Author Topic: Pentagon Plans to Monitor Social Media of Military Personnel for Extremist Content  (Read 526 times)

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Online mountaineer

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Pentagon Plans to Monitor Social Media of Military Personnel for Extremist Content
The military has previously balked at surveilling service members for extremist political views due to First Amendment protections.
Ken Klippenstein
May 17 2021, 4:25 p.m.
Quote
As part of the Biden administration’s crackdown on domestic extremism, the Pentagon plans to launch a pilot program for screening social media content for extremist material, according to internal Defense Department documents reviewed by The Intercept, as well as a source with direct knowledge of the program.

An extremism steering committee led by Bishop Garrison, a senior adviser to the secretary of defense, is currently designing the social media screening pilot program, which will “continuously” monitor military personnel for “concerning behaviors,” according to a Pentagon briefing in late March.

Although in the past the military has balked at surveilling service members for extremist political views due to First Amendment protections, the pilot program will rely on a private surveillance firm in order to circumvent First Amendment restrictions on government monitoring, according to a senior Pentagon official. Though the firm has not yet been selected, the current front runner is Babel Street, a company that sells powerful surveillance tools including social media monitoring software.

Babel Street has drawn criticism for its practice of buying bulk cellular location data and selling it to federal national security agencies like the Secret Service, who rely on the private company to bypass warrant requirements normally imposed on government bodies seeking to collect data. In November, Vice reported that the U.S. military’s Special Operations Command used one of Babel Street’s products, Locate X, to track the location of individuals for special forces operations. One method Babel controversially used was to purchase location data associated with the users of a popular Muslim prayer app. ...
Full story at The Intercept

See also Meet Babel Street, the Powerful Social Media Surveillance Used by Police, Secret Service, and Sports Stadiums, from Vice.com.
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Online Fishrrman

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I haven't put this up in a while, but here's my "right to privacy" amendment:
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Citizens protected by this Constitution possess an inalienable right to privacy in their persons, businesses, and homes, and while they are in public.

It shall be a violation of this Constitution for the United States or for the several States or for any private citizen or entity to violate or invade the individual privacy of citizens by use of physical, mechanical, digital or electronic means or by the use of devices on land, on water, below the ground, or from the air.

This protection shall extend to all lawful communications and acts by an individual citizen or between two or more citizens, including content that is spoken, written, or electronically transmitted. It shall extend to citizens regardless of their location, whether in private or in public.

The only exceptions will be as governed by the Fourth Amendment of this Constitution.
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I've slightly modified it by adding the words "or for any private citizen or entity".
This would cover "using a private surveillance firm" from doing the government's dirty work.

Would YOU support such an amendment...?

Online mountaineer

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Jack Posobiec
@JackPosobiec
BREAKING: Biden Pentagon to welcome discredited, anti-Christian SPLC activists to advise Counter Extremism Working Group

4:35 PM · May 19, 2021


https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1395115836545945609
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