Careful what you tweet.
Two 20-somethings arriving from the U.K. learned a harsh lesson about the American government’s sense of humor on Monday, Jan. 23, when they were detained and then forced to return home due to comments they made on Twitter.
This gives you an idea of what the government is monitoring.
What boggles my mind is this… How the hell did they catch that one single tweet?
I have to assume that they have some giant super computer that is filtering them all and flagging stuff, but it seems like some immense amount of money must be going into the inevitable human part of the loop where someone actually decides what’s a threat and what isn’t.
Seems like they’d have to have a freaking army of folks reading tweeter (sic) posts all day.
The story’s sources are “The Daily Mail” and “The Sun” so…grain of salt that mother.
You’d think that, but it’s actually a single guy named “Bud” down in the basement of the Justice Department building in Chicago.
You suppose the term “Destroy America” is an automatic computer twitter red flag.
I went online to get a passport. I saw this:
Automatically Collected Information
We collect and temporarily store certain information about your visit for use in site management and security purposes only. We collect and analyze this information because it helps us to better design our website to suit your needs. We may also automatically collect information about the web content you view in the event of a known security or virus threat. This information includes:[ol]
[li] The Internet domain from which you access our website (for example, “xcompany.com” if you use a private Internet access account, or “yourschool.edu” if you connect from an educational domain);[/li]> [li] The Internet Protocol (IP) address (a unique number for each computer connected to the Internet) from which you access our website;[/li]> [li] The type of browser (e.g., Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome) used to access our site;[/li]> [li] The operating system (e.g., Windows, Mac OS, Unix) used to access our site;[/li]> [li] The date and time you access our site;[/li]> [li] The Universal Resource Locators (URLs), or addresses, of the pages you visit;[/li]> [li] Your username, if it was used to log in to the website; and[/li]> [li] If you visited this website from another website, the URL of the forwarding site.[/li]> [/ol]
We may share the above information with our employees or representatives with a “need-to-know” in the performance of their official duties, other Federal agencies, or other named representatives as needed to quickly process your request or transaction. This information is only used to help us make our site more useful for you. Raw data logs are retained temporarily as required for security and site management purposes only. More information about how we share information can be found in our Privacy Act Systems of Records Notices.
That’s all extremely standard stuff, I believe.
“Who are you going to Paris with?”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
Well it was new to me. And I guess when I go to the actual brick and mortar building the intrusiveness won’t be any different. As I said in another thread, I’m getting old.
Sorry, didn’t mean to be dismissive. All or at least most of that stuff is information sent by your browser as part of http requests and will be collected in the normal course of business in web server logs.
I can definitely seen how it would be a bit disconcerting at first exposure. The web, and the internet in general, feels far more anonymous than it actually is.
I’m kind of wondering from the mispelled (“tweeter”) paperwork if it was a case of the customs people actually seeing what he was typing or something.
EDIT: No, evidently it was because of a (very obviously jokey) post some time earlier about catching up with friends before he left to go destroy America. Evidently all posting in Internet Public should now respect the mirrored sunglasses of TSA’s stalwart terror-fighters.
A guy named “Leigh” should be on the watch list anyway.
That article seems crazy. My bullshit detector is going off.
I agree with the government in this case. Those two could have been sleeper agents or clandestine operatives. Their attempt to blend in as trashy Amerophile chavs was almost perfect. However, they got one telling detail so very, very, wrong. Anyone who truly loves America knows that our little Candle in the Wind is not buried. She is at Westwood Memorial and she is in a crypt. Tell everyone how you know this, Playboy fans.
Well, if I had to endure the humiliation of doing a completely worthless job day after day, I imagine I’d want to go on a bit of a power trip from time to time too.