US Government Is Building a 'Media Influence Database' to Track Journalists

I don't think this is as sinister as it can be made out to be, or at least, I don't think this is a signal that things are becoming more sinister than they already were. It should be well known that this is one of the major things intelligence agencies like to track. It's hard to imagine that this wasn't part of the purpose of the original ORACLE contract; at this point it is a mystery to me why they need to contract externally for this, but I guess there's a bit more to it than is reported here.

This is part of what they mean when they say PSY-OPS. In order to conduct the op, you have to select [an] asset[s]. In order to select [an] asset[s] you need to have some idea of which potential assets you can develop, and whether or not they will be helpful.

From a policy perspective, I'm not sure operations like this should be permitted, but the mandate is there, and it has been there for decades by now. It is not unreasonable for them to request resources to fulfill that mandate.

There is no good reason for anybody to be doing this. I used to give the benefit of the doubt whenever a new action was taken by the government that seemed to have an exploitable loophole; but I've learned that if a regulation or agency can be weaponized and exploited, it will be.

So to paraphrase George R.R. Martin, what's the worst reason that they could have to wanting to do this? Well, they likely want to stifle the voices of whoever they feel is opposing their power, or to map out the relationships between people in the media who make up the political left. Then, they may attempt to harass them, get them fired from their jobs, buy the organizations supporting them, and so forth. Or they may try to find some point of disagreement among them to turn them against each other.

You probably think this is paranoid; but history suggests that something like this is what will happen.

They can't store data from European journalists, it's not GDPR compliant to gather personal data without consent. (I'm assuming there is no law requiring this information to exist)

In seriousness, it's scary how the US and EU seem to be driven apart recently. Incompatible laws and unilateral policies will lead to all sorts of real world problems.

This sounds like what Elon Musk wanted. Maybe his "Pravda" company can put in a bid.

How short is the typical time to bid on a government contract? FTA, this was only accepting bids for 10 days! That hardly seems like enough time. Has there been any follow-up since the bid period closed on April 13th?