The Department of Homeland Security monitors your updates on social networks, including Facebook and Twitter, to uncover “Items Of Interest” (IOI), according to an internal DHS document released by the EPIC. That document happens to include a list of the baseline terms for which the DHS–or more specifically, a DHS subcontractor hired to monitor social networks–use to generate real-time IOI reports. (Although the released PDF is generally all reader-selectable text, the list of names was curiously embedded as an image of text, preventing simple indexing. We’ve fixed that below.)
To be fair, the DHS does have an internal privacy policy that attempts to strip your “PII”–Personally Identifiable Information–from the aggregated tweets and status updates, with some broad exceptions:
1) U.S. and foreign individuals in extremis situations involving potential life or death circumstances; (this is no change)
2) Senior U.S. and foreign government officials who make public statements or provide public updates;
3) U.S. and foreign government spokespersons who make public statements or provide public updates;
4) U.S. and foreign private sector officials and spokespersons who make public statements or provide public updates;
5) Names of anchors, newscasters, or on-scene reporters who are known or identified as reporters in their post or article or who use traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed;
6) Current and former public officials who are victims of incidents or activities related to Homeland Security; and
7) Terrorists, drug cartel leaders or other persons known to have been involved in major crimes of Homeland Security interest, (e.g., mass shooters such as those at Virginia Tech or Ft. Hood) who are killed or found dead.
In addition, the Media Monitoring Capability team can transmit personal information to the DHS National Operations Center over the phone as deemed necessary.
The MMC watch may provide the name, position, or other information considered to be PII to the NOC over the telephone when approved by the appropriate DHS OPS authority. But that information must not be stored in a database that could be searched by an individual’s PII.
In addition to the following list of terms, the DHS can also add additional search terms circumstantially as deemed necessary.
DHS Media Monitoring Terms

2.13 Key Words & Search Terms
This is a current list of terms that will be used by the NOC when monitoring social media sites to provide situational awareness and establish a common operating picture. As natural or manmade disasters occur, new search terms may be added.
The new search terms will not use PII in searching for relevant
mission-related information.
DHS & Other Agencies
- Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
- Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
- Coast Guard (USCG)
- Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
- Border Patrol
- Secret Service (USSS)
- National Operations Center (NOC)
- Homeland Defense
- Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE)
- Agent
- Task Force
- Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
- Fusion Center
- Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)
- Secure Border Initiative (SBI)
- Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
- Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF)
- U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS)
- Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS)
- Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
- Air Marshal
- Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
- National Guard
- Red Cross
- United Nations (UN)
Domestic Security
- Assassination
- Attack
- Domestic security
- Drill
- Exercise
- Cops
- Law enforcement
- Authorities
- Disaster assistance
- Disaster management
- DNDO (Domestic Nuclear Detection Office)
- National preparedness
- Mitigation
- Prevention
- Response
- Recovery
- Dirty Bomb
- Domestic nuclear detection
- Emergency management
- Emergency response
- First responder
- Homeland security
- Maritime domain awareness (MDA)
- National preparedness initiative
- Militia
- Shooting
- Shots fired
- Evacuation
- Deaths
- Hostage
- Explosion (explosive)
- Police
- Disaster medical assistance team (DMAT)
- Organized crime
- Gangs
- National security
- State of emergency
- Security
- Breach
- Threat
- Standoff
- SWAT
- Screening
- Lockdown
- Bomb (squad or threat)
- Crash
- Looting
- Riot
- Emergency Landing
- Pipe bomb
- Incident
- Facility
HAZMAT & Nuclear
- Hazmat
- Nuclear
- Chemical Spill
- Suspicious package/device
- Toxic
- National laboratory
- Nuclear facility
- Nuclear threat
- Cloud
- Plume
- Radiation
- Radioactive
- Leak
- Biological infection (or event)
- Chemical
- Chemical burn
- Biological
- Epidemic
- Hazardous
- Hazardous material incident
- Industrial spill
- Infection
- Powder (white)
- Gas
- Spillover
- Anthrax
- Blister agent
- Exposure
- Burn
- Nerve agent
- Ricin
- Sarin
- North Korea
Health Concern + H1N1
- Outbreak
- Contamination
- Exposure
- Virus
- Evacuation
- Bacteria
- Recall
- Ebola
- Food Poisoning
- Foot and Mouth (FMD)
- H5N1
- Avian
- Flu
- Salmonella
- Small Pox
- Plague
- Human to human
- Human to ANIMAL
- Influenza
- Center for Disease Control (CDC)
- Drug Administration (FDA)
- Public Health
- Toxic
- Agro Terror
- Tuberculosis (TB)
- Agriculture
- Listeria
- Symptoms
- Mutation
- Resistant
- Antiviral
- Wave
- Pandemic
- Infection
- Water/air borne
- Sick
- Swine
- Pork
- Strain
- Quarantine
- H1N1
- Vaccine
- Tamiflu
- Norvo Virus
- Epidemic
- World Health Organization (WHO and components)
- Viral Hemorrhagic Fever
- E. Coli
Infrastructure Security
- Infrastructure security
- Airport
- CIKR (Critical Infrastructure & Key Resources)
- AMTRAK
- Collapse
- Computer infrastructure
- Communications infrastructure
- Telecommunications
- Critical infrastructure
- National infrastructure
- Metro
- WMATA
- Airplane (and derivatives)
- Chemical fire
- Subway
- BART
- MARTA
- Port Authority
- NBIC (National Biosurveillance Integration Center)
- Transportation security
- Grid
- Power
- Smart
- Body scanner
- Electric
- Failure or outage
- Black out
- Brown out
- Port
- Dock
- Bridge
- Canceled
- Delays
- Service disruption
- Power lines
Southwest Border Violence
- Drug cartel
- Violence
- Gang
- Drug
- Narcotics
- Cocaine
- Marijuana
- Heroin
- Border
- Mexico
- Cartel
- Southwest
- Juarez
- Sinaloa
- Tijuana
- Torreon
- Yuma
- Tucson
- Decapitated
- U.S. Consulate
- Consular
- El Paso
- Fort Hancock
- San Diego
- Ciudad Juarez
- Nogales
- Sonora
- Colombia
- Mara salvatrucha
- MS13 or MS-13
- Drug war
- Mexican army
- Methamphetamine
- Cartel de Golfo
- Gulf Cartel
- La Familia
- Reynose
- Nuevo Leon
- Narcos
- Narco banners (Spanish equivalents)
- Los Zetas
- Shootout
- Execution
- Gunfight
- Trafficking
- Kidnap
- Calderon
- Reyosa
- Bust
- Tamaulipas
- Meth Lab
- Drug trade
- Illegal immigrants
- Smuggling (smugglers)
- Matamoros
- Michoacana
- Guzman
- Arellano-Felix
- Beltran-Leyva
- Barrio Azteca
- Artistics Assassins
- Mexicles
- New Federation
Terrorism
- Terrorism
- Al Queda (all spellings)
- Terror
- Attack
- Iraq
- Afghanistan
- Iran
- Pakistan
- Agro
- Environmental terrorist
- Eco terrorism
- Conventional weapon
- Target
- Weapons grade
- Dirty bomb
- Enriched
- Nuclear
- Chemical weapon
- Biological weapon
- Ammonium nitrate
- Improvised explosive device
- IED (Improvised Explosive Device)
- Abu Sayyaf
- Hamas
- FARC (Armed Revolutionary Forces Colombia)
- IRA (Irish Republican Army)
- ETA (Euskadi ta Askatasuna)
- Basque Separatists
- Hezbollah
- Tamil Tiger
- PLF (Palestine Liberation Front)
- PLO (Palestine Libration Organization)
- Car bomb
- Jihad
- Taliban
- Weapons cache
- Suicide bomber
- Suicide attack
- Suspicious substance
- AQAP (Al Qaeda Arabian Peninsula)
- AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb)
- TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan)
- Yemen
- Pirates
- Extremism
- Somalia
- Nigeria
- Radicals
- Al-Shabaab
- Home grown
- Plot
- Nationalist
- Recruitment
- Fundamentalism
- Islamist
Weather/Disaster/Emergency
- Emergency
- Hurricane
- Tornado
- Twister
- Tsunami
- Earthquake
- Tremor
- Flood
- Storm
- Crest
- Temblor
- Extreme weather
- Forest fire
- Brush fire
- Ice
- Stranded/Stuck
- Help
- Hail
- Wildfire
- Tsunami Warning Center
- Magnitude
- Avalanche
- Typhoon
- Shelter-in-place
- Disaster
- Snow
- Blizzard
- Sleet
- Mud slide or Mudslide
- Erosion
- Power outage
- Brown out
- Warning
- Watch
- Lightening
- Aid
- Relief
- Closure
- Interstate
- Burst
- Emergency Broadcast System
Cyber Security
- Cyber security
- Botnet
- DDOS (dedicated denial of service)
- Denial of service
- Malware
- Virus
- Trojan
- Keylogger
- Cyber Command
- 2600
- Spammer
- Phishing
- Rootkit
- Phreaking
- Cain and abel
- Brute forcing
- Mysql injection
- Cyber attack
- Cyber terror
- Hacker
- China
- Conficker
- Worm
- Scammers
- Social media
Yes, the Department of Homeland Security is searching social media for…”social media”.
Time to stuff some keywords into my blog posts, then!
"Pirates recall aid from Mexico gang cartel radicals, warning mudslide fundamentalism caused by ebola bacteria contamination on cocaine!"
lovely how such lists get composed. so many of those words get used on a daily base around the world. and now off to go updating status on all of my fb accs
ps: security breach near nuclear waste dump found. arm your weapons and get ready to storm the police building nearby. let’s go over them like a tsunami, and use the source of the border package bomb to blow up the whole thing before proceeding with the islamist cause!
speaking of <s>satan</s> … lists…
(that was supposed to be a strikethrough)
oh and btw the real list is here (watch out 4 scribd ads) here and here. (all pdfs)
More words for my email signature.
Thanks
The Department of Homeland Security subcontractor should know monitoring "Colombia" is pointless, since most people misspelt it "Columbia".
Also, it's good to know everytime I talk about my country someone out there is reading… I hope they enjoy learning about Colombian fauna instead of doing more important things. Though of course, if they spend so much monitoring social networks, they probably don't have anything else better to do.
weather? SERIOUSLY??? They must be having fun after an OUTBREAK of TORNADOES, some of a significant MAGNITUDE, created a DISASTER zone in the midwest, taking out POWER LINES, and overwhelming FIRST RESPONDERs. No doubt many areas will need a lot of DISASTER ASSISTANCE. Hopefully nothing, like FEMA being bureaucrats, will hinder RECOVERY efforts.
I posted the entire list of these words on my Facebook. lol.
idiots
The land of the free and the home of the brave……
What a world joke you all have become……………….
It should be the land of the condemned and the home of the oppressed.
Shame a super power to super paranoid in less than a hundred years..
Congratulations..
i miss "amok"
Antipoverty activists, for instance, could seek
to publish the details of a new medicine under
development by a US pharmaceutical company,
with the goal of ending the firm’s “monopoly”
profits and making the product more widely
available.
from – -http://www.ncix.gov/publications/reports/fecie_all/Foreign_Economic_Collection_2011.pdf
…and as a result, agents have thwarted dozens of attack plans and potentially saved thousands of lives ….. there is far more to fear than Homeland Security surveilling social media sites and protecting the public….
Homeland Security tracking these "Key" words on social media.
hmmm wonder if ALIENS, AREA 51 or anything like that is on the extended list? lol
I kinda feel sorry for whoever is stuck auditing if whatever monitoring program they're using runs across a WoW discussion (given the company name is on their list)…or any other video game, for that matter. Wonder if they get hazard pay due to the risk of being driven insane by the sheer level of mindless drivel?
FUCK OFF
So if I search for SUBWAY to buy a sub for lunch or want to shop online at TARGET, does that put me on the no fly list?
what if you like Vanilla Ice or the song Ice Ice Baby. LOL
They forgot “false flag.”
DHS: Another bureaurcracy, that had its' worker bees hired, after screening them from the internet. The only criteria was if they were conservative hating Democrats. They and TSA.
Just give up on social media. It’s a stupid narcisistic waste of time. It’s like standing on the street corner screaming at passersby, but on the internets. Nobody cares what you or I or anyone else thinks, anyway, and now the Feds are trying to manipulate public opinion with it. It’s just not worth it.
No matter what; we will keep airing uncompromised African view they like it or not.
i didnt see dick or anus or tits, clit, vagina, blowjobs etc… so the pigs at DHS must think terrorists dont like that kinda stuff… lol
This list has been omitted of SEVERAL keywords. What you are seeing here is a very partial list.
Just copied and pasted list to my FB. hang on a sec someone is knocking at the……
is that jack boots I hear running up the stairs?
Best part is you cant share these pages on facebook, or at least I cant. Hmm…I wonder why.
So if I told someone I was born in El Paso, and took Amtrak a few times a year to Tuscon to watch the Pittsburgh Pirates play spring training – but the exercise was cancelled due to lightning & extreme weather… people would faint in shock & horror?
BTW, I always end my show with "Only YOU can prevent forest fires". http://www.freedomizerradio.com
I just posted the list to FB. If everyone would do it and keep doing it you will help render the seeing eye software useless.
Well then every word out of the ABC's means you will be put on there fuckk'en lest.
Well stick this in your ass.
For national preparedness, use Trojans when drilling cops and law enforcement for the prevention of virus due to chemical spills and shots fired. Task force agents on methamphetamine like to watch for warnings of the burst of relief before collapse. Brute forcing is not tolerated for denial of service. After explosion, evacuation needed for recovery. Suspicious package leak, chemical burn, or blister agent can lead to exposure of hazardous infection. If symptoms or mutations occur, seek a vaccine made from swine, Marijuana, and brush with Crest.
Umm, Just from the story, it seems that the government just wants to be informed, but doesn't want to identify. DII is removed unless it's a newscast or news conference, etc. If someone tweets, "Helicopters just landed in my neighbor's compound," DHS wants to know. If someone says "a Tornado just struck the high school" DHS wants to know. If someone says, "a bail of cocaine just landed in the street…." Yes, it raises some red flags, probably a bad idea, but not yet so sinister.
OK, What if I'm just talking about what I heard on the news last night? Or if I'm posting that I feel like crap b/c I have the flu? Or that I got caught in a storm last night? Or my dog was attacked by a skunk? Am I gonna get hauled in or flagged by DHS just because I used those words? Man, they must have a lot of happy employees or one hell of a programmer in order to read everything that is posted with one of these listed words.
If you read it carefully, the list is a message to the elite about the next false flag event.
So glad I left when I had the chance.
It's a good thing our founding fathers had a vision of liberalism before they wrote the Constitution.
You have a disinformation list. This is not the real list.
i posted the list of search terms to my status on Facebook and i was instantly locked out of commenting on my own status message. seriously.
I think people are looking at this all wrong. The unemployment rate is very high. We can create more JOBS if we were to use as many of these words everyday. Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country. By creating more work for the government we can …CREATE MORE JOBS. Sooooooooo I'm on my way to *Target* to buy some *CREST*. See how simple that was. I bet you, if you really put your minds to it you can do it to.
hey what about PETN, C4, PLASTIQUE, TNT, #2 Fuel Oil, or Plant food, sacks of flour, finely ground oregano, or any organic crap that you find in the local food bag?
or maybe those are on ANOTHER list they use after they have your house bugged, phone tapped and persistently convince you to follow their lead to build or do something in bad taste.
Well what comes to my mind about the "list of keywords" that Big Sis is worried about would be to get a large-scale movement going to copy-and-paste all of those words into a signature line on all outgoing emails for the next month or so, regardless what the email is about. Instead of a clever or meaningful quote, just a long list of those key words. If a million people did that, they would have to stop scanning for such ridiculous trivia… as if a real bad guy would speak in such open terms. Just a thought…who knows, it might even bring their offices to a standstill when they become so inundated with emails…but no wait, they are ALREADY at a standstill, aren't they?
SAY NO TO TERROR-I-$AM. JUST COPIED & PASTED THE FIRST LIST TO MY FACE BOOK STATUS. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
Coast Guard (USCG)
Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
Border Patrol
Secret Service (USSS)
National Operations Center (NOC)
Homeland Defense
Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Agent
Task Force
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Fusion Center
Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)
Secure Border Initiative (SBI)
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF)
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS)
Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS)
Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
Air Marshal
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
National Guard
Red Cross
United Nations (UN)
So, how do I comment about American movies…???
That's hysterical, because if any terrorist was discussing these things in earnest, they would probably use a code, or netslang. Your tax dollars at work. #Derp.
Uh, isn't this what we pay them to do?
heheh this going straight on to my blog. thanks for writing them out!
Kudos Animal New York
A communist revolution is coming to your nieghborhood.
http://www.magnifiedview.com/2011/10/18/occupying…
Right on Animal NY – WRITE ON! Cordially, Yoda@magnifiedview.com
P.S. "May you live in interesting times" Ancient Chinese curse.
But can i still say Obama is a poo poo head?
DHS employees Obama's Big Mumba!
Strange, I cant see the words 'Allah', 'Jihad' or 'Islam'. I suppose it's because muslims were framed for 9/11, not the actual culprits (Israel and their US-based runing dogs.). Not that I myself am a muslim. Although I've toured Islamic countries without any problem at all. They don't need TSAs in Istanbul and Dubai. They wouldn't stand for it anyway.
Destroy America in not on the list! Then why were those two british tourists party lovers deported from Los Angeles back to England when they read their twitter messages?
No other languages, how about rearranged letters, how about symbols, adds in the paper, how about a network of corresponding letters, symbols and foriegn language, and the people hold the key to the language. So this is to stop, WHAT??? Heres a message that can be decifered, Guns, holder, Fast, obama, UN, clinton, Furious, border, caretels, BATFE, cover-up, lies, propaganda, stooges, internment, subpeona refusal, 2cd, staged, murder Brian Terry, ….of course all this is on their side of the wire. We the People need to be monitoring ALL THEM. They dont have the authority or legal access to monitor us.
Mike in Afghanistan
We can't even talk about the Red Cross anymore?!?!? This is BULLSHIT!
Comes close to the Oxford Dictionary content.
No one can stop you doing anything, the choices you make are yours, & the consequences will be yours as well.
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I’m very glad to read your article an I am indeed a fan of your site bro, thanks a lot, muslim woman
Also an long lived Atari game console. Very stupid to have such generic terms on a watchlist. I wonder what it would take to over-load their scanners?