EFF Sues Government Over Social Network Use
A non-profit Internet rights watchdog is calling out the government on its use of social networks. Go get em! Arf!
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is taking several branches of the U.S. government to court. Why? Because the EFF claims that the CIA, the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, and many other agencies are refusing to provide specific records on social network use. Specifically, the non-profit Internet rights watchdog demands to know how the government is using Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr in surveillance and investigations.
The EFF filed the complaint yesterday in federal court in San Francisco according to the organization's news report, and accuses the government agencies of not clarifying their use of the social websites. The EFF also wants to determine whether the agencies are implementing restrictions, and if those agencies are taking the steps to prevent abuse.
"Millions of people use social networking sites like Facebook every day, disclosing lots of information about their private lives," said James Tucker, a student working with EFF through the Samuelson Clinic. "As Congress debates new privacy laws covering sites like Facebook, lawmakers and voters alike need to know how the government is already using this data and what is at stake."
The report clams that several government agencies did not respond to the EFF's original Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The Samuelson Clinic thus filed suit against those organization on behalf of the EFF. The lawsuit demands the immediate release of all information regarding to governmental use of social networks. The full complaint can be read here (PDF).
Somehow, this feels like a Dr. Evil moment.
Get more tech and gaming news by hitting me up on Twitter here.
- Square: Accept Credit Card Payments on Phone
- AT&T Places Last in Consumer Reports Study
- Man Officially Married Virtual GF, Plans Future
- Royal Navy to Use PSPs as Training Tools
- Using Google-Wave to Track A Man-Hunt
- Leak Says Google Phone is a "Certainty"
- 12-inch Netbooks to Go Mainstream in 2010
- Man Arrested Robbing RuneScape Characters
- Nintendo Sold 1.5 Million Systems Last Week
- Mirror's Edge Leaps Onto iPhone Jan 2010
- AT&T's Case Against Verizon Dismissed
- Roomba Saves Family From Poisonous Snake
- Snoop Dogg Lends His Voice to GPS Navigation
- Xbox Live Marketplace Getting Pets
- Parents Pull Girl's Tooth, Scares Cat With RC Car
- New Super Mario Bros. Wii Looks Great in 1080p
- Bing Maps Beta Now Available, Uses 3D
- App Plays Mario Sounds to Match Your Movement
- Man Controls Prosthetic Arm With His Mind
I would be interested in knowing this info as well.
The things with social networks is how "open" they are. I can go and look at this person's profile on Facebook and find out all about them, even in some cases getting information that I could easily use to track them down. If I was a detective/private eye, or a CIA agent or FBI or "insert acronym for an intelligence agency of your choice here" I would use facebook and twitter and whatever else to track down my targets, marks or whatnot. It is not surprising at all that we see the government using these social networks, they get more info about a person on those things than that same person's tax return.
"I doubt any serious terrorist is going to be tweeting critical info to terrorist cells."
why not it's a huge data streem and i dont think theyd be totaly direct.
i.e. code's like my dog needs to see the vet. = something like one of the gay's we sent on a covert op got shot.
who knows?
"The report clams that several government agencies did not respond to the EFF's original Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request."
Lol, I didnt know that a report could "clam" anything at all. haha
I'm glad they are doing something. Uncle Sam spies on us more than we think, so we might as well try and keep them out of social network sites; once less thing to worry about.
I have no problem with the government monitoring and doing analyses of social networking sites, but I hope these guys get their answers too under FOIA, and I will be very curious to see the results.
My guess is they are doing is looking for appearances of certain key words or phrases on an aggregate scale to determine the general emotional state of the world/country as represented on the internet. Kind of like Ozymandious in the Watchmen. Except they won't be sending in a psychic alien monster afterwards.
people stupid enough to put up personal info deserve to be caught. I hope they keep doing it!
And you give, and you give, and you give yourself away...
"Oh, by the way, we'll be wiretapping your phones Mr Mafia Dude, just wanted to let you know in advance!"
Yeah, they will really tell a watchdog what they are doing, kinda defeats the concept of SIGINT now doesn't it?
If the people who post on those sites didn't want their "private" lives exposed THEN DON'T POST OR PUT ANYTHING ON THEM!!!
I say once you post on one of those your whole privacy goes out the door. So the government can do whatever they want with that.
However if they had their information private and not many people do and then the government got your information by whatever means then I do have a problem with that.
I think the goal of this is to find out how exactly xxx gov agency is getting the information from these social networking sites. Obviously, if someone leaves their profile(s) publicly accessible, then the info is there for anyone to use, civilian or government personnel, for good or for ill. Now the real question is: what happens when someone wants info from a private profile? Are they creating fake profiles hoping to gain access? (masquerading as someone who knew you in high school, or any number of scenarios) Are they directly hacking/hijacking the accounts? Blatant invasions of privacy, both. Authorities should have to go through the same warrant procedure for something like this as they do with wiretaps, and I think to this point they've just been doing as they please.