Here Is Your Handy Guide to Avoiding the DHS Eye of Sauron

We all know that the Department of Homeland Security has several sub-basements filled with all the illegitimate offspring of the members of Congress whose sole miserable task is to sit at the computer consoles they are chained to and troll Twitter and Facebook in search of bogeymen with social media accounts. But which search terms are they using to determine which citizens to ship off for a free tickle torture session besides the obvious triggers like "exploding dildo" and "how do I get a protest permit?" Well now we know what's on the current DHS monitor list thanks to a public records request from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and the bad news it that you will have to quit using fun words such as "electric" and "pirates" online in order to stay under the radar.

The POLITICO has its own whimsical list of oddball words (including "pork") that appear, which in turn inspired us to cull this list of highly common words/names of retail chains/countries you must now avoid mentioning on the Internet forever unless you wish to be punished with a trip to hang out with Marco Rubio at Guantanamo:

Target

Subway

Southwest

Electric

Power

Cops

China

Smart

Help

Tucson

Sick

Wave

United Nations

Gas

Relief

Pirates

Response

Recall

Biological

Mexico

Ice

Watch

Social media

Or make your own list! The DHS list of terms starts on page 20.

And here is one bonus item we spotted in the monitoring guidelines, to help analysts decide which media sources to turn to for information. It's from a section titled "Credible Sources for Corroboration: "

First Tier – A first tier source is one that does not typically need additional corroboration prior to release. Sources that construct the first tier platform include major news networks, such as

CNN and Fox; major newspapers, such as USA Today and The Washington Post; and international news, such as the BBC and The International Herald Tribune.

The fact that Fox News is listed is a "first tier" news organization makes us doubt the veracity of the entire rest of the document, come to think of it. [EPIC/  Politico]