Fed Program to “Monitor Conversations” Is Intimidation Tactic

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US Army was monitoring protests against Federal Reserve in 2008

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Monday, September 26, 2011

The blogosphere has exploded with interest over the Federal Reserve’s move to follow in the footsteps of the Obama campaign’s “Attack Watch” by monitoring and identifying its critics, but many seem to have missed the obvious intention of the announcement – it’s an intimidation tactic designed to chill dissent.

As Zero Hedge explains, the Federal Reserve, “Is requesting the creation of a “Social Listening Platform” whose function is to “gather data from various social media outlets and news sources.” It will “monitor billions of conversations and generate text analytics based on predefined criteria.” The Fed’s desired product should be able to “determine the sentiment [ED:LOL] of a speaker or writer with respect to some topic or document”… “The solution must be able to gather data from the primary social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Forums and YouTube. It should also be able to aggregate data from various media outlets such as: CNN, WSJ, Factiva etc.” Most importantly, the “Listening Platform” should be able to “Handle crisis situations, Continuously monitor conversations, and Identify and reach out to key bloggers and influencers.”

If the Federal Reserve was really that concerned about what people on the Internet were saying about it, then this program would have been launched several years ago, and not after a heap of vitriol has already been spewed.

The announcement that the Fed is monitoring dissent and attempting to identify individual bloggers is little more than an intimidation tactic designed to chill anti-Fed rhetoric and make people think twice before they criticize the private, run for profit entity that poses as a part of the government yet is no more federal than Federal Express.

Intimidation has been the name of the game when it comes to the Fed for years before this announcement was made.

When the first “End the Fed” protests were started back in 2008, no less than the US Army itself was put on alert.

An advisory released in November 2008 by the US Army Reserve warned its personnel of the demonstrations in advance. “The United States Army Reserve Command is publishing this Force Protection Advisory to advise all Army Reserve personnel of the planned protests at all Federal Reserve Banks and office locations within the United States on 22 November 2008,” read the document. “This message provides situational awareness and recommended mitigation measures.”

On November 22, 2008, Alex Jones led a rally at the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas Texas. The Dallas protest is specifically mentioned in the official Army document. Ron Paul’s brother was also in attendance.

The Army had already “established relationships” with local law enforcement and the FBI regarding the protests, who had then promised to keep the Army updated on developments.

This proves that the US government and the Federal Reserve were already well aware of the growing anti-Fed movement, and indeed using the Army as a bulwark against it, three years prior to the announcement of their intention to create a “Social Listening Platform” in order to monitor dissent.

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