As the result of a Freedom of Information Act request, the US Government has released the list of words that will trigger the Department of Homeland Security to start monitoring your online contributions and conversations. The list is divided into sections by subject matter.
Figure 1. You can call it a thunderstorm, but under no circumstances should you call it “extreme weather”
I was greatly amused to find a section for words about “Weather” on the list, which contains the following terms.
Weather/Disaster/Emergency Emergency Hurricane Tornado Twister Tsunami Earthquake Tremor Flood Storm Crest Temblor Extreme weather Forest fire Brush fire Ice Stranded/Stuck Help Hail Wildfire Tsunami Warning Center Magnitude Avalanche Typhoon Shelter-in-place Disaster Snow Blizzard Sleet Mud slide or Mudslide Erosion Power outage Brown out Warning Watch Lightening Aid Relief Closure Interstate Burst Emergency Broadcast System
Looks like WUWT is going to be front and center 24/7/365 at the Department of Homeland Security, no matter what we do …
Lest you think I’m making this up, the list of words is on page 23 of the “Analyst’s Binder“, which describes the situation for those doing the analysis …
w.
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Addendum by Anthony: I would add that Climate Progress, GRIST, Yale Environment Forum, DeSmog Blog, 350.org, and other “extreme weather = climate” alarmist websites also use these words, as does NOAA itself daily. Hopefully, they have DHS analysts capable of actually analyzing intent rather than relying on “tribal profiling”. – Anthony
suyts says:
May 29, 2012 at 12:00 pm
Terrorists must be the dumbest creatures on earth if they can’t get past a group of people concentrating on weather words….. ostensibly code for something?
============
wel f dey txt…..it’s ll skrood
This is not bad policy.
Crying fire in a crowded theatre is dangerous.
Crying hurricane for a laugh is wrong.
But I think catastrophist views of AGW have more to worry about.
?sdrawkcab nettirw sdrow eseht rof kcehc osla yeht oD
Anybody besides me also a retired Marine, Nam vet, and a gun nut who also hangs out with bikers, and lives out in the MS woods?
Shoot, I already have dossier about a foot thick.
I am SO going over to my blog after work and trying to get myself investigated. 🙂
Given all the contrarians who visit this site, Drudge and others like it, I expect an avalanche of emails and comments purposely including these words hitting the internet like a tsunami. I hope the DHS computers are up to the task.
Jay Davis
when we did GAG NSA day around ten years back, we accomplished the mission by attaching the long list of keywords to every email, putting it on webpages with the same color type as the background and flooded the net with them.
the result was that the nsa shut down for 24 hours in anticipation – to avoid the flood.
we know this because internet speeds rose 10 times at 11:30 pm pst and persisted at high speed until almost exactly 24 hours later. their gateways slow things down that much, apparently.
now it cheers me immensely to see that this list of keywords is again flooding the nsa.
they are sent thru the monitors every time anybody reads this page.
good job. P-} harr!
Stephen Rasey says:
May 29, 2012 at 12:10 pm
You are grounded for life … not to mention me, I put all of the words in a single blog post.
It’d be laughable if they weren’t so serious about it. But then again, “privacy” is sooo 20th century …
w.
Help? Well, OK if they respond quickly to an emergency plea.
The FULL LIST is much more extensive than this; Anthony posted only the weather-related terms above … the other categories include:
o DHS & Other Agencies
o HAZMAT & Nuclear
o Health Concern + H1N1
http://www.businessinsider.com/youll-be-surprised-by-the-words-dhs-agents-desktop-binder-tells-them-to-look-for-on-your-facebook-page-2012-5?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+businessinsider+(Business+Insider
.
@ur momisugly Bill Tuttle “Remember the hubbub over CARNIVORE a decade ago? Remember the FBI saying the bureau wasn’t going to use it any more? Technically, they told the truth — they don’t use CARNIVORE any more. They did, however, re-name it…”
Ouch! No, I had forgotten about that one. Sigh…
In the past (as in the Eschelon monitoring program) US agencies sometime just got foreign agencies to do what the US agencies found inconvenient. “You monitor our citizens and we’ll monitor your citizens. Then we will just swap info!” This gives instant deniability. “What? You think we would dare to violate the US Bill of Rights here in the good old USA?! Of course not!”
I think we are almost past the time when US agencies request actions by foreign agencies; we are approaching the next step, and it is not a good development.
@Jason Calley.
“Hmmmm…”
I agree 100%.
Insane.
This, added to Black Boxes mandated in all post 2014 cars (where future warmists could track you, outlawing all unessential driving; where were the Repubs on this? [answer: on board, they are the “authoritarian” establishment Repubs]), warrantless searches OKed in almost all circumstances (for example, if you “object” to a search request, that is grounds for a search! kind of comparable to medieval witch trials where they tossed you into a pond and said “if he floats, he’s guilty”), overhead Drones, talk of clampdowns on free speech on the net (including among commenters, and conservatives!), TSA’s craziness, endless property rights infringements by the EPA & the econuts, and lots more I can’t even think of.
I wasn’t for Ron Paul, but sometimes enough is enough. Perhaps, even if Mitt wins this time, in 2016 we should go with a Ron Paul like figure (with just the right amount of “moderation” in key spots to get a new > 50% coalition [including the youth vote]), perhaps Rand Paul.
Of course, as _Jim says, the real terrorists will be using encryption.
So, clearly this silliness is not about real terrorism. It’s about monitoring social dissidence while maintaining an appearance of “doing something about terrorism”.
Looks like its time to reinvent Cockey rhyming slang, but we need to know the other trigger (oops?) words so as to avoid them: eg ‘in the muck’ instead of ‘stuck’. Of course, the use of acronyms will then be magnified, causing even more confusion to newbies. Sigh…
Well ,our codling government needs to protect us from any weather terrorism that someone on the internet might be scheming.Thank heavens.
Back in the early 1980s, a friend had just started working as a technician for the British Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) in Gloucestershire. His parents are pretty hard left-wing, so he was subject to serious positive vetting before recruitment.
One Friday evening, he arrived home for the weekend to hear his Dad say “Guess what, your uncle (living in the USA at the time) called a few days ago. He’s coming to visit.”
“Yes, I know, Dad,” he said.
That is hilarious, since I worked 14 years in Disaster Emergency Services, and also am a skywarn storm spotter for the National Weather Service, I must be very well represented in their files. I also did training on Nuclear Weapons Effects as part of my official duties conducting the Radiological Defense courses for the state, and routinely get asked questions on those topics every year. I bet I’ve been flagged every way from Sunday for years.
I would like to see the data base they use to manage zettabytes of data from all those email messages.
Larry
If you actually read the linked analysts binder, this has nothing to do with monitoring peoples email or other personal communications, nor does it tie to any law enforcement efforts. The binder is about policy for creating and distributing National Situation Summaries and International Situation Summaries. There are 4 tiers of sources listed in the binder:
1. primary and prefered sources are the major news networks (televison/radio), news papers and international news agencies.
2. Government or specialized sites with a specific focus. Often includes .org’s, .net’s,and .co’s.
Obviously partisan or agenda-driven sites
3. Tabloids (national and international); Blogs, even if they are of a serious, political nature;
Popular magazines
4. News collection/ compilation sites
Tier 2 idealy should be corroberated with a tier 1 source
Tiers 3 & 4 must be corroborated with a tier 1 source.
Given that FEMA falls under DHS there is nothing untoward or sinister about the inclusion of weather / natural disaster terms being included in the search criteria.
Gary Hladik says:
May 29, 2012 at 12:30 pm
?sdrawkcab nettirw sdrow eseht rof kcehc osla yeht oD
+++++++++++++
od ylbaborp yehT
Are there ANY safe words??
Monitoring everyone is the same as monitoring nobody. How does one investigate 2,000,000 hits or flags per day. Sure would solve the unemployment problem… everyone could be employed investigating everyone. Say… maybe we could monitor every home thru a large monitor in every room. Hmmm. GK
I’ve used all the “no-no” words and have a recent TSA full body scan….do I move to the front row at Gitmo ?
I saw a list of all the word categories and words earlier today. I’m in deep sh*t because lots of words I use in emails related to Health Science issues will trigger a look.
@ur momisugly G. Karst and Faux Science Slayer
As I said above, the linked document is about monitoring published news sources and websites, not individual people’s private communications and it is not tied to law enforcement efforts. It is all about DHS maintainting situational awareness though summary reports.
One of the things that FEMA got slammed for after hurricane Katrina was not having situational awarness and not preping emergency response resources before the state governments asked for help.
Given that FEMA is now part of DHS there is NOTHING sinister about the inclusion of weather/natural disaster terms in the keyword lists for doing the analyis to prepare the situation summaries.
Curiousgeorge says:
May 29, 2012 at 12:31 pm
Anybody besides me also a retired Marine, Nam vet, and a gun nut who also hangs out with bikers, and lives out in the MS woods?
Retired Army. I’ll see your Vietnam and raise you Bosnia, Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The TSA in Philly (hiya, fellas!) have “accidentally” razored my hold baggage a couple of times, playing “Find the Kabar”…
Anybody who really knows anything about how the monitoring is done, can’t talk about it, because the monitoring is “methods” and this is “Special Compartmented Information” (SCI). A Top Secret SCI clearance is the highest level clearance given. The people talking about this stuff do NOT know what they are talking about, proven by the very fact that they are talking.