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TODAY, MANY COMPANIES are in the business of monitoring social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Marketers and brand managers gather data and run “sentiment analysis” to see how people are, say, feeling about Coca Cola today. At NewsWhip, we monitor Twitter and Facebook to spot the fastest spreading news stories.
Now the US Federal Government has launched its own social media monitoring strategy. And on Monday we saw some of the results of this strategy, as a pair of tourists were arrested in the US on terror charges over jokes they made on Twitter.
A quick recap: the Daily Mail reports that two tourists, Leigh Van Bryan (from Ireland), and Emily Banting (a British woman) were detained by armed guards last week in LA Airport just after clearing immigration. The duo were separated and interrogated for five hours, and Leigh was transported, in a cage (where he had a panic attack), to a cell, where he held overnight in a cell in the company of Mexican drug dealers. The duo were refused entry to the US and forced to buy new flights back to Europe.
Their offense? In the weeks before his trip, Leigh had joked about his upcoming trip to LA on Twitter, saying he would be “diggin’ Marilyn Monroe up!” (a reference to a Family Guy joke). He also asked a friend on Twitter if they were “free for a quick gossip/prep before I go to destroy America? x”
After his arrest Leigh and Emily tried to explain how both of the tweets were jokes. Going to “destroy” a place means you get drunk and careless there in British slang. Digging up Marilyn Monroe was a reference to a gag from Family Guy, an American TV show. The explanations were ignored as the duo were arrested, processed, and packed off to Europe.
So how did this happen? Here’s where it really gets interesting. And, well, scary.
Twitter as Big Brother?
First, how did the Department of Homeland Security (the DHS, the guys responsible for the border) find Leigh and Emily? It’s unlikely that either of these guys were on “watch lists” in advance of Leigh’s tweets. I mean, look at them. And the “documents” provided to Leigh after his arrest by the DHS officers mentions only his posts on “tweeter” as the cause for refusal of admission. Though it’s possible they had other reasons, none were mentioned by the DHS officers.
So assuming Leigh was not pre-identified before his fatal tweets, the DHS must have picked him out of the 250 million tweets published each day on Twitter, known in the industry as the “firehose”.
How is this accomplished? Well, automated processes – like search terms – will be at work, spotting phrases like “kill” “shoot” “destroy”, etc., when those words appear in tweets with words like America or the US.
This is the same process that brands monitor for things like “I hate Coca Cola” or “I love Coca Cola”. In Boolean search terms, the query will look like: (“hate” or “despise” or “disappoint!” or “love” or “like” or “yummy”) w/3 (“Coke” or “Cola” or “Coca”). This will spot various emotive words appearing close to Coca Cola keywords and give a fuzzy picture of how people feel about Coke today.
The DHS probably has something similar, with a huge range of word searches that someone decided should trigger security alerts, like attack, kill, destroy, etc. (You can probably think of more, but I don’t want to trigger alarm bells by stuffing them all into this post.) When those searches are triggered, then the process begins. Last week, that process culminated quite smoothly in Leigh and Emily’s arrest.
So it seems likely that all of Twitter (and probably Facebook) is being monitored for potential threats, and goodness knows what else. So if you’ve tweeted the word “ridiculous” or “Osama” or “destroy” within a few words of “America”, you might be on a watch list too.
Think you’re safe? If you’re a photographer, what if you’ve tweet that you’re planning to “shoot the Empire State Building”? Or if you’re hoping your product really takes off at a conference, what if you hope it “explodes”? What happens if you tweet that you hope the “US gets wiped out” in the Hockey finals? Or if Mastercard want to “attack” American’s Express’s dominance of the corporate cards market in New York?
Well tough luck. With any of those phrases you may have triggered the “deportation algorithm” – the unfortunate combination of words that makes you look vaguely like a threat to a computer in Arlington, Virgina, and results in your eventual forced removal from the USA.
Fascinating, no? The number of false positives a system like that could throw up is huge. Imagine how many potential terrorist suspects the DHS will discover if “Romney destroys Obama” in a debate? Will the resulting chatter be interpreted as millions of death threats?
Also, how do you feel when you are at a border about having to answer questions about everything you’ve ever said publicly on Twitter or Facebook, when the questioners refuse to understand your answers and will deliberately fixate on the worst possible interpretation of what you said?
What’s the upshot? If you are an “alien” (the US government term for non-US nationals) and if you ever intend on visiting America, it looks like you need to be very careful what you tweet. Or share on Facebook. Or even write online. A joke, political comment, expression of disagreement with an act by a US politician, or anything else might one day get you caged, put in a cell, and effectively “deported” at your own expense, likely never to be allowed to return.
And “aliens” don’t have constitutional rights against the DHS, so you can forget about those “freedom of expression” arguments bubbling up in your mind. So what will you do? Self-censor in case you ever want to go shopping in New York, attend a conference in Vegas, or ski in Colorado? Parse every word you utter online carefully with a view to having to justify it one day to a stern prosecutor who won’t listen to any contextual explanation?
What happened to the Humans?
The DHS has a very sensitive detection social media detection algorithm. In a sense, that’s fine. The fact that the DHS has a system that triggers some sort of reaction when someone tweets the words “destroy America” is perfectly sensible. (Even if it is a bit much to assume anyone will tweet about that if they intend doing it.)
But how can that phrase trigger a bureaucratic process that results in people being caged and deported, without any possibility of common sense intervention once that algorithm is triggered? It seems that no decision-making human entered the process, other than to verify that Leigh had in fact written the tweet, and as a matter of pure syntax, it could be interpreted as a statement of intent. I once read a science fiction story set in a world like that, where computers decided who was guilty and innocent based on algorithmic probabilities and (mis)interpretations of statements. It was scary, but laughable. Humans would never introduce such a system, right? Right?
As a matter of national security, this doesn’t look good. Making people from other countries afraid of talking about (or even mentioning the word) America will not serve long term security objectives, or the US national interest. Hearts and minds won’t be won when you can’t even discuss your feelings about a place.
Plus, I wonder if policymakers have considered what happens if other countries start following the US lead. What will the US reaction when its citizens are getting detained and deported all over the world for bad jokes, expressions, and political opinions they once expressed on Facebook?
The weird thing is that the story of Leigh and Emily is probably considered a success story for the social media monitors in the DHS. Threat detected. Threat neutralized. High fives.
Anyway, I’ve been careful as I typed this, hopefully careful enough to not get a detour to secondary screening next time I visit my friends in the states. In US First Amendment-speak, I’ve been feeling a “chiling effect.” I hope common sense prevails and the incident with Leigh and Emily is not a picture of our future. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to destroy a bag of Taytos.
Paul Quigley is co-founder of Newswhip.com.
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can I say “I am on a train to Killbarack”
……and your having the craic!
+10000
You’re going to Kill Barack?
Reminds me of a story my father told me years ago about a man from his village who was arrested by the black and tans because when he was stopped and asked where he was coming from and going to, he said ‘I’ve been to Killpatrick and I’m off to Killmore’
Even if its not true it makes a good story!
DHS, do they not sell sofas?
Have no doubt, Fascism is alive and well, in the land of ‘The Free’
*scratches America off list of places to go*
Would it not save a lot of time, money and paperwork if they just automated the system to tweet the people they’d determined to be a threat and said:
“Dear tweeter, you are now on our watch list, please don’t bother coming to America as you will be questioned, jailed & subsequently deported”
-DHS.
I’m too afraid to tell you about my experience of the aforementioned country and its border control.
Pity The Journal requires you to log on via facebook or twitter. Ugh.
Im pretty sure if terrorists are going to bomb the shit out of america, they arn’t going to put it up on facebook or twitter ffs. does that mean im barred from America now with that sentence?
Yup,your done mate..extradition order on the way!!!!
Yes
Game over !
America should officially burn their constitution, its is completely meaningless. Free speech does not exist there anymore. Ireland is a million times more free than the US and we dont go on about it all the time. This is a joke. I have made comments about america in the past, hope im put in jail the next time i try to go their.
The land of the free would make the old German Stasi jealous.
You’ve got to ask. a) why are they wasting their time monitoring a service that has only 100m users worldwide? and b) if they were that much of a threat, how were they allowed board a flight and arrive in the US of A? Doesn’t add up.
sorry accidentally gave you a thumbs down Brian, giving you a big green thumb up
What bothers me is that this situation concerned one Irish Citizen and who the hell gave the US the right to monitor social network traffic in other countries. Last time I checked we were the Republic of Ireland. Never was pushed about visiting the States, and as someone posted earlier “scratches America off list of places to go”.
public information, it’s a blog site.
It’s also hosted in the USA I believe (subject to correction).
i hate coca cola lol.. so im of to shoot the statue of liberty in america,then i will relax and enjoy a pack of tayto while i tweet the DHS.
Will Ferrell is getting carted off to a cell as we speak haha
If only Twitter and Facebook was around when the 9/11 gang were in action.
It’s too bad that it wouldn’t have worked. But then the CIA would only have their own people to follow if they were watching media sites like that.
lol, if you try tweet the article from the mail online link you put in there it has the words “Destroy America” in the tweet.
“forced to buy new flights back to Europe” ??? Go to be ****ed!! You not even going to deport me?? You expect me to pay my own way home?? No way José!
Welcome to the fourth reich. It must be destroyed
Bet they wish they hadn’t given twitter or Facebook their real names :)
Makes no difference to me either way.. I won’t give social networking sites my personal details and I have no desire to ever enter Big Brothers lair..
I sure as hell do. :-D
didn’t think things were THAT bad, time to go off the radar now perhaps?
Too little too late no doubt!
Ah.. I was advised not to when I was setting up my MySpace account, back before Facebook and Twitter came on the scene..
It seemed a bit paranoid at the time, but then I just used my nickname which my friends call me anyway.. But with twitter I don’t even use that – simply because I use it for accessing more public forums like this.. Like I explained to someone earlier – when it comes to expressing an opionion online it’s better to be mindful of who may be looking at it..
Hi Shanti – makes no odds if you give your real name; the chances are your man updated twitter on his phone, so the tweet was tied to a phone number. The DHS have access to all UK Phone Databases, so it’s very simple to track the accused! That’s why I still use a “dumb phone”.
Well that’s you banned from Tayto Land then….
The American People are amongst the nicest people on the planet and I really doubt that anybody would want to do them any harm. The International Military Industrial Complex which wages war all over the world and claims to be American is a totally different issue. Long live the American dream and may it be resuscitated sometime soon
Lickarse!! lol
It’s a great country Mark. Love it there. Though the people who make the decisions about its security (and military) often do it harm.
As a wise old man once said;
“That’s why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.”
― George Carlin
Well Mark, you pretty much nailed it. As an American and a former military man, I can tell you it’s gone out of control. The Military Industrial complex as you mentioned, does exist in a verifiable form. I would suggest all those people who gave thumbs down, and even those who didn’t, to have a nice little read of “Confessions of an economic hit man” by John Perkins. I would say more than a few people would get the shock of their life and indeed see the exact same scenarios playing out in Dublin right now.
It’s a bit bloomin scary alright Jackass! Did you see that video with Rick Santorum pretty much admitting the US assassinated that scientist in Iran? He went on to say any scientist thinking of working in Iran (he had presumed at the start of the speech that Iran is indeed working on weapons, prior to the results of the UN assessment) should be scared because they’ve done it, even to American citizens..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8uNcIEvGdo&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Scary stuff if you ask me. I worry for those who live in the US.
Sorry Mr. Pike, We detected “bomb” “Shit” and “America”. Can you please contact your local embassy and arrange to be taken in. Alternatively we can have a flight waiting for you in Shannon. White business jet, no tail number.
Terrorist code: “Destroy” = “Cuddle”, “United States” = “Bunny Rabbit”.
So much for all the money and man-hours the DHS put into to this nonsense. Although I suspect it’s more about spying on people rather than catching the boogieman. I wonder what they’ll do if ACTA’s fully implemented!?
lol
there is an old 18th “Irish bull” about the Irishman who was arrested after saying thar he had just come from killmany and was on his way to killmore. they probably hung the poor bastard.
Excellent, if unnerving, article, Paul.
People should target Discover America, the US Tourist board, with requests that their colleagues in Homeland Security exercise a bit of cop on. Maybe set up a petition/boycott.
After all, it can’t make their job of attracting tourists to the US any easier when jobsworths are behaving like those ones in LAX.
I think that’s what you call hyper-vigilence gone wrong. I have vivid memories of having a Panic attack in Shannon airport. In hindsight, was it because I didn’t approve of the war in Iraq (which should never have happened) or was it an admin error? I will probably never know.
Until you attacked the people I was with you. There’s lots of very smart, very decent people in the states – the same percentage as you would find here, just on a much larger scale.. Don’t tar them all with the same brush, there’s poorly educated people everywhere..
The cops, government, black ops, patriot act, NDAA, PICPA (not sure if I have the acronym in the correct order there), Mandatory medications, blatant corporate fraud, lobbying and war mongering is what puts me off the country too.
“no decision making human entered the process” not possible some idiot jailed them, questioned them… the fact that they were stupid doesn’t detract from the fact that they were human ( note how I left American out of that sentence in case they got their hands on this…!
The fall of the American Empire is happening before our eyes. Rampant greed brings down all empires. About time too.
US customs are tough but after 9/11 that is understandable. The guy was just silly and I bet he regrets it now! People should remember what they say can be taken the wrong way and it’s not wise to post it online.
No, people should speak freely.
Living in fear that somebody somewhere could misinterpret you and punish you for it is not a good solution.
silly for using slang?
everyone uses slang every day!
What does customs have to do with anything? The article is about DHS and immigration.
remember america: Just because you are paranoid it doesnt mean they are not after you! ;p
now come and arrest me
When we are living in a time where privacy is nonexistent ANYWHERE online and we have almost every facet of our Internet usage is tracked, stored and analysed we really need to stop been so naive or lazy and use fake online accounts so nothing can fall back to the REAL you. The internet is an artificial state so everyone should be using an artificial name and identity. Type “ad preferences” into google on your phone/PC and see how much info google have on you already
“forced to buy new flights back to Europe” ??? Go to be ****ed!! You not even going to deport me?? You expect me to pay my own way home?? No way José!
Why can I not post this comment?? Has the “land of the free” grabbed the journal?
Stories like this really suggest that the United States of America are best appreciated from outside their borders. If we want to discover the glory of the North American continent, with sensible and proportionate security procedures in place to safeguard everyone involved, Canada has it all.
Lol reminds me of the time I made the mistake of wearing an Ed Hardy T shirt on the plane over. Only to be asked by a US immigration official, questions such as: Who is ed hardy? Do you have tattoos? Are you going to a tattoo convention? Is that a lion or a tiger on your shirt etc etc. strange experience.
It would honestly put you off going to the states – which is a real pity, as they seem to choose the humans with least humanity from their number to be be the first people you meet on arrival.
I was on a flight to Florida some years back, crammed with families going to Disney World. On arrival one family with young children were taken aside, treated in a very rude and unfriendly way (kids crying etc), and questioned by a series of quite threatening people. What marked them out? They had two small kids hurls – the wee tiny ones, for toddlers – in their luggage. Eventually, after a couple of unpleasant hours, the ‘weapons’ were confiscated and they were allowed in.
It was trivial in the great scheme of things but quite frightening not just for the poor family immediately involved, but for all the people watching them being bundled away, many of whom were trying to explain to the other immigration people what a hurl was.
Seriously, do you intelligent people believe this? Article, has so many holes in it it’s like a cheese grater. A) do you enter your passport number into twitter? If not then the armed welcome reception better be watching out for everyone with the same name as you…could be confusing
B) if they were a threat they would be imprisoned, not sent home. If deemed safe then they would be allowed to stay.
C) no decision making human entered the process other than to verify that Leigh wrote the post? Really? Computers are allowed to decide the deployment of armed response units?
Sanctimonious, patronising and plain old wrong Larry!
A) His name is Leigh Van Bryan – how many Irish or UK Passport holders have this name? Easy to spot him.
Also, he probably used twitter on his smartphone, therefore the account is tied to a phone number – the UK & US have sharing agreements in place for mobile phone number database registers. If he updated from a PC, then UK ISP Databases are also shared with the DHS.
B) They were taken to secondary detention. Once this happens, you ain’t getting in. Secondary detention will decide what your fate is (guantanamo/US Trial/Sent home). They were obviously classified as not being an immediate danger, but their fate was sealed when they went to secondary.
C) You are obviously not as intelligent as you like to think – I sell the kind of systems that the US are using to the British Government. They track every single passenger from check-in right to your destination. And yes, US DHS, CIA, ATF, FBI et all use computerised systems to deploy resources to “high-risk” areas.
There’s a great research tool called the internet, we probably won’t have it for much longer, so I suggest you enlighten yourself there
Daniel, I wasn’t trying to make a statement about how intelligent I am, more that I’m sceptical of the story details. However after further research I admit I don’t have too much grounds for the scepticism as it’s quite widely reported.
Fair enough, if your selling this computer system the it seems you know more on the topic than I do.
But I will make one further point, this story was broken by the Sun and Daily Mail and every major news source that features it is certain to quote that in order to distance themselves from any liberal use of the truth in the story details. Which was my original point, (granted I somehow managed to put in a very cheeky and argumentative manner) the story sounds a little bit soap opera.
Gonna head up to Montrose and then Kilkenny! Oops!
I think it would be awful if anyone tried to DESTROY AMERICA, or wanted to KILL AMERICAN POLITICIANS, and what a tragedy if somebody had a plan to ASSASSINATE THE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.A! There now, I think that should ensure the DHS take my details, which is good because I want them to understand just how stupid the rest of the world thinks they are. MUPPETS!
The question raises how did the government link these twitter account to a real person while most people often use aliases? Yes, in this case the name of the twitter account is his real name but mostly it wont. What about other people with the same name? Overall one has to ask if twitter is not handing over personal information to the US government. It seems most likely that it does.
“Congressman Dwight S. Tayto of South Carolina was rushed to a secure location today after a surge in online chatter indicated a possible Al Qaeda operation targeting him for destruction. The marked increase in chatter indicated a plot to possibly smother the Congressman using a small foil bag coated with salt.”
The typos in this article are shocking! One or two mistakes are grand but it eventually got to the point where it was clear the author was careless…
On the topic at hand though, terrible stuff from the Americans..
Anyone else find themselves trying desperately not to write a comment containing all the possible black listed words they could imagine might be on this algorithm thingy? I would like to go to America again one day.. I feel somewhat like a coward!!
Overreliance on computers and failure of human intelligence were the reason why 9/11 occurred. I do not think the U.S. government has learned any lesson from the tragedy. The more sophisticated the computers became, the less sophisticated the human intelligence became — and thus incidents like this that distract from real counter-terror work while also costing the American taxpayers more unnecessary money in this time of massive deficits.
What also makes me wonder is how the DHS gets to decide whose Twitter handles belong to whom. Presumably they have never subpoenaed Twitter for user records, they simply made a connection between Twitter handles and possibly the profile photos, and the travellers. Given that many people make up fake Twitter handles, sometimes even impersonating others as parodies, and also given that there are many people with same or similar names and Twitter handles, the rate of false positives can be astounding, and many of them are probably simply unreported in the media.
The arguments often used by the U.S. federal government is that the Constitution does not apply to those who have not yet been legally admitted to the U.S. by the CBP immigration inspectors. In this case, the immigration inspector did not exclude them — and this happened only after the fact at the customs inspection area. The moment the U.S. immigration inspector stamped their passport they are technically under the protection of the U.S. Constitution and associated due process. What makes this case murkier is the use of the Visa Waiver Pilot Program (VWPP, I-94W). Had they have a B-1/B-2 visa from the U.S. consulate, they could have had a better outcome. Unfortunately the VWPP requires tourists to waive all rights of appeal and all due process. Nevertheless, this case could prove to be interesting if the travellers choose to pursue a civil action outside the immigration system.
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