Pork, Cloud, Cops? The List of Words You Can't Say Online Without Being Monitored by the Government
The Department of Homeland Security has been forced to
release the keywords and phrases it uses to patrol the web for domestic
and external threats.
A short
burst of hail and sleet falling from a cloud over San Diego has caused
delays on the subway. Bad organization through social media means that
my team exercise drill has been cancelled. It’s actually a relief as
I’ve been feeling sick after eating some pork that had a worm in it.
These
three sentences may sound odd for a number of reasons. First, there is
no subway in San Diego. Second, even if there were one, the chances of
its being affected by hail or sleet would be minuscule. (I’m not even
going to go into why I might be eating pork with worms in it.) However,
the main reason these few sentences are peculiar is that they contain 17
(seventeen!) keywords that will be picked up by government analysts
monitoring social media and online news outlets. Believe it or not, what
they’re trolling for are signs of terrorist attacks and other threats
to the U.S.
A recent Freedom of
Information request has forced the Department of Homeland Security to
release the keywords and phrases it uses to patrol the web for domestic
and external threats. The list contains obvious terms like “dirty bomb,”
“assassination” and “Al Qaeda,” but also includes such broad and
ambiguous terms as “Mexico,” “agriculture,” and “wave”.
The
Electronic Privacy Information Center – the watchdog group that filed
the Freedom of Information request—pointed out that the list of keywords
includes “vast amounts of First Amendment protected speech that is
entirely unrelated to the Department of Homeland Security mission to
protect the public against terrorism and disasters.”
Read the Homeland Security manual here, or take a look at the full list of keywords below and let us know what you think.
