Sean Douglass takes a light hearted look at the FBI's latest surveillance program.

The FBI is in the process of developing a new application for social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter, drawing criticism from privacy campaigners fearful for its impact on free speech online. What’s the big deal, though? All that this means is that one of the biggest spy organisations in the world has finally caught up with half the people online and wants to start Facebook stalking.

This is not the first time social media has been used for legal purposes; there have been number of ridiculous examples such as when police tracked a criminal across borders using World of Warcraft and when an Italian mobster was tracked down using Facebook, but this project is on a much wider scale, processing an almost absurd amount of information.

Some of the features requested from this project are that the Bureau will be able to be map information directly onto Google Maps, access traffic cameras and, most notably, ‘scrape’ social networking sites. What is the plan – hope to spot the next Osama Bin Laden on Street View? Maybe they want to emulate Seth Green’s role in the remake of The Italian Job, who knows, but it seems that the only thing they’re scraping is the bottom of the barrel.

The amount of information this app will pick up could be mind-blowing: how can it distinguish talk about another 9/11 from some moronic 12 year old saying “Justin Bieber is da bomb!!!!11!!1!Shift+1!”? There could well be a way to separate terrorist chatter from, well, the rest of the internet – computer programmers are very talented people. However, we have to consider the fact if there is even the slightest chance it’s going to take computer programmers away from creating the new Football Manager, maybe the terrorists have already won.

Speaking of those pesky world wreckers, what kind of terrorist posts their destructive plans on Facebook and Twitter? Have they never seen any James Bond film or Four Lions? If you give anyone even the slightest idea of what you’re going to do, Sean Connery or Jack Bauer will track you down and murder you. Of all the places to post a terrorist message, has anyone stopped to think – why Facebook? Are criminals hoping someone will “like” their devious schemes and hateful messages? Okay, bad example – sarcastic and hateful comments are what keep some people (i.e. me) still using Facebook – but you get the idea.

While this app seems like an interesting idea and may very well help in the war on terror; who would take a job like that? Yes, you get sit around on Twitter and Facebook all day but think about that – so many inane Facebook statuses and Tweets, it would wrinkle your brain how stupid people are.

If you were Abu Hamza or someone, would you not make a conscious effort to write things like “I heart Ready Brek!” or “Why do ITV still put Loose Women on telly?”, just to annoy the FBI?

The bottom line is while Facebook, Twitter, etc. can be useful sources of information, that information is usually about finding out who is going to Glastonbury - but to use it to protect against global terrorism? Maybe we should just prepare for the Thunderdome now if that is the best the FBI can do.