Social Media and National Security

US Gov’t Pro Social Media, Law Enforcement Asleep At The Wheel!

by Mike Vallez on March 29, 2010

The US Department of State has jumped into Facebook amid a growing number of federal agencies that are doing the same. Other federal agencies involved in social media are the National Security Agency, US Army, US Navy, US Coast Guard, The White House, and many others. The federal government is clearly becoming a leader in communicating their message through “social networking” sites. But is the federal government setting the standard on how to be involved in “social media?” How about from a national security perspective? There are not a lot of private national security companies for obvious reasons. However, law enforcement is in the business of national security particularly post 09/11. So why is law enforcement so slow to respond to the obvious?

The obvious is that social networking sites offer law enforcement a new way to communicate to their consumers, constituents, and others. The “others” category is a group of people who transcend the the geographical area of a law enforcement agency and consist of web users, the world wide web. Typically law enforcement only communicated to their local citizens by television, news paper, or radio, which was geographically limiting. The web allows for a much broader audience even an international audience. Additionally, it must be assumed that a certain percentage of a law enforcement agencies local constituents are also involved in social networking sites. But, why would a law enforcement agency care to broadcast information to anyone other than their local citizens?

Because prior to the “blow up” of social networking sites in the last few years the web was primarily a reference tool to gather information and was not used as much for “social” online communication. The change in culture that has occurred is epic and is not a fade. People are consuming news from Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and other websites that were not typical news outlets, but are now. We all can agree that how people are accessing information has changed. A quick stat that supports this, “more than 5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each week” on Facebook (Facebook Statistics). It is no wonder the federal government is getting on board with social media. By setting up communication channels on social networking sites they are to reaching out to a growing number of people who are gathering information from places like Facebook and Twitter and not from newspapers or television.

Hopefully law enforcement will see the value in getting their message out through social networking sites. Be it a press release, wanted person information, missing person information, crime prevention information and so on. The US government has invested in communication through social networking sites, specifically from a national security perspective maybe law enforcement will take this cue and get involved as well. Just to be fair, not each and every law enforcement agency is oblivious to using social networking sites. There are some using social networking sites to further their communication, however, in general law enforcement has not overwhelmingly jumped into the conversation just yet. Mike Vallez

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Department of Defense social media policy change on social media Five-O

DoD Takes On Social Media | Gets All Branches Under One Policy

by Mike Vallez on March 5, 2010

The Department of Defense has implemented an encompassing “Responsible and Effective Use
of Internet-based Capabilities Policy” last week to get everyone under their large umbrella on the same “social networking” use page (http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Web-Services-Web-20-and-SOA/Pentagon-Loosens-Reins-Over-Use-of-Facebook-Twitter-Web-20-Apps-448094/). As one could imagine the DoD was going to have to do something sooner than later to get the different organizations under their jurisdiction under the same policy.

The trouble began last year when the US Army banned the use of several “social networking” sites for their organization. The US Marines followed up with a much harsher version as I wrote about in August of last year “Marines Ban Social Media, But Can They.” The Marines banned the use of all “social networking” sites from all US Marine network computers.

The DoD is the protector of the United States of America and the job involves at most times a high level of secrecy and security around operations, procedures, and intelligence. Naturally, the banning of “social media” by the various organizations in the DoD was as a precautionary measure to protect national security, i.e. the United States. But, apparently after some study and consideration the DoD feels comfortable enough to allow use of “social networking” sites by their massive employee base.

Could the DoD successfully, have banned social media? Perhaps, but policing this would be a very difficult process, one that might take up an inordinate amount of time and take away from the more important mission of protecting the this country. The policy allows for use of “social networking” sites, wiki’s, etc, but there is some wording that allows the DoD to put the “kabash” on” social networking” if necessary. The cause for revoking “social networking” access is mostly common sense based on abuse or “bandwidth” issues.

I applaud the DoD for stepping up and taking the “social media” bull by the horns. An organization this large, especially one that deals in national security may have just set the standard for “social networking” use for the rest of the government and private sector. It ought to be interesting to see how other agencies, corporations, and other government entities deal with the same issue, people using “social networking sites” at work. MFV

http://michaelvallez.com

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Leveraging Social Media As A Modern Day Reverse 911 Early Warning System!

by Mike Vallez on August 15, 2009

Social media is blowing up in the business world due to the networking abilities that businesses just can’t turn a blind to any longer. Some jumped on the “social media highway” much quicker than others. I myself have unknowingly been involved in social media longer than I first realized. But, I truly did not get into the conversation until 02/2009. Now in the conversation my mind just sees so many possibilities for social media to be used in Law Enforcement and National Security.

An example of this would be “Twitter Reverse 911″, “Facebook Reverse 911″, you fill in the social media blank “_______ Reverse 911. The times they are a changing and if you don’t change you get passed by. Oh, and someone tell the guy waiting for a full-service gas customer to maybe look for another job. My feeling is there is tremendous growth potential for social media to be used in Law Enforcement and National Security in a very positive way. Wikipedia defines “Reverse 911″ this way:

Reverse 911 is a communication system that allows emergency services to quickly contact members of a community or organization with information. It is so named, because 911 is the telephone number used for members of the community to communicate with emergency services (police, fire, EMS) in the USA. This system allows emergency services to do the “reverse”, usually to inform the public of a known hazard. Reverse 911 is designed to provide map– or list-based communications with key audiences. Geographic calling zones are created based on immediate circumstances (e.g. Amber Alerts) or ahead of time based on anticipated needs (e.g. flood plains). Reverse 911 may also target specific lists of people (e.g., first responders, Neighborhood Watch, etc.)
Reverse 911 is used in hundreds of communities, counties, commercial businesses, schools and non-profit organizations. The system has been used to solve and prevent crimes.[1] Via Wikipedia

A “Twitter Warning” (in lieu of “Twitter Reverse 911) would work like this. Let’s use the overturned chlorine railcar as a disaster any Law Enforcement jurisdiction would want to notify it’s citizens of to prevent harm to those citizens. Say the Boston PD Boston PD who has 7,104 followers as of this post sent out a “Tweet Warning” to it’s followers with geographic boundaries where the fictitious chlorine railcar ruptured and is creating a hazard. If just one person either living in the map boundaries or planning to travel through the map boundaries is notified of this incident through Twitter then you have established social media, namely Twitter as an important emergency warning system. You can do the same with Facebook, FriendFeed, and any other social media outlet one could think of.

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Using social media as a warning system is a world wide tool and not just for us here in the United States. Do you see where I am going with this? The thought of using social media websites as warning systems will change our culture worldwide (wow). “Reverse 911″ has been around for some years and there are several MMS, SMS, and Email warning systems popping up, specifically on college campuses: due to the horrible incident that tool place at Virginia Tech a few years ago. The exciting thing here is a lot of people use social media at home, in their car, at work and to have this kind of warning system in people’s hands while they are on the go is intrinsically valuable (more lives will be saved). Our society is becoming more mobile everyday with the increase of powerful smartphone like the iPhone.

I am not sure how fast this idea will catch on, but I don’t think Law Enforcement agencies or Governments will be able to prevent this. Most law enforcement agencies are a little behind integrating social media into a Law Enforcement tool. Social media is a new communication frontier that is virtual and this may add to the reluctance to pay money to set up a “Social Media Warning System”. The most likely cause of this is the current economic position most state governments are in (“budgets”. There is also some pessimism by Law Enforcement in using social media for law enforcement purposes. Regardless of “budgets’ or pessimism I am going to champion this cause and feel that in the not too distant future social media will be an established early warning system for hazardous incidents, crime, etc throughout the world. Mike Vallez

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