In Which I Attract The Attention Of Homeland Security

Deviating from my normal policy of only sneering at politics when they intersect with the marketplace, I felt that this could not pass without remark.

This, of course, is the "US Department of Homeland Security Privacy Impact Assessment for the Office of Operations Coordination and Planning Publicly Available Social Media Monitoring and Situational Awareness Initiative". In short, "Federal law requires the NOC [National Operations Center] to provide situational awareness and establish a common operating picture for the entire federal government, and for state, local, and tribal governments as appropriate, and to ensure that critical disaster-related information reaches government decision makers." To this end,

The NOC will use Internet-based platforms that provide a variety of ways to follow activity related to monitoring publicly available online forums, blogs, public websites, and message boards. Through the use of publicly available search engines and content aggregators the NOC will monitor activities on the social media sites listed in Appendix A for information that the NOC can use to provide situational awareness and establish a common operating picture. Appendix A is a current list of sites that the NOC will use as a starting point under this Initiative. Initial sites listed may link to other sites not listed. The NOC may also monitor those sites if they are within the scope of this Initiative. The NOC will gather, store, analyze, and disseminate relevant and appropriate de-identified information to federal, state, local, and foreign governments, and private sector partners authorized to receive situational awareness and a common operating picture.

In other words, they will spy on you. But fear not.

Under this initiative, OPS will not: 1) actively seek personally identifiable information (PII); 2) post any information; 3) actively seek to connect with other internal/external personal users; 4) accept other internal/external personal users’ invitations to connect; or 5) interact on social media sites.

Because the US government has never spied on its own citizens, and then used that information to try to subvert organizations, repress civil rights, or criminalize behavior. No, sir, they would never do that.

So, in order to express my absolute confidence in our government, here is every single phrase the NOC monitors for as of June 22, 2010:

DHS & Other Agencies Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Coast Guard (USCG) Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Border Patrol Secret Service (USSS) National Operations Center (NOC) Homeland Defense Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agent Task Force Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Fusion Center Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) Secure Border Initiative (SBI) Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS) Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Air Marshal Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) National Guard Red Cross United Nations (UN) Domestic Security Assassination Attack Domestic security Drill Exercise Cops Law enforcement Authorities Disaster assistance Disaster management DNDO (Domestic Nuclear Detection Office) National preparedness Mitigation Prevention Response Recovery Dirty bomb Domestic nuclear detection Emergency management Emergency response First responder Homeland security Maritime domain awareness (MDA) National preparedness initiative Militia Shooting Shots fired Evacuation Deaths Hostage Explosion (explosive) Police Disaster medical assistance team (DMAT) Organized crime Gangs National security State of emergency Security Breach Threat Standoff SWAT Screening Lockdown Bomb (squad or threat) Crash Looting Riot Emergency Landing Pipe bomb Incident Facility HAZMAT & Nuclear Hazmat Nuclear Chemical spill Suspicious package/device Toxic National laboratory Nuclear facility Nuclear threat Cloud Plume Radiation Radioactive Leak Biological infection (or event) Chemical Chemical burn Biological Epidemic Hazardous Hazardous material incident Industrial spill Infection Powder (white) Gas Spillover Anthrax Blister agent Chemical agent Exposure Burn Nerve agent Ricin Sarin North Korea Health Concern + H1N1 Outbreak Contamination Exposure Virus Evacuation Bacteria Recall Ebola Food Poisoning Foot and Mouth (FMD) H5N1 Avian Flu Salmonella Small Pox Plague Human to human Human to Animal Influenza Center for Disease Control (CDC) Drug Administration (FDA) Public Health Toxic Agro Terror Tuberculosis (TB) Agriculture Listeria Symptoms Mutation Resistant Antiviral Wave Pandemic Infection Water/air borne Sick Swine Pork Strain Quarantine H1N1 Vaccine Tamiflu Norvo Virus Epidemic World Health Organization (WHO) (and components) Viral Hemorrhagic Fever E. Coli Infrastructure Security Infrastructure security Airport Airplane (and derivatives) Chemical fire CIKR (Critical Infrastructure & Key Resources) AMTRAK Collapse Computer infrastructure Communications infrastructure Telecommunications Critical infrastructure National infrastructure Metro WMATA Subway BART MARTA Port Authority NBIC (National Biosurveillance Integration Center) Transportation security Grid Power Smart Body scanner Electric Failure or outage Black out Brown out Port Dock Bridge Cancelled Delays Service disruption Power lines

Southwest Border Violence Drug cartel Violence Gang Drug Narcotics Cocaine Marijuana Heroin Border Mexico Cartel Southwest Juarez Sinaloa Tijuana Torreon Yuma Tucson Decapitated U.S. Consulate Consular El Paso Fort Hancock San Diego Ciudad Juarez Nogales Sonora Colombia Mara salvatrucha MS13 or MS-13 Drug war Mexican army Methamphetamine Cartel de Golfo Gulf Cartel La Familia Reynosa Nuevo Leon Narcos Narco banners (Spanish equivalents) Los Zetas Shootout Execution Gunfight Trafficking Kidnap Calderon Reyosa Bust Tamaulipas Meth Lab Drug trade Illegal immigrants Smuggling (smugglers) Matamoros Michoacana Guzman Arellano-Felix Beltran-Leyva Barrio Azteca Artistic Assassins Mexicles New Federation Terrorism Terrorism Al Qaeda (all spellings) Terror Attack Iraq Afghanistan Iran Pakistan Agro Environmental terrorist Eco terrorism Conventional weapon Target Weapons grade Dirty bomb Enriched Nuclear Chemical weapon Biological weapon Ammonium nitrate Improvised explosive device IED (Improvised Explosive Device) Abu Sayyaf Hamas FARC (Armed Revolutionary Forces Colombia) IRA (Irish Republican Army) ETA (Euskadi ta Askatasuna) Basque Separatists Hezbollah Tamil Tigers PLF (Palestine Liberation Front) PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization Car bomb Jihad Taliban Weapons cache Suicide bomber Suicide attack Suspicious substance AQAP (AL Qaeda Arabian Peninsula) AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan) Yemen Pirates Extremism Somalia Nigeria Radicals Al-Shabaab Home grown Plot Nationalist Recruitment Fundamentalism Islamist Weather/Disaster/Emergency Emergency Hurricane Tornado Twister Tsunami Earthquake Tremor Flood Storm Crest Temblor Extreme weather Forest fire Brush fire Ice Stranded/Stuck Help Hail Wildfire Tsunami Warning Center Magnitude Avalanche Typhoon Shelter-in-place Disaster Snow Blizzard Sleet Mud slide or Mudslide Erosion Power outage Brown out Warning Watch Lightening Aid Relief Closure Interstate Burst Emergency Broadcast System Cyber Security Cyber security Botnet DDOS (dedicated denial of service) Denial of service Malware Virus Trojan Keylogger Cyber Command 2600 Spammer Phishing Rootkit Phreaking Cain and abel Brute forcing Mysql injection Cyber attack Cyber terror Hacker China Conficker Worm Scammers Social media Other Breaking News

To Homeland Security: Welcome to The Great Redoubt, guys. Hope you like it.

To everyone else: Sleep tight, secure in the knowledge that your government is watching you.