Situational awareness in a social media age
By Iain Thomson
Venerable internet repository Cryptome has released a list of social media web sites that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) monitors to gauge the mood of the online populace.
The document lists 96 sites, including social media, blogs and news aggregators, which have been monitored since January 2011. Almost all require no password to access – the two exceptions being Facebook and Twitter.
“The Department of Homeland Security’s National Operations Center (NOC) employs social media monitoring for situational awareness purposes only, within the clearly defined parameters articulated in our Privacy Impact Assessment, to ensure that critical information reaches appropriate decision-makers,” Chris Ortman, DHS spokesman told The Register. (more on theregister.co.uk)
