US Military Plugs Into Social Media for Intelligence Gathering

For the past 18 months, the US has invested heavily in ways to collect and examine social-media postings on Facebook, Twitter and overseas regional networks as a source of overseas intelligence, according to Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the Defense Intelligence Agency chief.

He says it could revolutionize "open-source" intelligence gathering -- the kind that focuses on finding key data from publicly available sources, as opposed to intercepting private communications or stealing secrets. Efforts by intelligence agencies to mine social media, even postings made overseas, are bound to raise concerns, given fears that postings made by Americans could be swept up in the vast amounts of information being searched by intelligence agencies.