
US Government Is Building a 'Media Influence Database' to Track Journalists - dpatru
https://gizmodo.com/homeland-security-wants-to-build-an-online-media-influe-1825060190
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microcolonel
I don't think this is as sinister as it can be made out to be, or at least, I
don't think this is a signal that things are becoming _more_ sinister than
they already were. It should be well known that this is one of the major
things intelligence agencies like to track. It's hard to imagine that this
wasn't part of the purpose of the original ORACLE contract; at this point it
is a mystery to me why they need to contract externally for this, but I guess
there's a bit more to it than is reported here.

This is part of what they mean when they say PSY-OPS. In order to conduct the
op, you have to select [an] asset[s]. In order to select [an] asset[s] you
need to have some idea of which potential assets you can develop, and whether
or not they will be helpful.

From a policy perspective, I'm not sure operations like this should be
permitted, but the mandate is there, and it has been there for decades by now.
It is not unreasonable for them to request resources to fulfill that mandate.

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fallingfrog
There is no good reason for anybody to be doing this. I used to give the
benefit of the doubt whenever a new action was taken by the government that
seemed to have an exploitable loophole; but I've learned that if a regulation
or agency _can_ be weaponized and exploited, it will be.

So to paraphrase George R.R. Martin, what's the worst reason that they could
have to wanting to do this? Well, they likely want to stifle the voices of
whoever they feel is opposing their power, or to map out the relationships
between people in the media who make up the political left. Then, they may
attempt to harass them, get them fired from their jobs, buy the organizations
supporting them, and so forth. Or they may try to find some point of
disagreement among them to turn them against each other.

You probably think this is paranoid; but history suggests that something like
this is what will happen.

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Maarten88
They can't store data from European journalists, it's not GDPR compliant to
gather personal data without consent. (I'm assuming there is no law requiring
this information to exist)

In seriousness, it's scary how the US and EU seem to be driven apart recently.
Incompatible laws and unilateral policies will lead to all sorts of real world
problems.

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tartuffe78
Is your public work personal data?

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Maarten88
I think not, but if you were to take thousands (maybe millions) of public
articles, take the authors names and process the content to extract
affiliations, opinions, religion and beliefs and compile a database from that,
you are creating a new (and i.m.o. extremely dangerous) database with personal
data. IANAL, but I think creating/having such a database would be highly
illegal under GDPR.

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microcolonel
Good thing the U.S. Federal government doesn't conduct business in Europe.

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ForHackernews
This sounds like what Elon Musk wanted. Maybe his "Pravda" company can put in
a bid.

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CamelCaseName
How short is the typical time to bid on a government contract? FTA, this was
only accepting bids for 10 days! That hardly seems like enough time. Has there
been any follow-up since the bid period closed on April 13th?

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acct1771
...you don't actually think that the majority of government bids are anything
more than for show, right?

