Federal Reserve to Monitor Billions of Online Convos for 'Fed'-gctid45804

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Federal Reserve to Monitor Billions of Online Convos for 'Fed' | PCWorld

The Federal Reserve plans to monitor when the word "Fed" is used  online, determine the mood of the conversation, and identify "key  bloggers" and "influencers."

By Darlene Storm, Computerworld                             Sep 27, 2011 5:21 pm

How  often do you mention the word 'Fed' online? There is about to be a new  breed of Big Brother "watchers" and electronic surveillance on billions  of online conversations before eavesdropping on the emotion behind how  the 'Fed' was used. The monitoring will include identifying and reaching  out to "key bloggers" and "influencers."

ZeroHedge reported  the Federal Reserve Bank will soon monitor billions of conversations on  social networking sites to know who mentions "Fed" as well as the  sentiment in which it was used. The Federal Reserve  is looking for a "Communication Group" to monitor social media  platforms. The Fed expects the Watchers to be "timely and proactively  aware of the reactions and opinions expressed by the general public as  it relates to the Federal Reserve and its actions on a variety of  subjects."

No one should be surprised. Monitoring social media is a common tactic for both business brands and the government. Last year, the EFF warned that Big Brother wants to be your social networking buddy. The EFF also disclosed that Homeland Security was monitoring social media  during the Obama Inauguration. Do you really think electronic  surveillance slowed down after that? The devil is in the details, in the  "hot" keywords which DHS has long been monitoring. Mac Slavo at SHTFplan  previously pointed out, "Fellow Americans, everything you do is being  monitored." At the rate people are being added to watch lists, "the  terrorist watch list will exceed the U.S. population by 2019." And Wired reported this summer, the "Pentagon wants a social media propaganda machine."

In an article about Post 9/11, Politico's James Bamford explained,  "Somewhere between Sept. 11 and today, the enemy morphed from a handful  of terrorists to the American population at large, leaving us nowhere  to run and no place to hide." Yes, the NSA considers "us" the enemy.  Former NSA "voice interceptor" Adrienne Kinne told Bamford, "We were  told that we were to listen to all conversations that were intercepted,  to include those of Americans. Some of those conversations are personal.  Some even intimate."

The Federal Reserve's "Sentiment Analysis And Social Media Monitoring Solution Request for Proposal" was posted on Scribd.  The solution to "continuously monitor conversations" must be able to  "gather data from the primary social media platforms - Facebook,  Twitter, Blogs, Forums and YouTube." It must also "provide real-time  monitoring of relevant conversations" and "aggregate data from various  media outlets such as: CNN, WSJ, Factiva etc." It should "provide  sentiment analysis (positive, negative or neutral) around key  conversational topics" as well as "handle crisis situations." And after  the sentiment is determined, "the solution should provide an alerting  mechanism that automatically sends out reports or notifications based a  predefined trigger." It is also supposed to "identify and reach out to  key bloggers and influencers" while monitoring billions of  conversations.

The way we get and digest our news continues to evolve. 43% of  Americans get their news from the Internet, according to a survey published by Pew Research Center for The People & The Press [PDF]. TV as a news source has hit an all-time low. So all those blogs relating news and opinions really add up, even if Contagion called blogs "graffiti with punctuation." Most of the sites on the Pew list are large websites, but things continue to change in our mobile world of geosocial services and location-based technology. For example, 73% of the 83% of American adults with cell phones,  send and receive texts. 31% would rather receive a text than a phone  call. Just as those numbers will increase, so will the percentage of  people who get their news primarily off the web.

In regard to the Federal Reserve creating its own "Attack Watch" program to monitor free speech on the Internet , before it too becomes a potential smear campaign laughingstock, perhaps we can save the Fed a little money as there are plenty of free tools to compile or aggregate keyword mentions  in social media? It's unclear what precisely the Fed might wish to do  about those bloggers of influence who unflatteringly use new hot  keywords like the Fed . . . but have you seen [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H78XCiJamXc]The Adjustment Bureau[/ame]?

As more government agencies monitor keywords and the "tone" in which those words are used, will it slide us ever closer to [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship]Internet censorship[/ame]?  At least choice and Freedom of Speech is not something publicly  announced to land you on a terrorist watch list . . . oh wait. I almost  forgot, the Defense Department has previously blocked access to any article with "WikiLeaks" in the title because unauthorized reading of classified diplomatic cables and the Espionage Act could make felons of us all.

And now, here comes the Fed.