The CIA Wants Your Tweets

Not exactly the shocker of the century, but one to take note of nonetheless; the CIA is now investing in a technology that oversees all sorts of Internet chit-chat. Visible Technologies, a software firm that monitors and steers social media, is the company the CIA has chosen to closely monitor the clicks, requests, tweets, pokes, stumbles, diggs, feeds and any other dumb-downed cutesy-titled web exercises one may engage in.

The government has been watching us for arguably all our lives. While others are tracked more closely than some, when suspicious web activity has surged, some government agencies have proven to be at least in the game, though not necessarily a step ahead.

However, Wired Magazine just broke the story about what the CIA wants now: “America’s spy agencies want to read your blog posts, keep track of your Twitter updates — even check out your book reviews on Amazon.”

The magazine goes on: “In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA and the wider intelligence community, is putting cash into Visible Technologies… It’s part of a larger movement within the spy services to get better at using ‘open source intelligence’ — meaning information that is publicly available, but often hidden in the flood of TV shows, newspaper articles, blog posts, online videos and radio reports generated every day.”

Visible scours almost a million 2.0 websites every day, nitpicking posts, conversations, blogs, Flickr, Youtube, and the like, to dish out a rundown of what is being said on these sites. People subscribed to Visible are provided with a plate of real-time feeds of everything searched and said, based on a series of keywords.

The CIA states it wants Visible to track foreign social media, and issue spooks, which are “early-warning detections on how issues are playing internationally.”

Of course, the problem with all this is the paramount difference between saying and doing.

We all post, send and comment with little second thought. And in the back of the basement of our minds is the understanding that the internet is public territory. Still, we have correspondingly experienced at least one bout of unfair or unmerited attention based on our web activity or actions exhibited over the web.

Although anything we put out there is technically fair game, it could quickly become controversial if the CIA utilized information gathered through Visible to conduct unauthorized investigations. I am abashed to say I become elated when a friend forgets to log off  their Facebook or email, unaware of the cyber playground they have invited me into. Although I respectfully pass up the chance to take a ride through their virtual life I question whether any unrelated person or entity would.

So now imagine the CIA possessing that same power, without having to bank on someone obliviously forgetting to log off their account. They have unrestricted access to know what sites are visited, photos commented, videos Youtubed by anyone-civilians, political candidates, journalists, lawyers, doctors, professors or even fellow government employees or military.

The potential for the abuse of information and exploitation of data will surely keep the lawyers busy. CIA’s investment in Visible could morph them into a sect of unofficial cyber cops, opening an avenue of attack that will blindside the public through this internet eavesdropping.

So, evil doers beware. The next friend you accept on FB could be the CIA Director, unbeknownst to you.

Web information has been public property long before AOL “welcomed” us, however never before have we seen a federal tool that can weave together seemingly mindless tweets, blurbs, blogs, hits, messages, clicks and conversations.

In an age where any shred of information can be spun to tell whatever story needs to be sold, cyber geeks are being badged, granting them the right to collect individual elements to form a pattern of behavior one may find compromising, unflattering, telling and most jeopardizing-true.