Social media sites are now used as platforms for protest movements — and they can also be used by governments to track down and investigate people using data shared voluntarily in these public avenues.
Mike Pompeo, the Republican congressman from Kansas, is being groomed as the Trump administration's pick as incoming CIA director. During his confirmation hearing, the congressman said that the agency should be obligated to use information that comes from social media accounts when conducting investigations.
Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon questioned Pompeo on his views about privacy issues and referenced the latter's op-ed column from 2016, which argued that "Congress should pass a law re-establishing collection of all metadata, and combining it with publicly available financial and lifestyle information into a comprehensive, searchable database."
Pompeo also previously filed a bill titled "Liberty Through Strength Act II," which will allow the U.S. National Security Agency to have access to private information such as business and telephone call records. The bill also proposed that information collected will be put on a comprehensive, searchable database. Wyden wanted to know what the limits would have been if the bill was approved by Congress.
Pompeo defended his views by saying that in the instance of an attack against America, "the director of the CIA would be grossly negligent if they didn't pursue that information."
Social Media Surveillance: Counterterrorism
Pompeo said that investigating public social media accounts could prove useful in the agency's counterterrorism efforts. He also promised that the CIA would not unlawfully spy on U.S. citizens, and added that he had previously voted in favor of privacy protection.
There have been instances in the past where criminal perpetrators expressed their angry sentiments on Facebook. The Orlando gay club shooter posted several angry status updates on the social media site. The person who plowed through several pedestrians and stabbed others at Ohio State University did so too.
Tough Times Ahead For Pompeo As CIA Director
If Pompeo does get the confirmation, he's in for some tough times ahead. His hearing comes on the heels of an unsubstantiated report that the Russian government gained access to compromising information about the president-elect.
Trump has also been at odds with the intelligence community. He said that he does not want to receive daily intelligence briefings and also mocked U.S. intelligence reports that say Russia interfered with the elections on his behalf.
