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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

An agency that owns a number of black helicopters [helis.com] has derided "conspiracy theorists" who have spoken out against the DHS's plans to monitor journalists [thehill.com]:

A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Friday pushed back against a report warning of the agency's plan to compile a list of media professionals and influencers as part of a "media monitoring" effort.

The plan outlined in a FedBizOpps.gov posting [fbo.gov] by DHS this week says the agency will create a database of "any and all media coverage" related to the agency or specific events, with a list of more than 290,000 global news sources searchable by location and individual reporters.

[...] Responding to a tweet from the Committee to Protect Journalists, which shared the Forbes report, DHS spokesman Tyler Houlton suggested that critics who cited the department's news tracking plan as a supposed attack on the press were "conspiracy theorists." "Despite what some reporters may suggest, this is nothing more than the standard practice of monitoring current events in the media," Houlton tweeted. "Any suggestion otherwise is fit for tin foil hat wearing, black helicopter conspiracy theorists."

Also at CNN [cnn.com] and CBS [cbsnews.com].

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