re: #484 lawhawk

Is it really surprising that the CIA is using its SIGINT capabilities to scan for communications that might lead to a terror attack? Not in the slightest - they’ve been monitoring communications for decades, but the issue is cross-jurisdictional communications and those originating and ending in the US proper. Twitter may not be the best way to coordinate/plan/carry out a terror attack, but terrorists may not be the brightest bunch. It’s pretty easy to sort though the chatter if you have the right search parameters, and EPIC’s requests would severely undermine efforts to protect against a possible attack planned - or give terrorists potential information about US capabilities.

However, it is problematic that Twitter is a cross-jurisdictional platform - there’s no way to tell whether something is domestic or foreign and the CIA isn’t supposed to spy on Americans domestically. That would suggest that the FBI is also involved/coordinating with the CIA.

Still, this seems to be overblown CIA-derangement syndrome.

Of course, if the CIA fails to catch a Twitter posting signaling a terror attack, these will be among the first to claim a conspiracy and/or call for heads to roll at the CIA for failing to carry out eavesdropping of these same communications.

Twitter’s public. Everything I post on Twitter is there for anyone to see including the CIA. If I didn’t expect that well, I should probably check into a mental hospital. How is reading something on a public channel “spying”?