In un'intervista rilasciata all'Associated Press il direttore dell'Open Source Center* (OSC) dell'Intelligence statunitense conferma le ipotesi degli ultimi mesi. Una parte importante dell'attività dell'OSC è rivolta al monitoraggio dei social network.

"In an anonymous industrial park, CIA analysts who jokingly call themselves the "ninja librarians" are mining the mass of information people publish about themselves overseas, tracking everything from common public opinion to revolutions.
The group's effort gives the White House a daily snapshot of the world built from tweets, newspaper articles and Facebook updates. The agency's Open Source Center sometimes looks at 5 million tweets a day (…).
From Arabic to Mandarin, from an angry tweet to a thoughtful blog, the analysts gather the information, often in a native tongue. They cross-reference it with a local newspaper or a clandestinely intercepted phone conversation. From there, they build a picture sought by the highest levels at the White House. There might be a real-time peek, for example, at the mood of a region after the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden, or perhaps a prediction of which Mideast nation seems ripe for revolt (…).
The center's several hundred analysts — the actual number is classified — track a broad range of subjects, including Chinese Internet access and the mood on the street in Pakistan (…).
The center's analysis ends up in President Barack Obama's daily intelligence briefing in one form or another almost every day. The material is often used to answer questions Obama poses to his inner circle of intelligence advisers when they give him the morning rundown of threats and trouble spots."

* Alcuni report dell'OSC sono pubblici e possono essere scaricati qui o qui.