dept of Homeland Security monitors journalists

Source: Liberty Confidential

Phew. Thank Christ the DHS is protecting the citizens from those damn journalists. That’s the kind of vigilance we all happy pay for (with our taxes).

Under the National Operations Center (NOC)’s Media Monitoring Initiative that emerged from the Department of Homeland Security in November, Washington has written permission to collect and retain personal information from journalists, news anchors, reporters or anyone who uses “traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed.”

RT has reported that, according to DHS, the definition of personal identifiable information can 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.”

According to RT, the website “Fast Company” reports that the NOC Monitoring Initiative has been in play since at least early-2010 and that the data is being shared with both private sector businesses and international third parties.

If the data is being shared, does that make the spying (or “monitoring,” or whatever) justifiable? Or less bad? I don’t think so. Obviously, this allows the DHS to quiet media outlets.

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.

Full post at Liberty Confidential