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
Mark:
Thankyou for your post to me at May 30, 2012 at 1:32 am. I enjoyed it.
I worked at the Coal Research Establishment (CRE) near Cheltenham in the days of IRA terrorism. In the event of a bomb scare at CRE the “Hereford YMCA” were to defuse the problem.
Richard
It looks to me like they are using the web as an early warning system for natural disasters. When someone tweets about interstate closures, tornadoes and lightning, the system alerts someone at homeland security and tells then they should pay attention to that tweet.
I don’t find this particularly sinister
Good clarification, thanks – however my point still stands. GK
Poetry contest!
http://megmclain.com/2012/05/29/the-online-terrorist-keywords-poetry-contest/ says, in part
Caleb says:
May 29, 2012 at 8:34 pm
So Depressing. No respect for fellow Americans. No trust. How guilt-ridden must they be, to fear others so much?
______________________________
Not guilt ridden just burned once twice shy.
A brush with our legal system, either as a victim or as a “criminal” makes you wake up in a hurry. My neighbor who is an honest cop has told me he will not work for the law enforcement in my town or county because they are very very crooked. This is substantiated by what I have witnessed and what others in the neighborhood have gone through.
I know of people who have had their houses and cars broken into by “government officials” so evidence was removed for example.
So its still safe to talk about whether or not it might rain tomorrow, just don’t mention a potential for hail, sleet or snow?
Too late…
Yes that is correct, that is how the concept was sold (and it is a valid and useful concept in its own right). For example the CDC can get a heads up on disease outbreaks by monitoring Google search queries. If suddenly a large number of people in some obscure mid America town start doing Google searches on Malaria or dengue fever symptoms or some other disease that is not considered routine for the area, that is a warning bell that something is amiss.
The problem is that in large bureaucracies, initiatives seldom retain their original intent or application, and like mission creep in a military campaign, people in the system gradually find “new and useful” ways to apply the information gathered. Like attorneys looking for loop holes in tax law, if there is a seam to squeeze through to allow some less desirable application, you can be assured that in time it will be used unless there is some statutory limit that prevents it.
Laws that depend on “good will” of the government or bureaucracies are doomed to gradually migrate toward more sinister and intrusive uses unless there is a very strong limit on how the means can be used. Even then things occasionally go outside the bounds.
The biggest difference between the conservative and the liberal is that the liberal assumes good intent will prevail (and actually believes the feel good sales pitch), and the conservative doubts the sales pitch and wonders how this ability could be misused. He/she understands human nature and expects good intent to in time be subverted by good old fashioned human greed, stupidity and malicious intent for power.
The question is not what the system was set up to do, but what it could do if misused by those in power.
Larry
Caleb says:
May 29, 2012 at 8:34 pm
America was founded by and continues to be populated by people who do not trust, not “fellow Americans”, but anyone in a position of power. The US Constitution (much ignored these days) was set up with a host of “checks and balances” to prevent anyone from getting too much power.
Ian H says:
May 30, 2012 at 5:15 am
If I trusted that the system would not be misused by the folks who happen to be in power, but used only for the purpose you specify, I wouldn’t find it sinister either.
However, in these times, when the US Government is secretly shipping enough weapons to arm a Marine regiment to the Mexican cartels, and detention without trial or even charges is held to be legal, and the US President can now decide to execute Americans with neither trial nor charges anywhere in the world … well, in these times anything where they are spying on the web makes me nervous.
Am I paranoid? No … but in 2012, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean nobody’s spying on you.
w.
Computerized intercepts of communications in the electromagnetic spectrum have been ongoing for moe than a thrid of a century. A former Canadian CSIS employee released a considerable amount of detail in a book many years ago. The U.S. intelligence agencies were prevented by law from monitoring domestic U.S. communications. To get around the legal prohibition, the U.S. Government made an agreement with the Canadian Government. A computerized system employed voice analysis to intercept conversations and perform dictonary searches of the words and phrases used in the conversations. Whenever such target words and phrases triggered an alert, further computerized analysis and human analysis was used to determine whether or not the conversation was worthy of further handling. A portable version of the systems known as PREDATOR (IIRC) was brought into embassies and consulates to intercept communicatoins in cities and nations around the world, except the United States whee such intercepts weere illegal. This prohibition was circumvented by giving the Canadian CSIS the equipment, training, and assistance needed to operate from the Canadian embassy and consulates in the United States in exchange for reports of the intercepts made by CSIS.
It is reported this type of arrangement was or may have been expanded with other partners. Consequently, the notion that telephone calls are not to be intercepted and eavesdropped upon has been beyond reality for a third of century and longer. The advent of the Internet has only expanded the scope of the procedures used by the Soviet Union, Russia, People’s Republic of China, United states, Great Britain, and many other nations for some decades. Nothing in the electromagnetic spectrum is immune from eavesdropping or ever can be, notwithstanding any and all efforts to prohibit such eavesdropping.
Also, the targeting of weather and climate related terminology stems from some of the economic intelligence gathering. For example, during the Soviet Union’s use of famine to suppress political disseent and boost Soviet income from the export of wheat, other governments have often found it difficult to determine the true state of the Soviet agricultural economy. During the negotiatoin of wheat sales in later decades to the Soviet Union, the amount of grains needed became and important subject for intelligence gathering.
Well it sounds like they have created (unbeknownst to us) a new covert federal agency. It is called F.E.R.N. (aka: Federal Enforcement of Ridiculous Nonsense) btw: you are all welcome to use the term as you wish.
James Ard says:
May 29, 2012 at 4:19 pm
The biggest key to security is to never mention a three letter government agency by name.
That is because there is No Such Agency!
Not only can it be true, it is true. Computers are used to filter voice and data communications by word , phrase, location, date, time, person, and other criteria. Flagged communicatons are further analyzed by human analysts to determine relevance with respect to intelligence gathering objectives. Trade negotiations have been significantly altered by the interception of voice and data communications between government officials discussing the shortfall or surplus grain production in an agricultural season. The production and consumption of heating fuel oil has been the objective of some intelligence gathering activities. The sale and transfer of embargoed armaments and strategic technologies has been affected by weather conditoins impacting methods of transportatoin and storage.
….at the other end of the scale we have corporations and individuals who spend their time trying to get their websites as noticed as possible in order to increase advertising revenues 🙂