
FBI ‘Can Neither Confirm nor Deny’ That It Monitors Your Social Media Posts - deegles
https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/internet-speech/fbi-can-neither-confirm-nor-deny-it-monitors-your-social-media
======
mey
Why wouldn't they? The publicly exposed data is publicly exposed. Is there any
reasonable sense to privacy at that point? The more interesting question is
how much data do they get that is "private" without a warrant.

The following are a few examples of how the private data may be being gathered
by the FBI, under existing legal structures.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/us/politics/nsa-gets-
more...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/us/politics/nsa-gets-more-
latitude-to-share-intercepted-communications.html)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter)

There is also the possibility of voluntary cooperation by corporations, or
even corporations selling commercial access to their data (Facebook, Cellular
Carriers).

~~~
princeofwands
> Is there any reasonable sense to privacy at that point?

Yes there is. This data is mined without reasonable suspicion, and shared with
all parties, including contractors (commercial companies).

Surveillance without suspicion, storing such data indefinately, is chilling to
free speech, opposed to protections against unreasonable searches, makes it
more difficult to associate and practice one's religion.

People with no intention to commit crimes are in jail or have a record,
because they decided to joke among friends, and had just a bit too big
exposure, and just too little context. In the Netherlands you may get a house
visit from the police if you tweet critical of the town mayor or tweet about
protests (of course, they label it "threats" and "inciting civil unrest")

~~~
craftyguy
> This data is mined without reasonable suspicion

Uh, no. If you post a billboard on the side of the road or hang a letter on a
public bulletin board, anyone can freely quote it, take a picture of it, or
read it and tell others about it. If you post something on a public internet
website, anyone can freely quote it, take a picture of it (err, screenshot),
or read it and tell others about it. There's no difference. Public is public
is public.

~~~
diafygi
I think the parent comment is pointing out that the _government_ is supposed
to be prohibited from collecting information unless it needs to (e.g.
reasonable suspicion), no matter if it's public or not.

Specifically, in the U.S., the Supreme Court confirmed that public data can
still be protected by a warrant if used to compose a "mosaic" of something
within a person's reasonable expectation of privacy.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Jones](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Jones)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_v._United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_v._United_States)

So, could a private company follow you around and read every tweet you post
publicly? Yes. Could a government do the same without a warrant (or even ask
the company to give the information to them)? No.

The restriction is on the government, not the data. I guess in Europe, now
with the GDPR, this restriction also falls on companies, too.

------
tbabb
Consider this angle the next time there is a mass shooting, and the attack is
foreshadowed by troubling social media posts by the perpetrator. In those
circumstances, there are often cries of "why was nothing done to prevent
this?"

I'm not advocating a specific side here, only pointing out that the two
positions are fundamentally at odds with each other.

~~~
filmgirlcw
I disagree those two positions are at odds.

You can be vehemently against social media monitoring by government agencies
and warrantless wiretaps and still point out the many times law enforcement
and others in a position to help ignore signs of distress.

Moreover, there isn’t proof that this type of monitoring actively stops mass
shootings or other attacks. Sometimes it does — for sure (though mostly when
communication is happening through email and not social posts) — but we’ve
seen plenty of anecdotes where concerning public postings were pointed out to
authorities and nothing was done.

~~~
tbabb
> vehemently against social media monitoring by government agencies and
> warrantless wiretaps

Does reading publicly published information constitute wiretapping?

> we’ve seen plenty of anecdotes where concerning public postings were pointed
> out to authorities and nothing was done

This is what I'm getting at-- responding to obviously-troubling social media
posts seems entirely reasonable after the fact. Perhaps it is? But at the same
time it carries an implication of law enforcement pre-emptively acting based
on the content of public speech, which has its own worrying implications, as
evidenced by the examples in the article.

Earnest question: What's the legal boundary in other circumstances? Can/should
law enforcement take action if a person uses a megaphone in the town square to
announce they're going to use their AR-15 to kill all the $x people? If they
published an op-ed in the local newspaper to the same effect? (If yes, how is
facebook/twitter different from a town square / op-ed column?)

------
medion
Of course they do, it's called OSINT and many agencies around the world
collect & monitor social media for archival and profiling purposes...

------
tareqak
In United States law, the term Glomar response, also known as Glomarization or
Glomar denial, refers to a response to a request for information that will
"neither confirm nor deny" (NCND) the existence of the information sought [0].

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_response](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_response)

~~~
trophycase
AKA: We can't legally lie, but we also won't tell the truth to avoid damaging
our reputation.

------
sdinsn
Law enforcement are allowed to collect any _public_ data without a warrant.

~~~
princeofwands
But it would be better if they had to show reasonable suspicion.

> Effective law enforcement often requires undercover work, information
> gathering and surveillance of suspected criminals. Such surveillance should
> be based on reasonable suspicion of criminal activity – and ended when that
> suspicion is dispelled.

> However, when conducted without suspicion of criminal activity, especially
> when targeted at unpopular political groups, or when intended to profile
> religious, ethnic or racial minorities, it violates the right to be free of
> unwarranted government intrusion and to exercise free speech, association,
> and practice one’s religion. The harm to those under surveillance without
> suspicion is made worse when the information collected about them and their
> activities is shared by local, state and federal law enforcement, military
> and security agencies and stored in multiple databases, just in case it
> might ever become useful.

> In addition to chilling speech, surveillance without suspicion actually
> makes law enforcement less effective. When authorities are swamped with
> mountains of irrelevant and inaccurate information, their ability to
> properly analyze data is compromised. Ultimately, these practices make us
> less safe.

[https://www.aclu-wa.org/pages/surveillance-without-
suspicion](https://www.aclu-wa.org/pages/surveillance-without-suspicion)

Right now, your social media might be mined to classify you as an "anarchist",
after which you may be pulled over and arrested when you are driving close to
an anti-war protest. To me, that does not sound just at all.

~~~
sdinsn
> Right now, your social media might be mined to classify you as an
> "anarchist"

If police want to classify you as that, that's fine. It's meaningless.

> after which you may be pulled over and arrested when you are driving close
> to an anti-war protest

Arrested for what? Police would only be able to arrest if they have a reason,
and being an anarchist / going to a protest is not a reason (in the US, at
least).

Please don't spread fear and misinformation.

~~~
princeofwands
Please don't accuse me of spreading misinformation. The case was linked on the
page I cited.

[https://www.aclu-wa.org/docs/chinn-v-blankenship-complaint](https://www.aclu-
wa.org/docs/chinn-v-blankenship-complaint)

> If police want to classify you as that, that's fine. It's meaningless.

No it is not meaningless. Police see anarchists and alt-right activists as
"harboring ideas that are subversive to state control", meaning, you get on
their shit list.

> Arrested for what?

The police stopped the car after it was identified as carrying 3 anarchists
(stop & search under false pre-text) close to an anti-war protest. A police
officer then arrested the driver for seemingly being under the influence of
weed, without any evidence or probably cause, and had him locked up at the
police station.

So while you are correct that being an anarchist going to a protest is not a
valid reason, if the police wants you off the streets (because they classified
you as being shit), they will use another reason (such as: "He looked under
the influence of weed" or another popular one: "contempt of cop", which rarely
carry any penalties for the cops and kind of act like Joker cards so they can
go with a gut feeling over solid proof or cause)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contempt_of_cop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contempt_of_cop)

------
renholder
Laying aside the issue of the monitoring of U.S. Citizens versus the
monitoring of Europeans, it would seem to me that they'd need something a
little more nefarious than a simple data parsing and analytics toolset to
access non-public posts, yeah?

I don't Facebook, so I'm not sure if the default settings for Facebook are
"Public" or "Friends Only" but I'd imagine that the bulk of what they'd
principally be interested in is the "Friends Only" stuff, yeah?

~~~
princeofwands
Yes, they are interested in private Facebook data. And no, you can't trust
Facebook to not facilitate them if the wallets get opened, or if the police
gets creative and starts sending you friend requests.

[https://theintercept.com/2018/03/26/facebook-data-ice-
immigr...](https://theintercept.com/2018/03/26/facebook-data-ice-immigration/)

[https://bgr.com/2018/09/25/facebook-police-fake-
profiles/](https://bgr.com/2018/09/25/facebook-police-fake-profiles/)

------
openSource_lol
If you pay attention to enough tech talks, “ _open source intel_ ” is wonk
parlance for “ _we are watching every move for everyone ever, all over the
internet, especially in the places where people feel like they can speak
freely._ ”

That term, “ _open source intel_ ” is dropped with a wink, by every security
goon, in at least one slide at every security conference.

------
ggggtez
Well sure. Doesn't anyone remember what Snowden was known for revealing? Why
would anyone think Twitter and Facebook would be exempt from monitoring?

------
pmarreck
Good. I hope to have a reason to do business with them someday, would probably
be very interesting.

(This comment has not at all been informed by the possibility suggested in the
title of the submission...)

