Wednesday, March 07, 2012

Analyst Desktop Binder from the Department of Homeland Security




I am participating in Black March 2012 ergo any reviews of media I do during this month will be of things I found on the internet or in coffeehouses or at the library to read; or of places I've traveled to. 

In my travels via DuckDuckGo-- my newest search engine love-- I came across the much touted Analyst Desktop Binder as published by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.  Epic dot org obtained it via a FOIC and then published it on the web at
http://epic.org/foia/epic-v-dhs-media-monitoring/Analyst-Desktop-Binder-REDACTED.pdf
for our enlightenment and benefit.  Because we need to know what is going on with our government and within the agency that Congress had established several years ago.

The document is 39 pages long and makes for an interesting read.  On page 24, there is an example of governmental snark regarding our rights to privacy which reads in part, "...analysts must ensure that if there is any PII included in a media article, that information must be removed, due to privacy issues!...".  PII is any personally identifying information that can lead one to the person who wrote the article that is being examined.  Resisting the temptation to head off on an extended mental masturbation over that phrase, I will bravely head onwards to pages 21 through 23 where there is an extensive list of words that appear in social media which may trigger an agent to pay attention.  These words have been victim to much sarcasm over the electronic waves, myself included.  After we are exposed to the bad words, the document goes on to illustrate exactly how an agent will make his or her report of an article or blog or tweet containing the forbidden suspicious words.

sapphoq reviews says: The Analyst Desktop Binder is worth a read through.  I am tentatively committed to ensuring use of some of the offending words throughout the blogosphere during the month of March.  Words have power, and power can be dangerous or fatal in the hands of the wrong people.  I would have liked to have a list of favorable approved words to go along with the list of bad ones.

http://epic.org/foia/epic-v-dhs-media-monitoring/Analyst-Desktop-Binder-REDACTED.pdf

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