AS PART OF the Biden administration’s crackdown on domestic extremism, the Pentagon plans to launch a pilot program for screening social media content for extremist material.
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Although in the past the military has balked at surveilling service members for extremist political views due to First Amendment protections, the pilot program will rely on a private surveillance firm in order to circumvent First Amendment restrictions on government monitoring, according to a senior Pentagon official.
Intercept
That sounds like a loophole that needs to be closed.
Though the firm has not yet been selected, the current front runner is Babel Street, a company that sells powerful surveillance tools including social media monitoring software.
Babel Street has drawn criticism for its practice of buying bulk cellular location data and selling it to federal national security agencies like the Secret Service, who rely on the private company to bypass warrant requirements normally imposed on government bodies seeking to collect data.
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In an email received after this article was originally published, a spokesperson for the House Armed Services Committee provided the following statement:
The Committee understands that the Department of Defense is exploring a means of implementing social media screening in conjunction with background investigations. We anticipate that any social media screening would be intended only as an additional means of vetting cleared individuals or those seeking to obtain a security clearance, not as a tool for ongoing surveillance of all men and women in uniform. That said, Secretary Austin has been clear about his intentions to understand to what extent extremism exists in the force and its effect on good order and discipline. We look forward to hearing the results of the stand down and the Department’s plan to move forward.
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The pilot program will use keywords to identify potential extremists, though coming up with a list of terms without running afoul of speech protections has proven to be challenging, the senior Pentagon official said. To this end, the military plans to consult with experts from across the political spectrum to help develop the pilot program. As The Intercept previously reported, the military’s Countering Extremism Working Group drafted a list of potential consultants that included anti-Muslim and Christian conservative groups.
“Using key words to monitor social media isn’t just an unnecessary privacy invasion, it is a flawed strategy that will ensure it is short-lived,” said Mike German, a retired FBI agent who did undercover work in neo-Nazi groups and is now a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program. “It will undoubtedly produce a flood of false positives that will waste security resources and undermine morale, without identifying the real problem, which is the tolerance for those that openly engage in racist behavior and discrimination.”
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“Trying to suss out ‘extremists’ with an algorithm isn’t likely to identify problem employees within the department nearly as effectively as simply making clear that racist misbehavior and discrimination won’t be tolerated, requiring the troops and officers to report this misconduct when they see it, and then protecting them from reprisal when they do,” German said. “But, today, because the Defense Department doesn’t adequately protect whistleblowers, reporting such misconduct is often more risky to a person’s military career than actually engaging in racist misbehavior.”
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
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