Big Brother

from Yahoo
groovy, eh?

thanks to Hesiod

People in black trench coats might soon be chasing blogs.

Blogs, short for Web logs, are personal online journals. Individuals post them on Web sites to report or comment on news especially, but also on their personal lives or most any subject.

Some blogs are whimsical and deal with "soft" subjects. Others, though, are cutting edge in delivering information and opinion.

As a result, some analysts say U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials might be starting to track blogs for important bits of information. This interest is a sign of how far Web media such as blogs have come in reshaping the data-collection habits of intelligence professionals and others, even with the knowledge that the accuracy of what's reported in some blogs is questionable.

Still, a panel of folks who work in the U.S. intelligence field - some of them spies or former spies - discussed this month at a conference in Washington the idea of tracking blogs.

"News and intelligence is about listening with a critical ear, and blogs are just another conversation to listen to and evaluate. They also are closer to (some situations) and may serve as early alerts," said Jock Gill, a former adviser on Internet media to President Clinton (news - web sites), in a later phone interview, after he spoke on the panel.

Some panel and conference participants, because of their profession, could not be identified. But another who could is Robert Steele, another blog booster. The former U.S. intelligence officer said "absolutely" that blogs are valid sources of intelligence and news, though he said authenticating the information in blogs "leaves a lot to be desired."

The CIA (news - web sites) and FBI (news - web sites) haven't publicly commented about use of blogs in their work, but many D.C. observers believe both agencies monitor certain blogs.

Various U.S. agencies already scan the Web sites of so-called nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, for information on political, economic and environmental issues. So tracking blogs isn't a big step. And there are software products and online services for this task.

While blog postings are voluntary and available to anyone to read, some observers say blog monitoring by governments or the media raises civil liberties and privacy issues. One such critic is James Love, director of the Ralph Nader (news - web sites)-affiliated Consumer Project on Technology.

"When you're conducting surveillance where you have no expectation of illegal activity, there has to be some threshold to justify such surveillance," Love said.

Some point to other dangers in using blogs for intelligence or news. Blogs can be used to spread lies or disinformation.

It's hard to fact check a blog account of an event in a remote area like Mongolia. Plus, many bloggers don't use their real names. Confirming identities can be hard.

In Baghdad last September, guerillas fired two surface-to-air missiles at a U.S. military transport, but missed. A blogger in Baghdad who goes by the name "Riverbend" wrote that the plane carried Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was then in Iraq.

The report proved false, but it confused the media.

Determining blog accuracy is the crucial first step to taking it further, warned Tim Witcher, who spoke at the conference. He's the former Seoul, Korea, bureau chief for Agence France-Presse, a news service. "A blog only becomes news when we can be 100% sure that it's true," he said.

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