False sense of security

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was planning procedural changes that would grab social media data for millions of immigrants. From this week, its "Alien Files" database will collate "social media handles, aliases, associated identifiable information, and search results". The DHS insists this is not a policy change, as it has already used "publicly-available social media to protect the homeland". As with all mass surveillance schemes, the idea that watching many people will allow computers to magically identify the bad guys and prevent a terrorist attack is flawed.