Free Talk Live

A privacy advocacy group has swayed Congress to hold a hearing next week into the Department of Homeland Security’s practice of monitoring social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, as well as media reports and organizations, including The Drudge Report.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s command center routinely monitors dozens of popular websites, including Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, WikiLeaks and news and gossip sites including the Huffington Post and Drudge Report, according to a government document.

Freedom of speech might allow journalists to get away with a lot in America, but the Department of Homeland Security is on the ready to make sure that the government is keeping dibs on who is saying what.

WASHINGTON -- Fighting homegrown terrorism by monitoring Internet communications is a civil liberties trade-off the U.S. government must make to beef up national security, the nation's homeland security chief said Friday.

As terrorists increasingly recruit U.S. citizens, the government needs to constantly balance Americans' civil rights and privacy with the need to keep people safe, said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

IRS to monitor Facebook, Twitter for tax cheats

Is the IRS about to get too close for comfort? New reports brought to light by one privacy and data security expert suggest that this tax filing season the Internal Revenue Service may be monitoring social media for any clues of tax cheats.

According to Kristen Mathews, a partner attorney at law firm Proskauer Rose LLP who specializes in privacy and data security, there are reports that the IRS will be checking into individual Facebook and Twitter accounts for improprieties.

"The documents show that the DHS established a unit called the Social Network Monitoring Center (SNMC) last year to scour social sites for signs of potential security threats during the presidential inauguration.

The sites targeted by the SNMC included predictable ones such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, in addition to more demographically focused sites such as MiGente and BlackPlanet."

These days, with Facebook and Twitter and social media galore, it can be increasingly hard to tell who your “friends” are.

But after this, Internet users would be well advised to ask another question entirely: Are my “friends” even real people?

Your cellphone can already tell you where to find the nearest Starbucks or the most convenient subway station. But it might soon be smart enough to alert you to a toxic threat during your morning commute or coffee break, thanks to a new plan from the Department of Homeland Security.

"Fighting homegrown terrorism by monitoring Internet communications is a civil liberties trade-off the U.S. government must make to beef up national security", the nation's homeland security chief said Friday. ---- What a buncha crap....