Homeland security field agents are scouring the social media site Reddit, monitoring the communications of law-abiding Americans critical of the agency.

The spying is revealed in a January intelligence bulletin produced by the Border Patrol and leaked to me. The subject of the report is Reddit user “Budget-Chicken-2425,” who is not a narco-trafficker, gang member, or terrorist. Just someone concerned about federal overreach.

The report centers on Budget-Chicken’s call for a protest near a Border Patrol facility in Edinburg, Texas. Though the report acknowledges that anti-ICE protests throughout Texas have been “generally lawful” and that there’s no evidence of any threat posed by Budget-Chicken’s call, any protest whatsoever near the border patrol facility is said to “warrant continued monitoring.”

https://redlib.catsarch.com/r/stupidpol/comments/1qz2d2l/homeland_security_spying_on_reddit_users/

cross-posted from: https://lemmus.org/post/20014498

• Removed from the Technology subreddit.
• Reposted on the Technology Subreddit.

In other words, the government is building a sociological profile of political discontent. The bulletin notes that these protests are “perception-driven”—meaning they are motivated by “generalized concerns about rights” rather than specific incidents. In the logic of national security, a lack of a specific trigger makes the public more unpredictable and therefore calls for “situational awareness.” But it’s the granularity of the monitoring that is most absurd. To determine the “threat” posed by Budget-Chicken-2425, analysts didn’t just look at the protest call; they scoured the user’s entire digital footprint. The bulletin notes that Chicken “frequently participates in various community discussions,” listing their interests in r/Texans (comparing the team to the Cleveland Browns), r/movies (discussing the film Almost Famous), r/stephenking (sharing book collections), and r/FuckImOld (reminiscing about 1970s television production logos). 🤣🌎

Crossposted from https://lemmygrad.ml/post/10639749

Leak show feds tracking anti-ICE Reddit users like "Budget-Chicken-2425"

Leak show feds tracking anti-ICE Reddit users like "Budget-Chicken-2425"

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It's called feddit for a reason