Here Comes FIATtackWatch: Ben "Big Brother" Bernanke Goes Watergate, Prepares To Eavesdrop On Everything Mentioning The Fed

Two weeks ago, the media's heart went aflutter when it learned that the president had borrowed a page right out of ole' Joe McCarthy's communist witch hunt book with the launch of Attack Watch. The response by everyone, even fans of Obama, was immediate and brutal. Yet where Obama took about 24 hours to crash and burn, someone else has stepped in with a far stealthier method of ferreting out the traitors amongst us: none other than our old friends, the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States, which in a Request for Proposals filed to companies that are Fed vendors, 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." Said otherwise, the Fed has just entered the counterespionage era and will be monitoring everything written about it anywhere in the world. After all, why ask others to snitch for you and anger everyone as Obama found out the hard way, when you can pay others to create the supreme FIATtack Watch^TM using money you yourself can print in unlimited amounts. And once the Internet is completely "transparent", the Fed will next focus on telephone conversations, and finally will simply bug each and every otherwise "private" location in the world. Because very soon saying that "printing money is treason" will be treason, and such terrorist thoughts must be pre-crimed before they even occur.

All we can say is we welcome our new Chairsatan Voldemort overlord. For it is truly he who must not be named henceforth.

From the key section of the RFP, presented in its entirety below:
I. Introduction
Social media platforms are changing the way organizations are communicating to the public Conversations are happening all the time and everywhere.
There is need for the Communications Group to be timely and proactively aware of the reactions and opinions expressed by the general public as it relates to the Federal Reserve and its actions on a variety of subjects.
II. Social Listening Platforms
Social media listening platforms are solutions that gather data from various social media outlets and news sources.  They monitor billions of conversations and generate text analytics based on predefined criteria.  They can also determine the sentiment of a speaker or writer with respect to some topic or document.
The information gathered can guide the organizations public relations group in assessing the effectiveness of communication strategies.

Here are some of the services it can offer:

o Track reach and spread of your messages and press releases    
o Handle crisis situations    
o Continuously monitor conversations    
o Identify and reach out to key bloggers and influencers    
o Spot emerging trends, discussions themes and topics    
A. Geographic scope of social media sites

The solution must support content coming from different countries and geographical regions. It should also support multiple languages.

B. Content and Data Types
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.

C. Reports and Metrics
The solution must provide real-time monitoring of relevant conversations.  It should provide sentiment analysis (positive, negative or neutral) around key conversational topics.

It must be able to provide summaries or high level overviews of a specific set of topics. It should have a configurable dashboard that can easily be accessed by internal analysts or management.  The dashboard must support customization by user or group access.

The solution should provide an alerting mechanism that automatically sends out reports or notifications based a predefined trigger.

D. FRBNY Technology Integration
The solution must be able to integrate with existing FRBNY technologies such as: Google Search appliance, Lotus notes suite and web trends.It must have support for single sign on or windows integrated authentication.

E. Cost Structure
The solution should offer a flexible pricing structure that can support multiple user licensing.  It should also have the option to base pricing on content volume and usage. Supplier acknowledges an understanding of and agrees to comply with the above minimum solutions requirements.
Full RFP:
Frbny Social Media Rfp

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Bank Bailouts Explained:

The story of the bank bailouts, and what we've gotten so far in return.

by Omid Malekan

www.omidmalekan.com

More Power Over Wall Street, but Little Chance to Discuss It

by Jesse Eisinger
ProPublica, May 4, 2011, 3:09 p.m

The most notable thing about the first-ever news conference of the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, last week was what wasn't discussed: banking regulation.
We hardly need more evidence that the most powerful banking regulator in the world, one that just became even more powerful after financial reform was passed, is also the least examined. Mr. Bernanke's opening remarks were about monetary policy and the economy. When he answered questions, he repeatedly referred to the Fed's "dual mandate" -- to keep inflation low and stable and to maintain full employment for the economy.

About The Trade

In this column, co-published with New York Times' DealBook, I monitor the financial markets to hold companies, executives and government officials accountable for their actions. Tips? Praise? Contact me at jesse@propublica.org

But that's not the Federal Reserve's true dual mandate. The Fed is indeed the steward of the economy, but it also has to regulate the financial system, making sure banks are safe and sound.

In the years before the financial crisis, the Fed was a miserable failure in that role, a creature of the banks, not a watchdog. The news conference was an opportunity for Mr. Bernanke to demonstrate what the Fed had learned from the crisis about banking oversight. After all, a collapsed financial system does spectacular damage to an economy.

There's more to discuss about this now than ever. Under the giant Dodd-Frank package, the Fed was given an expanded regulatory role. The new consumer financial products regulator is housed within the central bank. The Fed also now officially oversees investment banks, which it had to rescue during the crisis. Congress broadened the Fed's remit to cover nonfinancial institutions deemed "systemically important." Congress created a new role, the "vice chairman of supervision," to raise the prominence and importance of its responsibility. (It remains unfilled.) Perhaps most important, the Federal Reserve is supposed to play a major role in taking over big banks that fail.

Banking supervision has always been something of a backwater at the Fed. Within the institution, the sexy stuff is monetary policy. That's where most of the resources and attention goes. The chairman and the board spend a disproportionate amount of their time on it, and monetary policy expertise largely dictates the selection of board members. Many question that mind-set.

"Either expressly or implicitly, the Fed permeates every part of the Dodd-Frank reform," says Dennis Kelleher, the chairman of Better Markets, a new Washington advocacy group that aims to be a Wall Street watchdog. "Yet there is no indication that the leadership of Fed understands or is undertaking its new role as systemic risk regulator. It's not on the mind of the Fed chairman."

Without much public comment, the Fed is making critical decisions about the banks today. It just ran a round of stress tests for the banking system in which most banks came up smelling like roses.

Most big banks were allowed to pay dividends and pay back the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program money. Yet the economy is weaker than the Fed expected and the real estate market, which makes up the bulk of banks' exposure, is having a second downturn.

What gives the Fed so much confidence that the banks are properly valuing their assets and are adequately capitalized?

For a brief moment back in 2009, it was actually considered as bizarre to give the Fed more power. Christopher Dodd, then the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, proposed creating a new financial regulatory infrastructure, stripping the Fed of its mandate.

Sadly, the bill was so dead on arrival it wasn't clear if even Mr. Dodd supported the Dodd bill. Nonetheless, removing banking regulation from the Fed's umbrella would have some clear advantages. Monetary policy is a pretty hard job. It might make some sense to split off regulation just to ease the burden.

And monetary policy can be in conflict with banking regulation. A central bank might prefer to shore up investor confidence and move on from a financial crisis without taking punitive action against wrongdoers, thinking that aggressive action might undermine faith in the system. Sound familiar to anyone?

Mr. Bernanke's news conference was also supposed to be a step toward realizing the Fed's new commitment to "transparency."

That's certainly welcome, but it has only gone so far. Congress repeatedly asked for more information on extraordinary actions taken by the Fed during the financial crisis, but was met initially with stonewalling. The central bank fought a lawsuit initiated by Bloomberg News to release data on what kinds of securities it bought during the financial crisis and from whom. When it lost and was finally forced to release the information, it did so in a fashion that it made assimilating the information difficult.

Earlier this year, when the Fed conducted its second round of bank stress tests, it made less information public than it had in the first round in 2009.

"Regulation needs accountability and transparency, and the Fed is just not set up to be accountable or transparent,"

says Mike Konczal, a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, a liberal think tank focused on financial matters.

The sight of a Fed chairman answering reporters' questions in declarative English certainly was a departure from tradition. On Thursday, Bernanke is giving a speech on banking regulation. Let's hope that brings a comparable approach to regulation, which is ultimately far more significant.