Free Talk Live

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.

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.

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.

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.

Are you an activist? Have you ever broken a story using social networking? Twitter and Facebook are tools many of us use on a regular basis to speak to our friends, our family, and even people with the same ideals. Many times people seem to forget that their friends and family are not the only ones monitoring what they are saying.

This morning there was a Congressional hearing where the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) discussed their social media monitoring project.

Connecticut Senator, and chairman of the Homeland Security committee, Joseph Lieberman introduced legislation last week that would grant broad new emergency powers over the Internet to the federal government. The Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act (PCNAA) would require broadband providers, search engines, and software companies to comply with emergency orders issued by the Department of Homeland Security under penalty of fine.

In today’s Newsday OpEd New York Rep. Peter King announced his election by the House Republican Conference to chair the Homeland Security Committee, and his intention to hold hearings on “the radicalization of American Muslim community and homegrown terrorism.” Of course, King’s reputation for anti-Muslim rhetoric has many Muslims concerned that King’s inquiry will be more like this century’s version of the Red Scare era House UnAmerican Activities Committee hearings.

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.

It was an open secret that the National Security Agency was bolstering a Homeland Security program to detect and respond to cyber attacks on government systems, but a summary of that program declassified Tuesday provides more details of NSA’s role in a Homeland program known as Einstein.