via China Daily...
The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation is advertising for automated computer softwares (sic) that will monitor people's posts on social networking sites, including Facebook and Twitter. The FBI's Strategic Information and Operations Center (SOIC) posted a tender for a "Social Media Application" on FedBizOpps.gov web on January 19.
The advertisement says the application will collect "open source" information and should be capable of sniffing through online media sites like news and social networking sites for keywords to help improve its real-time intelligence when it comes to current and emerging security threats.
Sources said some US government institutions have already used similar software to collect "open source" information, a practice that have been kept out of the knowledge of the public.
It is believed to be the first time the US government has admitted it will apply advanced technologies to monitor the public media. (more)
FutureWatch: Looking forward to an article about how this compares to their surveillance initiatives.
