List of Words Dept. of Homeland Security Tracks on Facebook and Twitter

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Monday, March 05, 2012

List of Words Dept. of Homeland Security Tracks on Facebook and Twitter

If not getting enough attention in your life is a problem, there’s one surefire way to get the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to notice you: Use any of its proscribed watch words on social media sites.

According to a DHS document, the agency is maintaining a lengthy list of “Items of Interest”—in other words, words. The words are categorized by subject, such as those falling under “Domestic Security,” “Southwest Border Violence,” “Health Concern + H1N1,” “Terrorism” and more.

Besides the obvious ones like “Al Qaeda (all spellings),” “weapons cache,” “meth lab” and “jihad,” the words being monitored on Facebook and Twitter include:

· airport

· sick

· gas

· cloud

· mud slide or mudslide

· canceled

· interstate

· recovery

· home grown

· marijuana

· incident

· police

· infection

· symptoms

· North Korea

· China

· Tucson

· San Diego

· pork

· help

and, of course,

· social media.

-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky

To Learn More:

The Department of Homeland Security Is Searching Your Facebook and Twitter for These Words (by Joel Johnson, Animal New York)

Analyst’s Desktop Binder (Department of Homeland Security) (pdf)

Comments

SanDee Herzog 12 years ago

they want to take control of everything ... but you would think they would have more important issues to start their control ..small minded lack of integrity in other words dangerous. bunch of downright fools

Kevin Jackson 12 years ago

why are meth lab and marijuana on the list? i was told this was all about homeland security, not drug enforcement.

Grace M Alvarez 12 years ago

i hope the context in which the words are used are taken into consideration. for instance, i have relatives in san diego and occasionally they report about illneses or "infections" and if travelling, which "airport" is our departure and destination. not to mention the usual things one talks about like being on work overload and not having any "help." and then there's planning the menu for a special occasion. barbequed "pork" sounds delicious ...... oh, i could go on, but i'll probably stumble on some treasonous word or other.

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List of Words Dept. of Homeland Security Tracks on Facebook and Twitter

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