Software to Monitor Opinion in Foreign Newspapers: “It Is Just Creepy and Orwellian” October 4, 2006
Posted by fluencyfumble in eGovernance Nugget.trackback
The University of Pittsburgh, along with a handful of other major research schools, is reportedly involved with a Department of Homeland Security software-development project that will allow the U.S. government to monitor international negative opinions on its foreign policy.
The New York Times carries the story:
The new software would allow much more rapid and comprehensive monitoring of the global news media, as the Homeland Security Department and, perhaps, intelligence agencies look “to identify common patterns from numerous sources of information which might be indicative of potential threats to the nation,” a statement by the department said.
Lucy Dalglish, a lawyer and former editor who is executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, called the concept “creepy and Orwellian.”
The Times explains:
Ultimately, the government could in a semiautomated way track a statement by specific individuals abroad or track reports by particular foreign news outlets or journalists, rating comments about American policies or officials.
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, said the effort recalled the aborted 2002 push by a Defense Department agency to develop a tracking system called Total Information Awareness that was intended to detect terrorists by analyzing troves of information.
“That is really chilling,” Mr. Rotenberg said. “And it seems far afield from the mission of homeland security.”
Rotenberg, purposely or not, invokes the concept of the “chilling effect,” the stifling of speech that often comes at the hands of a particularly broad (or, perhaps, security-minded) policy. Is the Department of Homeland Security’s explicit goal to reduce the amount of America-bashing taking prolific place in editorial pages across the globe? Probably not. Nonetheless, the threat is implied: We are monitoring your news outlet for the possible threats to our nation it may contain.
While federal media intimidation is certainly no rarity, it is rarely so overt.
More on the “chilling effect”:
— “The fundamental right of Americans, through our free press, to penetrate and criticize the workings of our government is under attack as never before,” William Safire wrote in 2004. Will We Need a New “All the Presidents’ Men”?
My coders work on this project.
~Doc
Particularly interesting in this blog entry is the “chilling effect” that is mentioned. Understanding the implications that indirect restrictions, or pressures, like this close monitoring of language can have on the behavior of regular citizens is significant. This kind of tracking will produce fear, whether rational or not, in those citizens who are aware of it, encouraging them, with or without reason, to censor themselves. Law-abiding citizens, in attempts to not offend anyone, could be withdrawing from public life. Considering how individualistic and private most people are in contemporary society, this kind of behavior could be the death of American society should it come home.
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A good way eh? I like to emphasize my conducive fear I have a fresh joke for you) What is the most popular wine at Christmas? “Can’t we open the presents yet?”