Social Book Post Manager (Facebook)

With the recent reports of massive invasions of privacy by Facebook, many people are deleting or at least seriously considering deleting their Facebook accounts. - Of course, when we signed up for Facebook and agreed to their Terms of Service (that nobody reads) we authorized Facebook to use our personal information. - The fact is that our personal information is being used for purposes other than what we intended, regardless of what we may have agreed to in the Terms of Service.

Not everyone wants to just dump Facebook. Facebook can be a useful and even fun way of sharing with a widely-dispersed circle of friends, and businesses can use Facebook to advertise and promote their products and events. The problem is that over the years large amounts of personal information build up in our Facebook accounts, and Facebook doesn’t make it easy to delete large numbers of previous posts.

However, don’t worry - There’s an app for that: Social Book Post Manager.

If you’re serious about cleaning up your Facebook life, the Chrome extension Social Book Post Manager is a great tool to have at your disposal.

Though you’ll have to give Social Book Post Manager permission to "read and change your data" on Facebook - which might not thrill those looking to lessen third-party access to their Facebook information - it’s the only way you’ll be able to let the extension work its magic.

Social Book Post Manager does exactly as its name implies: It roots through your activity feed to find content matching particular keywords you provide, and it then allows you to delete or privatize these posts.

Though Social Book Post Manager takes a little time to work if you’ve been super-active on Facebook each year - or if you’re filtering to specifically remove or hide content about, say, that ex you still hate - it’s a lot faster than trying to clean up your activity feed manually, even if you have to run the extension multiple times to make sure you got everything.

Because Social Book Post Manager is a Chrome extension you will need to access your Facebook account using the Google Chrome browser in order for Social Book Post Manager to do its thing. After running the extension and cleaning up your Facebook account you can always remove the app from your Facebook account.

Department Of Homeland Security Compiling Database Of Journalists

An April 3 contract listing on a government-run federal business opportunities website seeks "media monitoring services" for the DHS. Already, at least seven companies have applied for the DHS contract. It is unclear how much the contract pays.

While "media monitoring services" may sound innocuous, details in a "Request for Information" (RFI) on the government website outline DHS's plan to build what some are calling a "panopticon."

"Services shall enable NPPD/OUS to monitor traditional news sources as well as social media, identify any and all media coverage related to the Department of Homeland Security or a particular event," the RFI reads. "Services shall provide media comparison tools, design and rebranding tools, communication tools and the ability to identify top media influencers."

The contract seeks applicants to complete five tasks: monitoring online activity and social media; creating a media intelligence and benchmarking dashboard platform; setting up an individualized email alert system; creating a password-protected mobile app for DHS personnel; and developing functionalities for engagement with the media. The RFI elaborates on each task.

The statement of work for the media monitoring services contract includes the requirement that its applicants are able to track more than 290,000 global news sources from media including online, print, broadcast, radio, trade and industry publications, local sources, national/international outlets, traditional news sources and social media. DHS also aims to be able to track such coverage in more than 100 languages and to have a function which can translate them immediately.

The database would also include "present contact details and any other information that could be relevant, including publications this influencer writes for and an overview of the previous coverage published by the influencer," for each "influencer" tracked by the system.

Many of the services that the department is seeking were once available to them, including real-time tracking. Dataminr, a Twitter-owned news discovery tool that combs through billions of tweets in real time, "senses critical events as they happen and alerts professionals in news, finance, public sector, corporate security and communications faster than traditional sources," according to Dataminr. It's able to do all of this with the help of artificial intelligence and Twitter's Firehose, which is the only way to access 100 percent of tweets on the platform in real-time.

Dataminr nixed their contract with DHS in December 2016, cutting off dozens of fusion centers from real-time analytics from their platform after Twitter said its platform wasn't meant for surveillance. Dataminr also dropped their contract with the CIA, as it is technically an intelligence agency, but not the FBI, as it is technically a law enforcement agency.  (Forbes, April 6, 2018)

Protect Yourself From Credit Card Fraud Add A Security Freeze to Your Accounts

An April 2, 2018 article in Consumer Reports: "How to Protect Yourself From Credit and Debit Card Fraud" offers suggestions on how you can mitigate the effect of data breach where your credit or debit card information is stolen.

The article states "A security freeze placed on your credit file will block most lenders from seeing your credit history. That makes a freeze the single most effective way to protect against fraud."

I wrote about using a credit (security) freeze for privacy and security in February 2018. With the increasing number of data breaches, if you have not added a freeze to each of your credit file, you may want to consider doing so.

CreditCards.com says "I think for anyone who is extremely concerned about the prospect of identity theft, there is no better tool than a credit freeze".

Time Magazine's Money Section says "If you’re looking to lock down your credit in order to keep thieves out, there’s a better way than buying credit monitoring: Simply place a freeze on your credit files. This instructs the bureaus to prevent new creditors from viewing your credit report and score. Because lenders usually won’t open new lines of credit without viewing your score first, this can prevent fraudsters from opening new accounts in your name. Credit monitoring is like shutting the door after the horse has left the barn, whereas a credit freeze is a preventative measure."

Heritage Guide to The Constitution

To help lawmakers and the public understand the Constitution and its meaning, in 2005 The Heritage Foundation published The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, a clause-by-clause analysis of our Founding Document. In the Guide, each line if the Constitution is carefully analyzed by a leading scholar, with an explanation of both its original meaning and how we may have strayed from that meaning. This comprehensive resource is now available online in its entirety - for free.

Backpage Seized By The Feds

The United States government has seized Backpage.com, the controversial classifieds website. A notice informing visitors of the seizure was posted on the site, and a Justice Department spokesperson confirmed the notice.

According to the notice, the website and its affiliates were seized "as part of an enforcement action" by the FBI, as well as other federal and local agencies. The notice provides little other information, saying the Department of Justice will provide more soon.

A spokesperson for the Justice Department confirmed that the website has been seized and that additional information would be made available Friday evening. However, a judge decided that the federal case should remain sealed on Friday night. No other additional information was provided.

A two-year Senate investigation into online sex trafficking found that found that Backpage.com knowingly aided criminal sex trafficking of women and young girls, simply scrubbing terms from ads such as "Lolita," "teenage," "rape," "amber alert," and publishing them on its site. After the investigation was published in January 2017, Backpage.com shut down its adult ads section.

The company has been targeted with several lawsuits over the years, but has been largely protected by Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, a legal protection that gives a broad layer of immunity to online companies from being held liable for user-generated content. Companies are supposed to act in good faith to protect users, but critics argue the law can be used as a shield. The law, however, does not, protect sites from federal liability against criminal law, like child-pornography laws.

The Backpage seizure comes two weeks after Craigslist eliminated their personal ads following Congress' passage of the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA), which repealed a previous law that provided "legal protection to websites that unlawfully promote and facilitate prostitution and websites that facilitate traffickers in advertising the sale of unlawful sex acts with sex trafficking victims."

Police Surveillance of Dangerous Muslims ENDING in New York City

According to the Washington Times (April 5, 2018) - The New York City Police Department is ending a surveillance program that targeted possible radicalized Muslims and mosques. And those who were watched are getting cash settlements from taxpayers.

The Muslim groups said roughly 20 mosques, two Muslim student organizations in New Jersey, 14 restaurants, two grade schools and 11 retail stores faced surveillance. Visitors and customers were photographed and undercover officers and informants infiltrated some of the organizations during a decade-long period.

The organizations sued, saying they were being singled out purely because of their religion. A federal district court ruled against them in 2014 but the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stepped in a year later and said their lawsuit could proceed, comparing the surveillance to targeting of the Japanese during World War II.

The city will pay $47,500 to businesses and mosques who suffered financially from the surveillance, as well as $25,000 to the individual plaintiffs. The city will also pay $950,000 in fees to the lawyers for the Muslim plaintiffs.

Under the agreement, the plaintiffs’ lawyers will also be able to review and make recommendations on policy and training guidelines surrounding religious and First Amendment activities.
--

This is not just an issue in New York City. Targeted surveillance of individuals (both physical surveillance and social media surveillance) by police and military units, as part of their anti-terrorism programs has been a concern for many years.

The problem isn't that law enforcement, with probable cause - or even a reasonable articulable suspicion - conducted surveillance to detect and prevent a terrorist attack. Rather, we see out of control surveillance of individuals based on their practice of protected 1st Amendment activities.

Using AMRDEC SAFE

SAFE is designed to provide the U. S. Army Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center (AMRDEC) and its customers an alternative way to send files other than email.

Although designed for use by AMRDEC, anyone can use SAFE to send files to a .mil or .gov email address, however, only users with valid DoD Common Access Card (CAC) can send files to other addresses such as .com or.edu.

There are only a few differences between sending SAFE packages as a CAC user and sending them as a guest:

• Guests are required to verify their email address after uploading each package;
• Guests cannot send packages to recipients that do not have a .mil or .gov email address;
• CAC users can add recipients in bulk using a semicolon-delimited list.

If you are a civilian and need to communicate securely with a military Service Member (.mil address) or government employee (.gov address) then AMRDEC SAFE is one option for you to consider. If you a military Service Member or DOD Employee (and have a DOD CAC) then AMRDEC SAFE is an excellent way to communicate securely with the civilian and contractor community for official purposes.