Facebooks "Global Government Requests Report" gov'ts demanded info on 38K users, protesters & political activists among them
In releasing its first report on government requests for user information, Facebook is reminding businesses and consumers that use of the Internet today requires self-censorship.
The report released Tuesday shows also that the U.S. government -- which is the single biggest with between 11,000 and 12,000 requests -- is only one of many seeking data from Facebook. Total non-U.S. requests numbered about 15,000 during the first half of this year.
Facebook's Global Government Requests Report is meant to assure users that the company is doing everything it can legally to protect their privacy. Google does the same through its biannual Transparency Report.
The number of users specified in the requests was from 20,000 to 21,000. The majority of the requests were related to criminal cases, such as robberies or kidnappings.
Facebook handed over at least some data in 79% of the requests, showing that Facebook refused to release data when it could.
https://www.facebook.com/about/government_requests
Department of Homeland Security's Analyst's Media Monitoring Capability Desktop Reference Binder:
In the latest revelation of how the federal government is monitoring social media and online news outlets, the Electronic Privacy Information Center has posted online a 2011 Department of Homeland Security manual that includes hundreds of key words (such as those above) and search terms used to detect possible terrorism, unfolding natural disasters and public health threats. The center, a privacy watchdog group, filed a Freedom of Information Act request and then sued to obtain the release of the documents.
The 39-page "Analyst's Desktop Binder" used by the department's National Operations Center includes no-brainer words like ""attack," "epidemic" and "Al Qaeda" (with various spellings). But the list also includes words that can be interpreted as either menacing or innocent depending on the context, such as "exercise," "drill," "wave," "initiative," "relief" and "organization."
These terms and others are "broad, vague and ambiguous" and include "vast amounts of First Amendment protected speech that is entirely unrelated to the Department of Homeland Security mission to protect the public against terrorism and disasters," stated the Electronic Privacy Information Center in letter to the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence.
The agency agrees that the manual's language is vague. For instance, under terrorism watchwords, the manual lists "Hamas" and "Hezbollah" but also the "Palestinian Liberation Organization." The PLO was once considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. government but now that it has a diplomatic mission in Washington and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, has met with presidents Bush and Obama, the inclusion of this term could be deemed questionable.
http://epic.org/foia/epic-v-dhs-media-monitoring/Analyst-Desktop-Binder-REDACTED.pdf
NYPD secretly designated entire mosques as terrorism organizations:
The New York Police Department has secretly labeled entire mosques as terrorist organizations, a designation that allows police to use informants to record sermons and spy on imams, often without specific evidence of criminal wrongdoing.
Designating an entire mosque as a terrorism enterprise means that anyone who attends prayer services there is a potential subject of an investigation and fair game for surveillance.
Since the 9/11 attacks, the NYPD has opened at least a dozen "terrorism enterprise investigations" into mosques, according to interviews and confidential police documents. The TEI, as it is known, is a police tool intended to help investigate terrorist cells and the like.
Many TEIs stretch for years, allowing surveillance to continue even though the NYPD has never criminally charged a mosque or Islamic organization with operating as a terrorism enterprise.
The documents show in detail how, in its hunt for terrorists, the NYPD investigated countless innocent New York Muslims and put information about them in secret police files. As a tactic, opening an enterprise investigation on a mosque is so potentially invasive that while the NYPD conducted at least a dozen, the FBI never did one, according to interviews with federal law enforcement officials.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/28/nypd-spying-mosques_n_3827567.html#!
http://news.yahoo.com/nypd-designates-mosques-terrorism-organizations-070801349.html
http://tribune.com.pk/story/596406/mosques-declared-terrorism-organisations-by-nypd-report/
The NYPD built in effect its own CIA—and its Demographics Unit delved deeper into the lives of citizens than did the NSA:
There was nothing like what Larry Sanchez a CIA analyst and David Cohen, a former senior CIA officer were proposing anywhere in American law enforcement. And of course, the behaviors to be monitored were common not only to the 9/11 hijackers but also to a huge population of innocent people. Most café customers, gym members, college kids, and pub customers were not terrorists. Most devout Muslims weren’t either. To catch the few, the NYPD would spy on the many.
http://nymag.com/news/features/nypd-demographics-unit-2013-9/#!
U.S. Border Patrol is spying on all maritime traffic:
The Air and Marine Operations Center at March Air Reserve Base tracks planes flying in and out of the country as well as domestic flights.
Now, officials there have set their sights on the sea.
The center, operated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, is a mass of computer banks reminiscent of NASA’s Mission Control. An 8-by-45-foot, high-definition television screen is spread across its front wall. The center can track as many as 50,000 aircraft at any moment.
It’s basically a clearing house for radar and intelligence information, working with — and supplying information to — a host of security and law enforcement agencies. Officials say the center has reduced illegal cross-border flights from thousands per year in the mid-1980s to a handful. Initially, the focus was on drug trafficking. The surveillance has expanded over the years to include human trafficking, the smuggling of counterfeit products, and terrorist activities.
The center now is testing software that will allow similar scrutiny of maritime traffic. The system would tap into existing radar and photo surveillance and incorporate newer state-of-the-art equipment to provide a comprehensive view of marine vessels within 100 miles of the U.S. coastlines. The omniscient view allows for greater coordination of agencies that might respond to a potential emergency.
Steve Savala, a detection enforcement officer, said the program won’t officially go into use for another year, in October 2014. The center started working on the system in December.
“They gave it to us early, so we could develop it from the bottom up,” Savala said.
Savala said he and others are in the testing phase. Two weeks ago, they started a 60-day test of a Carlsbad-based radar built by Terma, a company based in Virginia. Most shoreline radar systems have a range of three to four miles, Savala said. This unit can detect objects up to 20 miles offshore.
If the radar provides the kind of data Savala is looking for, the center will work out an agreement to use the device in the future.
He also expects to gather data and photos from smaller radar and automatic cameras already being used by various agencies along the coasts. Some plane-based radar also will be used on the southern and eastern coasts.
The center is using a computer program designed by SRI International, in Menlo Park. But putting a system together requires more than software, center spokeswoman Tina Pendell said.
The center’s director, Tony Crowder, said the agency currently receives some maritime information from a multi-agency task force looking at traffic in the Caribbean. He said he believes the new system eventually will be as comprehensive as the air tracking.
http://www.pe.com/local-news/riverside-county/riverside/riverside-headlines-index/20130823-