A knee-jerk reaction was recently spawned regarding Freedom of the Press enthusiasts balking at the Department of Homeland Security plan to review and aggregate journalism and the reporters who freely publish material for readers to freely peruse and save. It is much like you and I do, except for the pushback from media types who feel threatened that a government entity is analyzing what is being written.
Via the FedBizOpps.gov site, the Department of Homeland Security publicly announced on April 3, 2018 a media-monitoring plan implemented by its National Protection and Programs Acquisition Division. The Homeland Security database plan “Notice Type” is listed as “Sources Sought,” meaning the agency is seeking bids from contractors to handle the project in outsourced fashion.
Analyzing the Homeland Security plan further, it categorizes the media database objective and prospective firms to elaborate on their “Statement of Work” (SOW) for which DHS asks for details as to entity size, its core competencies, strategic locations, any security-clearance levels obtained by its staff, service techniques and approaches, geographical operational presence, and contact information of its personnel to include “physical address, contact person details, office telephone, office fax, email address.”
The selected agency will be charged with monitoring a bevy of media outlets, reporters, bloggers, and reporting their findings to the federal government. It is merely an intelligence-gathering venture so that our government can stay abreast of all that is going on in the world so as to preserve our security interests.
Not so fast! says Forbes writer Michelle Fabio. Scrutinous and skeptical of the DHS plan to monitor media figures and influencers in the news, she claims the DHS intent is “enough to cause nightmares of constitutional proportions, particularly as the freedom of the press is under attack worldwide.” Perhaps, but where is Homeland Security holding a firearm to any media temples?
Ms. Fabio continued with her defensive posture: “And ‘attack’ is not hyperbolic.” I beg to differ…on most of it. Indeed, some field reporters were placed in danger by virtue of what they do and getting the story. Akin to cops, at-large journalists are well aware of the perils which may come knocking at their door. Often, getting a dose of the gritty saga unfolding in areas of crisis and chaos comes with its own set of personal/professional assail.
“Unfortunately, increasing government encroachment on the freedom of the press is the sinister backdrop to all this,” Ms. Fabio wrote.
Nevertheless, I see a different side to the aforementioned factors contributing to the Homeland Security database goals. Mutual understanding and cooperation towards achieving national security objectives. Resolutely, not every government agent has the inroads that some journalists have. Admittedly, some folks who harbor crucial information refrain from offering details to agents of the state because of the very authority they wield–insecurity, perhaps. Not to imply they are concealing something of their own regret–some do, others merely are uncomfortable around badges–but justice is a two-way street and, as citizens, we all have a civic duty to report wrongs and injustices.
Cops are certainly trained and skilled in interpersonal relations and breaking down barriers of sorts. But the fact remains: if investigative journalists are out there aggregating substantive fact-patterned information which may have national security threat attachments, the realm of civic duty becomes tangible and, perhaps, life-saving. I would be hard-pressed as a reporter to investigate aspects in my country or elsewhere which may be deemed harmful on a national or even global scale…yet still withhold cooperation with government officials who may not have the information-source but definitely possess the physical and economical resources to strategically abate such catastrophes.
In fact, certain queries under the Homeland Security “Statement of Work” initiative seems to imply potential alliance with media entities and their agents reporting from the field. The allusion of transparency and potential partnership of federal agents acting on information gathered/supplied by media affiliates resonates for-the-good-of-all-parties in the name of nationalism.
Existentially, the media produces material they deem newsworthy and puts it out there for consumers to read. Simple, common, and pointedly fulfilling their purpose, right? What media entity does not wish to have its audience-base readied for what it composes and disseminates publicly? Like any media maven, reputation for fact-based reports from swift-response investigative journalists informing the masses of current events locally and globally is defining the bar and exceeding it. That equates to a dedicated, faithful, loyal audience. Throw in any coopted force of journalist/government investigators thwarting evil and you have assured a surge in patriotism and media legacy.
Ultimately, Homeland Security is seeking world-event information to ensure logistics—including reporters on the front lines—in fulfilling its national security mission. Details behind reports may unveil phantoms with which either side is not privy, sort of like stumbling onto nemeses after gleaning clues from external sources. But none of that happens until parties agree to meet in the middle.
Then Again…
As a lawman, I prefer to think Homeland Security’s intentions are rightly placed, seeking additional intelligence conduits to achieve its purpose. But there may be a subtle message here as well, telegraphing the Trump administration’s growing impatience with “fake news” which is deemed not only damaging to the White House infrastructure and cabinet workings but also national security initiatives. Could such a DHS database be the federal government’s way of earmarking profiles and pedigrees of garbage reporting and the camps where they emanate?
Via legitimate means, one would think that is already a practice, a justified one. Good ole freedom of the press may sometimes go off the rail which does not preclude federal investigators from monitoring that tracks. After all, it is their job.
Further, monitoring media and fake news in particular means an agency analyzing from over 290,000 media sources can relatively easily discern “fake news” opinions by way of empirical view: Consensus.
With regard to bidders up for the job, the chosen firm will strain and identify “any and all media coverage related to the Department of Homeland Security or a particular event.” It is wise to maintain vigilance and due diligence in what is on the wire, especially since cryptic threats may be conveyed which a non-astute journalist may miss, leading to certain destruction if not for government operatives monitoring chatter.
That is what Homeland Security is destined to do within the framework of our government; there is nothing ambiguous in their name.
Pertaining to our topic of DHS monitoring and grouping materials it finds interesting, all freely published by the freedom of the press certainly freely allows anyone to file it as they wish. Any journalist’s, blogger’s, or media baron’s bark at DHS is misguided and perhaps even echoing anti-government sentiments so prevalent since President Trump occupied the White House.
If DHS officials were to put it into a few words, I suspect they’d echo It’s not about you! But it could be about information disconcerting to the government on behalf of its people.
Looking at yet another perspective, how often do media conglomerates and affiliated stations portray law enforcement holding out on information they wish to report and that “the public has a right to know”? Often, those same reporters demand DHS officials reveal sensitive, pertinent and evolving details imperative to an ongoing investigation to which no one is yet privy. Hypocrisy?
Or is it just another controverted, fluffed storyline to rattle cages of similar-minded folks patronizing the likes of CNN at el.? Oh my, the government is reading our stuff and saving it! We must stop them…now! Everyone, drop your pens and put away your laptops! Battle stations, at once!
DHS spokesman Tyler Q. Houlton said it quite succinctly in a tweet, and his tone can not be denied as applicable: “Despite what some reporters may suggest, this is nothing more than the standard practice of monitoring current events in the media. Any suggestion otherwise is fit for tin foil hat wearing, black helicopter conspiracy theorists.”
Oh, the irony: we pay/expect DHS and similar government agencies to ensure our national security by any legitimate means—to include intelligence-gathering—but, by golly, they must be held accountable (barred) for keeping abreast of media-driven reports in that very same free society. How is that not a ludicrous proposition? Media bias?
Double-standard oppression? Yep, but it is coming from none other than the accuser armed with the freedom of the press blankie the government provided long ago and ensures on the daily…the very purpose associated with monitoring the work of media mavens.
This is not about taking reporters’ pens, pads, laptops or censoring what they say and only about media conveyances that may otherwise be useful to the federal government in its fight to bolster our beloved America.
