I didn’t know this but apparently some people still think social media is a fad. There’s no link to those people in the previous sentence because they don’t own computers and are thus unable to voice their opinion online. In fact, the population of Facebook has now outpaced that of the entire U.S. and one of the most noticeable areas of growth is in PR and Marketing firms. But even more interesting is the entrance of the intelligence industry into the mix. Not to be lazy but I’m going to insert a block quote from Noah Shachtman of Wired who originally reported on the CIA and social media earlier this week:

“In-Q-Tel,the investment arm of the CIA and the wider intelligence community, is putting cash into Visible Technologies, a software firm that specializes in monitoring social media. It’s part of a larger movement within the spy services to get better at using ”open source intelligence” — information that’s publicly available, but often hidden in the flood of TV shows, newspaper articles, blog posts, online videos and radio reports generated every day.”

In essence they want the chatter and at this point mostly foreign chatter. There is no intention of focusing on domestic social media activity according to In-Q-Tel spokesman Donald Tighe. Within the din of social media there are trends that will appear and there are feelings or sentiments that may surface before we/they even realize as a culture that they are there. Knowing this gives the U.S. government and the CIA valuable insight into social or cultural thresholds (meaning how palpable current operations that may have blowback are to the public) as well as our general collective psyche. It will offer an “early-warning detection on how issues are playing internationally,” in the words of Tighe-who charminlgy refers to the CIA as Spooks in the Wired article. And for what direct purpose the CIA needs to gather this can be speculated on ad nauseum, beyond the fact that it’s their job to know everything. I doubt it’s for job performance reviews alone, least of all from foreign citizens. The agency will also be looking for signals that could forewarn of impending criminal or terrorist activity one could assume. Though at this point it has been expressly for foreign chatter, the CIA can also use the technology to turn its efforts inwards, gauging the domestic chatter if it wanted to.

To those of you who are paranoid about the CIA knowing everything about you, don’t worry. The technology is not being used to monitor Facebook or domestic social media yet, but most marketing firms already have every bit of information possible on you. They’ve probably grown a clone of you in a genetic marketing lab and are doing outlandish experiments on your clone brain to figure out how to win your consumer confidence and brand loyalty. I’d be more concerned about the large marketing firms than the intelligence community, they’re far more voracious.