CIA following Twitter, Facebook

In an anonymous industrial park in Virginia, inside an unassuming brick building, the CIA is following tweets—up to 5 million a day. At the agency’s Open Source Center, a team known affectionately as the “vengeful librarians” also pores over Facebook, newspapers, TV news channels, local radio stations, Internet chat rooms—anything overseas that anyone can access and contribute to openly. From Arabic to Mandarin Chinese, from an angry tweet to a thoughtful blog, the analysts gather the information, often in native tongue. They cross-reference it with the local newspaper or a clandestinely intercepted phone conversation. 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 at a prediction of which Mideast nation looks ripe for revolt. Yes, they saw the uprising in Egypt coming; they just didn’t know exactly when revolution might occur, says the center’s director, Doug Naquin. Read the full story from The Associated Press here.