SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the I-was-too-busy-browsing-Facebook dept.
The FBI 'Can Neither Confirm nor Deny' That It Monitors Your Social Media Posts
In recent years, the federal government has significantly ramped up its efforts to monitor people on social media. The FBI, for one, has repeatedly acknowledged that it engages in surveillance of social media posts. So it was surprising when the bureau responded to our Freedom of Information Act request on this kind of surveillance by saying that it "can neither confirm nor deny the existence of records."
The six other federal agencies we submitted the FOIA request to haven't produced a single document. The request, filed last May, seeks information on how the agencies collect and analyze posts from Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites.
Today we sued the agencies to get some answers, because the public has a right to know about the exact nature of social media surveillance — especially whether agencies are monitoring and retaining social media posts, or using surveillance products that label activists and people of color as threats to public safety based on their First Amendment-protected activities.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 19 2019, @02:16AM (4 children)
'Freedom' as used by many folk is just an antisocial codeword for ``I want to be a cunt and you can't stop me.''
If society is attempting to silence one, then there's probably a good reason, and even if one can't understand why, on average things are better if one shuts up. To defend those society spurns is to impede the core function of society: collaboration to build a better life for all members of the community than the nasty brutish and short lives they would live in what they foolishly call 'freedom'. True Freedom is the freedom from evil being done to one, not the lack of constraints on doing evil. To defend the justly suppressed is to attack the oppressed and defend those who commit evils against that society.
https://pastebin.com/raw/hFtC6G4A [pastebin.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday January 19 2019, @03:47AM (2 children)
So, what you're saying is, you don't enjoy whatever freedoms you have, you don't value privacy, and you don't think anyone else should either. You're one of those people who belongs in a regimented institution, where the keepers tell you if and when you should take your meds, or go to the bathroom, or watch television.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 19 2019, @07:11PM (1 child)
So what *you're* saying is there's no gray area whatsoever. It's completely black/white and anyone who disagrees is communist fascist nazi?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 20 2019, @04:12AM
No, but the person he was responding to definitely is... Censorship is always evil and must be defeated by any means necessary, even if it takes nuclear weapons.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 20 2019, @06:34AM
Go away, utilitarian garbage. That is police state dictatorship. The neoliberal Nazi looks like Orwell's Inner Party.