Federal Reserve Seeks Real-Time Monitoring of Social Networks, Bloggers, Forums, and “Influencers”
By Mac Slavo
If you believe Ben Bernanke and his merry band of money printers don’t care about what you think, then consider the latest product development proposal from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. According to RFP (Request for Proposal) 6994, the Fed intends to build a real-time monitoring solution capable of mining and aggregating data across social networks like Facebook and Twitter, alternative news web sites and blogs, video sharing web sites, and mainstream media outlets.
Not only do they care about what you think, they want to know exactly who you are, what language you speak, who you’re talking to, where you’re getting your information, who you are sharing it with, and what your sentiment and emotional state is in reference to that specific moment.
According to portions of the RFP, the Fed intends to collect, aggregate and analyze data, as well as to us this information to direct their own actions and responses. By identifying “crisis” points with the new listening platform, the Fed will be able to specifically target information being put out by news web sites and even individual users (in forums or comments) and then respond to that information in kind by either contacting “key bloggers” and “influencers,” or simply ramping up their public relations machine to either discredit the message, or simply rewrite the message through the spread of news releases to major internet distribution channels and heavily trafficked social networks.
The Federal Reserve’s Criteria for its Sentiment Analysis And Social Media Monitoring Solution are described, in part, below:
Description: Federal Reserve Bank of New York (“FRBNY”) is extending to suppliers an invitation to participate in anSentiment Analysis And Social Media Monitoring Solution RFP bid process. The intent is to establish a fair andequitable partnership with a market leader who will who gather data from various social media outlets and news sources and provide applicable reporting to FRBNY. This Request for Proposal (“RFP”) was created in an effort tosupport FRBNY’s Social Media Listening Platforms initiative.
…
I. Introduction
Social media platforms are changing the way organizations are communicating to the public Conversations are happening all the time and everywhere.
There is need for the Communications Group to be timely and proactively aware of the reactions and opinions expressed by the general public as it relates to the Federal Reserve and its actions on a variety of subjects.
II. Social Listening Platforms
Social media listening platforms are solutions that gather data from various social media outlets and news sources. They monitor billions of conversations and generate text analytics based on predefined criteria. They can also determine the sentiment of a speaker or writer with respect to some topic or document.
The information gathered can guide the organizations public relations group in assessing the effectiveness of communication strategies.
Here are some of the services it can offer:
■Track reach and spread of your messages and press releases
■Handle crisis situations
■Continuously monitor conversations
■Identify and reach out to key bloggers and influencers
■Spot emerging trends, discussions themes and topics
A. Geographic scope of social media sites
The solution must support content coming from different countries and geographical regions. It should also support multiple languages.
B. Content and Data Types
The solution must be able to gather data from the primary social media platforms –Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Forums and YouTube. It should also be able to aggregate data from various media outlets such as: CNN, WSJ, Factiva etc.
C. Reports and Metrics
The solution must provide real-time monitoring of relevant conversations. It should provide sentiment analysis (positive, negative or neutral) around key conversational topics.
It must be able to provide summaries or high level overviews of a specific set of topics. It should have a configurable dashboard that can easily be accessed by internal analysts or management. The dashboard must support customization by user or group access.
The solution should provide an alerting mechanism that automatically sends out reports or notifications based a predefined trigger.
D. FRBNY Technology Integration
The solution must be able to integrate with existing FRBNY technologies such as: Google Search appliance, Lotus notes suite and web trends.It must have support for single sign on or windows integrated authentication.
Sourced Via Zero Hedge and Scribd
What’s important to note is that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York does not intend to build a completely new platform. Their intention is to establish a relationship with an existing market leader – likely one of the information mining and gathering platforms already in existence, such as a large search engine – with whom they can then integrate their systems.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
The Fed: Monitoring the "Influencers"
I received some new information about plans the Federal Reserve have for the American people. I didn't like it. I don't think you will either, so I've decided to repost a portion of an article from shtfplan.com. Please read and consider it carefully. I'm not sure what plan of action to take with this, so help me think of one.
Tuesday, September 06, 2011
The Approach of 9/11
This year the media has been pushing, more aggressively, the remembrance of terrible acts of 9/11. The difference this year is that it’s the 10th anniversary; however, looking at what laws, regulations and rulings that have transpired since 9/11 we can also do a bit of grieving for many of our freedoms as well.
Do I sound cynical? I don’t mean to, although, the re-signing of the Patriot Act by our president, has put a bitter taste in my mouth. It’s okay that my family can’t meet me at the gate when I get off the plane (although I do miss that freedom greatly), and it’s a pain that security makes me take off my pumps and makes me stand barefoot on the filthy floor at the airport. What I can’t stand though is the lack of transparency on the part of our government.
Today I was listening to the good folks on NPR as they covered a segment on how the changes in government agencies with regards to sharing information have allowed them to retain the same practices of staying the same. Confusing? Agencies such as the CIA have long been known to abuse the practice of classifying information, from the sensitive to the trivial, as classified or “Top Secret.” That classified information is even hands-off to other government agencies, who might actually be able to use it.
After 9/11, as reported on NPR, flood gates of information sharing were open and many times CIA agents were not rewarded, but punished for sharing with outside agencies for fear the information would get into the wrong hands. This has led to the halt again.
According to a former agent, information is also sometimes classified to cover up mistakes that have been made. So here lies the hole government agencies are able to escape through. There can be no accountability on spending or on conduct if an agency is allowed to deem all things classified, and the American public is allowed to remain in the dark, which leads the American public to draw their own conclusions when answers from the government stop making sense.
As 9/11 approaches and the media focuses on the victims and the heros and their loved ones, we should also review the explanation out government has given us, keeping in mind it’s reputation for hiding the truth. Below is an excerpt from an article posted on ProjectCensored.org, titled, “Unanswered Questions of 9/11: 911 Prewarnings, Building 7 Collapse, Flight 77 and the Pentagon, Israeli Involvement, United Airlines Put-options, War games, Atta and the $100,000, 9/11 Terrorists Still Alive.” Some of the things you read in the article, you may not agree with, but before dismissing the information, dig around yourself, at least a little bit, and make up your own mind based upon what you find.
A threshold concept facing Americans is the possibility that the 9/11 Commission Report was on many levels a cover-up for the failure of the US government to prevent the tragedy. Deeper past the threshold is the idea that the report failed to address sources of assistance to the terrorists. Investigations into this area might have led to a conclusion that elements of various governments — including our own — not only knew about the attacks in advance, but may have helped facilitate their implementation. The idea that someone in the Government of the United States may have contributed support to such a horrific attack is inconceivable to many. It is a threshold concept that is so frightening that it brings up a state of mind akin to complete unbelievably.
Philosophy/Religion professor David Ray Griffin has recently published his findings on the omissions and distortions of the 9/11 Commission report. Griffin notes that the 9/11 Commission failed to discuss most of the evidence that seems to contradict the official story about 9/11— for example, the report by Attorney David Schippers that states that some FBI agents who contracted him had information about attacks several weeks prior to 9/11, along with evidence that several of the alleged hijackers are still alive. Griffin’s book brings into question the completeness and authenticity of the 9/11 Commission’s work. Griffin questions why extensive advanced warnings from several countries were not acted upon by the administration, how a major institutional investor knew to buy put-options on American and United Airlines before the attack, and how an inexperienced terrorist pilot could have conducted a complicated decent into an unoccupied section of the Pentagon.
Additionally, Griffin notes questions remain on why the 9/11 Commission failed to address the reports that $100,000 was wired to Mohamed Atta from Saeed Sheikh, an agent for Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), under the direction of the head of ISI General Mahmud Ahmed. General Ahmed resigned his position less than one month later. The Times of India reported that Indian intelligence had given US officials evidence of the money transfer ordered by Ahmad and that he was dismissed after the “US authorities sought his removal.”
Also, the 9/11 Commission report failed to address the reasons for the collapse of World Trade Center (WTC) building 7 more than six hours after the attack. WTC-7 was a 47-story, steel frame building that had only small fires on a few floors. WTC buildings 5 & 6 had much larger fires and did not collapse. This has led a number of critics to speculate that WTC 7 was a planned demolition.
Overall concerns with the official version of 9/11 have been published and discussed by scholars and politicians around the world including: Jim Marrs, Nafeez Ahmed, Michael Ruppert, Cynthia McKinney, Barrie Zwicker, Webster Tarpley, Michel Chossudovsky, Paul Thompson, Eric Hufschmid and many others (see: http://www.911forthetruth.com). The response to most has been to label these discussions as “conspiracy theories” unworthy of media coverage or further review. Pursuit of a critical analysis of these questions is undermined by the psychological barrier about 9/11 issues as threshold concepts — too awful to even consider.
Do I sound cynical? I don’t mean to, although, the re-signing of the Patriot Act by our president, has put a bitter taste in my mouth. It’s okay that my family can’t meet me at the gate when I get off the plane (although I do miss that freedom greatly), and it’s a pain that security makes me take off my pumps and makes me stand barefoot on the filthy floor at the airport. What I can’t stand though is the lack of transparency on the part of our government.
Today I was listening to the good folks on NPR as they covered a segment on how the changes in government agencies with regards to sharing information have allowed them to retain the same practices of staying the same. Confusing? Agencies such as the CIA have long been known to abuse the practice of classifying information, from the sensitive to the trivial, as classified or “Top Secret.” That classified information is even hands-off to other government agencies, who might actually be able to use it.
After 9/11, as reported on NPR, flood gates of information sharing were open and many times CIA agents were not rewarded, but punished for sharing with outside agencies for fear the information would get into the wrong hands. This has led to the halt again.
According to a former agent, information is also sometimes classified to cover up mistakes that have been made. So here lies the hole government agencies are able to escape through. There can be no accountability on spending or on conduct if an agency is allowed to deem all things classified, and the American public is allowed to remain in the dark, which leads the American public to draw their own conclusions when answers from the government stop making sense.
As 9/11 approaches and the media focuses on the victims and the heros and their loved ones, we should also review the explanation out government has given us, keeping in mind it’s reputation for hiding the truth. Below is an excerpt from an article posted on ProjectCensored.org, titled, “Unanswered Questions of 9/11: 911 Prewarnings, Building 7 Collapse, Flight 77 and the Pentagon, Israeli Involvement, United Airlines Put-options, War games, Atta and the $100,000, 9/11 Terrorists Still Alive.” Some of the things you read in the article, you may not agree with, but before dismissing the information, dig around yourself, at least a little bit, and make up your own mind based upon what you find.
A threshold concept facing Americans is the possibility that the 9/11 Commission Report was on many levels a cover-up for the failure of the US government to prevent the tragedy. Deeper past the threshold is the idea that the report failed to address sources of assistance to the terrorists. Investigations into this area might have led to a conclusion that elements of various governments — including our own — not only knew about the attacks in advance, but may have helped facilitate their implementation. The idea that someone in the Government of the United States may have contributed support to such a horrific attack is inconceivable to many. It is a threshold concept that is so frightening that it brings up a state of mind akin to complete unbelievably.
Philosophy/Religion professor David Ray Griffin has recently published his findings on the omissions and distortions of the 9/11 Commission report. Griffin notes that the 9/11 Commission failed to discuss most of the evidence that seems to contradict the official story about 9/11— for example, the report by Attorney David Schippers that states that some FBI agents who contracted him had information about attacks several weeks prior to 9/11, along with evidence that several of the alleged hijackers are still alive. Griffin’s book brings into question the completeness and authenticity of the 9/11 Commission’s work. Griffin questions why extensive advanced warnings from several countries were not acted upon by the administration, how a major institutional investor knew to buy put-options on American and United Airlines before the attack, and how an inexperienced terrorist pilot could have conducted a complicated decent into an unoccupied section of the Pentagon.
Additionally, Griffin notes questions remain on why the 9/11 Commission failed to address the reports that $100,000 was wired to Mohamed Atta from Saeed Sheikh, an agent for Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), under the direction of the head of ISI General Mahmud Ahmed. General Ahmed resigned his position less than one month later. The Times of India reported that Indian intelligence had given US officials evidence of the money transfer ordered by Ahmad and that he was dismissed after the “US authorities sought his removal.”
Also, the 9/11 Commission report failed to address the reasons for the collapse of World Trade Center (WTC) building 7 more than six hours after the attack. WTC-7 was a 47-story, steel frame building that had only small fires on a few floors. WTC buildings 5 & 6 had much larger fires and did not collapse. This has led a number of critics to speculate that WTC 7 was a planned demolition.
Overall concerns with the official version of 9/11 have been published and discussed by scholars and politicians around the world including: Jim Marrs, Nafeez Ahmed, Michael Ruppert, Cynthia McKinney, Barrie Zwicker, Webster Tarpley, Michel Chossudovsky, Paul Thompson, Eric Hufschmid and many others (see: http://www.911forthetruth.com). The response to most has been to label these discussions as “conspiracy theories” unworthy of media coverage or further review. Pursuit of a critical analysis of these questions is undermined by the psychological barrier about 9/11 issues as threshold concepts — too awful to even consider.
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