The FBI Got Its Hands on Data That Twitter Wouldn't Give the CIA (theverge.com) 76
The FBI is using a tool called Dataminr to track criminals and terrorist groups on Twitter, according to documents spotted by The Verge. In a contract document, the agency says Dataminr's Advanced Alerting Tool allows it "to search the complete Twitter firehose, in near real-time, using customizable filters." However, the practice seems to violate Twitter's developer agreement, which prohibits the use of its data feed for surveillance or spying purposes. From the report:"Twitter is used extensively by terrorist organizations and other criminals to communicate, recruit, and raise funds for illegal activity," the FBI wrote in a contracting document. "With increased use of Twitter by subjects of FBI investigations, it is critical to obtain a service which will allow the FBI to identify relevant information from Twitter in a timely fashion." [...] Earlier this year, Twitter revoked API access to a tool called Geofeedia, citing the same clause in the Developer agreement, after a reports showed the tool had been used by police to target protestors in Baltimore. Facebook was also a Geofeedia customer, and used it to catch an intruder in Mark Zuckerberg's office. This isn't the first time Dataminr has run up against Twitter's anti-surveillance clause. In May, Twitter revoked CIA access to Dataminr, a move that was taken as part of a larger ban on US intelligence agencies using the product.
FBI != CIA (Score:5, Informative)
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Information sharing between agencies was made completely legal by the Homeland Security Act. As long as the initial agency obtains the information legally, it can be shared with ANY other government agency, law enforcement or not, with no legal restrictions whatsoever.
Re:FBI != CIA (Score:5, Informative)
Information sharing between agencies was made completely legal by the Homeland Security Act. As long as the initial agency obtains the information legally, it can be shared with ANY other government agency, law enforcement or not, with no legal restrictions whatsoever.
Then theres Five Eyes. So basically anything the CIA or FBI have access to, the NZSIS, ASIS, CSIS, MI5, MI6 and GCHQ all have access to. And anyone else who has hacked them, like the Russians and Chinese or IBM.
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And on top of that, Israeli intelligence enjoys unfiltered access (the all-seeing 6th eye) to whatever the US collects, so something that the FBI might not have a warrant for can be passed along from Mossad as a friendly gesture.
Re:FBI != CIA (Score:5, Interesting)
Five eyes is all about the US having five eyes. There is a whole bunch of stuff the US keeps secret from the others whilst demanding full access. Let's be honest if there is one government in the world which should most definitely not be trusted, it is the US government and this not because of by far the majority of honest people working in those organisations but because of corporate contractor access and control and the political corporate appointees who make it possible.
Only the foolish plot criminal schemes on twitter and Facebook, safer for everyone when they are caught before they can chaotically achieve nothing but harm along the way to failing. Data mining is extremely vulnerable to database poisoning and 'er' competing organisation can quite readily inject in false data to have them chasing their own tales arresting completely innocent people.
GIGO rules and one the computers are far more readily capable of, is producing false data and turning data miners into acts of futility. You can quite readily produce more false data than anything else you can do with a computer, orders of magnitude greater (think DDOS in data terms, simply flooding those data bases out).
The only way out, get rid of the contractors as fast as possible and go back to agents in the field. In fact using mobile technology those agents in the field, getting a feel of what is going on, should be able to interact with the office, as if they were in the office, even though they are out in the field directly interacting with what is going on. A good agents senses being far more reliable than a readily corrupted computer program and data set and team of good agents is way more useful, than a bank of computers. The computers lack the creativity the agents have especially when a team of agents work together but then where are the profits for the corporations in that, hence the entire contractor debacle, just another thing fucked over by corporate greed and corruption.
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"There is a whole bunch of stuff the US keeps secret from the others whilst demanding full access" Of course they keep secrets but so does every everyone else. And if the US demands some country provide them with data what is keeping the country from just saying NO? The governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan publically complain about US drones strikes on their territory but have privately giving the US permission to continue the operations. All of the countries hosting a US military forces can ask the US t
Re:FBI != CIA (Score:4, Insightful)
It's worth noting that the two organizations have different legal restraints. So it is possible for the FBI to have access legally via a court warrant which the CIA, not being a law enforcement agency couldn't get. This also indicates that illegal cooperation between agencies is a serious risk.
Nothing is illegal anymore when it comes to combating "terrorism", and this is just another example of offering up a proxy in order for the CIA to obtain the information they asked for.
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The legal restriction is that the CIA cannot perform law enforcement functions inside the United States.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with Twitter's terms of service.
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The legal restriction is that the CIA cannot perform law enforcement functions inside the United States.
... and MI6/GCHQ cannot legal spy inside the UK. So the normal way around this is for the CIA to spy on British citizens, while MI6 spies on Americans, and then they just swap information.
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Which still has nothing to with Twitter's terms of service.
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This has nothing whatsoever to do with Twitter's terms of service.
The title of this story is "The FBI Got Its Hands on Data That Twitter Wouldn't Give the CIA". So yes, I agree that this story doesn't have to do with Twitter's terms of service except in a peripheral manner.
same head though. (Score:3)
and they just bought it from a company who is selling them and fbi is stupid enough to pay for it.
getting "realtime analysis" isn't all that great that it's meant to be.
also, twitter is kinda weird - providing developer access to firehose and then .. well. damn, the only use of it is realtime analytics AND REALTIME ANALYTICS IS SURVEILLANCE GODDMAADNFDSAF.
you ever wondered how twitter managed to be so big without managing to make a cent of profit while their service logic is 100x simpler than facebooks is?
The data is already public, why criplle lawmen? (Score:2)
Unless you sincerely advocate for abolition of the CIA and FBI, you should help them do their jobs. They are paid with our taxes — Twitter's included — the easier it is for them to access messages, the less money they require.
The tweets captured by the firehose are public anyway. The API simply eases access to it, so why cripple the lawmen of your own country?
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My concern is, it is unduly difficult for the CIA (though not yet for the FBI) to get that data in real time. They can scrape Twitter's web-site, because it is public, but that is not as easy and introduces obvious latency.
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Do you also think that companies outside the US should provide data about their customers, including Americans, directly to non-US intelligence agencies, or do you think only US companies should do that for US intelligence agencies?
I'm asking because one reason to not have special "Orwellian" data links from private companies to intelligence agencies within the US would be that the US should lead by giving a good example, so e.g. US authorities can argue convincingly to other countries that they shouldn't
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There are places in the world, where the government is evil and remains in power not thanks to the sincere will of the governed, but by force of arms and other coercion. In such countries law enforcement organizations (such as the already-mentioned KGB) are used for oppression and should, indeed, be abolished. No cooperation with them is ethical. Even there, however, cooperation with institutions charged only with inves
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Do you also think that companies outside the US should provide data about their customers
There are places in the world, where the government is evil and remains in power not thanks to the sincere will of the governed, but by force of arms and other coercion.
How about Germany or Italy then? Would you mind if they give your data away with free technical aid and without court order to secret German and Italian data collection authorities? Where do you draw the line?
Orwell's Big Brother watched people in private. We are talking here about public data — stuff people willingly and enthusiastically post on Twitter.
Maybe the position of Twitter and similar companies is that a company should not provide bulk data collection to intelligence agencies unless compelled to do so by law. That's consistent with thinking that the CIA is important for the US and maybe even should be supported, and even consistent with prov
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German and Italian governments today are alright. Though I'm appalled by their position on the so called "hate speech", it is still Ok in my opinion to cooperate with their police.
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You are deluded you or anyone can control how the CIA and FBI spend their time? Try not paying those taxes and see what happens. Try writing your congressman and telling them what the FBI and CIA should be doing. You're funny and naive. And quite stupid.
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So, you do advocate for abolition of the two agencies?
Funny, whenever I point out this remoteness and unruliness of the government in conversations about things like public transport or public schools, your kind always claim, government is easily approachable and responsive to taxpayers — and therefore is better positioned to provide these s
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I suppose you feel the same about the KGB, comrade?
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Unless you sincerely advocate for abolition of the CIA and FBI, you should help them do their jobs.
Yep, no middle ground between either helping them do their jobs or abolishing them completely. I know that we have a lot of programmers here but remember that most of life is analog, not binary.
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Indeed, there is not — not in this case. At least, I don't see any — and if you do, you forgot to mention it.
Re: The data is already public, why criplle lawmen (Score:2)
Because I trust our Lawmen even less than I do the terrorists.
At least I know what to expect from a terrorist. :|
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So, you would have the police abolished, right? Fine, at least, you are self-consistent so far. But Twitter's management, it is safe to assume, does not — and yet, they don't want to cooperate with them either.
Non-sequitur.
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It's time for a Choose Your Own Adventure story!
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You left work early today because you have an Airbnb guest coming to stay the night and wanted to make sure that they found the key you left for them and were getting situated. As you pulled past your No Trespassing sign to enter your driveway, you saw FBI vans parked on your front lawn and dozens of FBI agents swarming your house, though none of them seemed to care about you being there. From what you could gather, they were using your ho
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Well in the case of the FBI we were able to run the country for 100 years without a 'national police force' so I don't really see why they have to be a hard requirement. We have state and local police the Justice department could just coordinate between agencies and rely on the Marshall service for extreme situations were the local agency might be the problem.
As far as the CIA goes, we probably need a foreign intelligence service. We really have always had espionage capability going back the revolution.
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Completely correct. There's nothing more American than unquestioningly submitting to authority and government intrusion.
Say, comrade, if you'd also quarter a few troops in your house, it would show us how much of a real patriot you are!
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The tweets captured by the firehose are public anyway.
Are you certain of that? I know I've come across Twitter accounts that are set to "Followers Only," where the tweets they post are absolutely not available to the public. Are those tweets demonstrably not included in the full take that Datminr gets?
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Vowl Removl (Score:2)
It infuriates me to no end that people think it's hip or somehow cute to take a word, remove a vowel, and think it's somehow now some hip creative name for their stupid service or tool. Dataminr. I'd like to find who ever came up with that and let them meet the Analizr, I'll leave what that tool would do as an exercise for the reader.
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It has more to do with available domain names. So many are squatted out that misspellings are about all that's left. Especially if you want a gtld that people will not try to put .com at the end of.
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It infuriates me to no end that people think it's hip or somehow cute to take a word, remove a vowel, and think it's somehow now some hip creative name for their stupid service or tool. Dataminr. I'd like to find who ever came up with that and let them meet the Analizr, I'll leave what that tool would do as an exercise for the reader.
Yeah, I can't wait for the first hip startup to name itself with an unpronounceable glyph [wikimedia.org].
A perfect way to diffuse responsibility (Score:2)
Now that Twitter is selling access through Dataminr rather than directly, now they can let all kinds of unsavory parties get access and if anyone complains, they can say "We can't cut off an entire company over a few rotten eggs! What about all of their customers who did nothing wrong? Maybe you should complain to them. It's not really our business anyway!"
Meanwhile if anyone complains to Dataminr they can just say "Fuck off, we'll sell to whoever we want TYVM," and not only is Twitter safe from any PR cons
Let me get this straight (Score:5, Insightful)
The data is too sensitive and the potential for privacy violation is too high for the FBI or CIA to be given access, but it's perfectly fine for hedge funds, advertisers, newspapers [dataminr.com], and, well, any other asshole with a checkbook?
Really?
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The asshole with a checkbook can still legally sell derivative data to the FBI, if the asshole does the filtering. The Twitter restriction only applies to using the raw Firehose data itself for spying, a search function product does not necessarily have the same restrictions.
I'm fine with this (Score:2)
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Those that would trade liberty for security get none and deserve neither.
Especially if they're posting every detail of their lives on an inherently public platform.
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Those that would trade liberty for security get none and deserve neither. Thomas Jefferson said it best.
Even better than Benjamin Franklin?
The FBI Got Its Hands on Data That Twitter Wouldn' (Score:3, Interesting)
Talk about a tempest in a teapot - - - Twitter is so totally open, with it's datastream virtually wide open, that this issue is basically just a 'news bleep' that just isn't news.
Give me a break - so the CIA (or whomever) can access the 'firehose' at Twitter - well, so can just about anybody else.
Besides, Twitter not only gives access to this data, they also data-mine the stream for advertising and sales purposes.
ANYBODY using Twitter (or any other 'social media') that expects any kind of effective data security is so totally out of touch with reality that there is just no realistic communication with them. With the openness of the social media craze, I have very little sympathy for any of that crowd that gets hammered with loss of password / name / credit card data / etc from breaches in the social media's systems - since the social media orgs are basically setting themselves up as targets for any script kiddie that wants to 'give it a whirl' using any of the vast number of hacking / cracking tools available off the web. When you get to the level of state sponsored intruders, the social media orgs are just plain old 'low hanging fruit'.
Signing a contract doesn't mean they got the data (Score:3)
Twitter is used extensively (Score:2)
In other words (Score:2)
In other words you'd be foolish to think that anything you do on the internet would include any expectation of privacy or anonymity, no matter what steps you take or what assurances you may have been given.
If you don't like the game ... (Score:2)
Silly game of whack-a-mole (Score:2)
Every time Twitter shuts down a feed used for surveillance, the FBI will simply set up another one or two or three under a cover name. Not really much point in trying to prevent it; what's tweeted to the public is going to be available to the government.