Saturday, April 7, 2018

DHS media list

DHS's contract listing, posted on Tuesday, seeks a firm to deliver "media-comparison tools, design and rebranding tools, communication tools, and the ability to identify top media influencers" for a span ranging from one to five years, all with the aim of tracking "any and all media coverage related to the Department of Homeland Security or a particular event."

[...]

After news outlets reported about the amount of data sought by this job listing, DHS press secretary Tyler Houlton issued a response on Friday to verify its legitimacy and allege that the data project's aims will be "standard practice."

What's more, Houlton added, "Any suggestion otherwise is fit for tinfoil hat-wearing, black-helicopter conspiracy theorists."

  Ars Technia
"Or a particular event." In other words, related to anything.
Part of that data-combing effort would include the development of a "database" that gathers intel about "journalists, editors, correspondents, social media influencers, bloggers, etc.," including locations, beats, reporter "types," contact details, overviews of each "influencer's" previous coverage, current publications, and "any other information that could be relevant."
Stalin, smiling down (or up, as the case may be), is slightly jealous.



Standard practice since Nixon perhaps, but it shouldn't be.
The news follows Obama administration efforts, spearheaded largely by the Department of Justice, to seize journalists' emails using the Espionage Act, increase surveillance pressure on journalists, and prosecute leakers of classified secrets.
And Trump's constant attacks on journalists who aren't praising him. We really are being swept away toward authoritarian fascist government.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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