Not The Onion: Hundreds of common words that could get you in trouble

The Daily Mail reports that federal thought police have compiled an "intriguing" list of words and phrases to be used to "monitor social networking sites and online media for signs of terrorist or other threats against the U.S." The list includes "obvious choices such as 'attack', 'Al Qaeda', 'terrorism' and 'dirty bomb' alongside dozens of seemingly innocent words like 'pork', 'cloud', 'team' and 'Mexico'."

The Dept. of Homeland Security was forced to release the list by a privacy watchdog group that filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act. Although DHS claims it only employs the list to detect legitimate security risks, "[t]he words are included in the department's 2011 'Analyst's Desktop Binder'* used by workers at their National Operations Center which instructs workers to identify 'media reports that reflect adversely on DHS and response activities'."

Note that the avoidance of many of these words would make public discussion of security and military issues -- to say nothing of the weather -- impossible. But note also that your continued insistence on discussing such matters may attract the security state's interest.

Of course, you could decide to mess with them by putting references to "pork," "snow," "bridge," "tremor," "Tucson," "worm" and "metro" in all your communications.

The rest of the story: Revealed: Hundreds of words to avoid using online if you don't want the government spying on you by Daniel Miller (Mail Online 2012-05-26).

*Even "redacted," 'Analyst's Desktop Binder' makes for interesting reading.

Change Watch: Obama signs bill that will hide torture pictures

The Homeland Security appropriations bill President Obama signed into law last week includes a provision authorizing the Defense Department to continue to conceal photos documenting the torture and abuse of prisoners in U.S. military custody, according to reporting in The Washington Independent.

The American Civil Liberties Union had specifically sought those photos, and sued to get them, among other documents relating to detainee abuse, in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The exemption signed, however, is much broader than simply the photos sought in the lawsuit. It would apply to any other photos taken between Sept. 11, 2001 and Jan.22, 2009 that the Secretary of Defense has certified would, if released, endanger U.S. citizens, servicemen, or employees overseas.

President Obama had agreed to release the photos, but changed his mind after consulting with DOD secretary Robert Gates and others at the Pentagon, who warned the photos would endanger U.S. servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan by making the Afghan resistance fighters mad at us.
New York Rep. Louise Slaughter defends the Freedom of Information Act during the debate over releasing photographs of American personel abusing detainees.

The provision was the inspiration of Sen. Joe Lieberman (it almost goes without saying) specifically to thwart the ACLU suit. Although a federal appeals court last year ordered the government to produce the unclassified photos, ruling that the Freedom of Information Act can’t be trumped by citing unspecified dangers to unspecified potential targets of the anger that the information may produce, the government refused to release the pictures and appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court. The bill signed Wednesday was supported by nearly all Democrats, despite including the language weakening the FOIA and attempting to get around both lower court rulings and any similar future judgment by the high court.