CIA admits to monitoring Twitter and Facebook

THE CIA is monitoring up to five million tweets a day from a secret location in the US, the Washington Post reports. Analysts known as "vengeful librarians" pore over Twitter and Facebook posts from across the world, before cross referencing with local news sources or "clandestine" intelligence.
 
The agency has been using its Open Source Centre, based in an industrial park in Virginia, to monitor social media since the 2009 'green revolution' in Iran.
 
According to the Post: "From there, they build a picture sought by the highest levels at the White House, giving a real-time peek, for example, at the mood of a region after the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden or perhaps a prediction of which Mideast nation seems ripe for revolt."
 
Analysis from the centre "almost always" goes into President Barack Obama's daily intelligence briefing.
 
OSC director Doug Naquin believes his methods deliver accurate results, although he acknowledges: "We may be getting an overrepresentation of the urban elite." The agency is currently testing accuracy by comparing their results with those of polling organisations. ·