The EU's Border Agency Wants to Watch Social Media. The Proposal Doesn't Say Watching for What, Exactly

The European Commission dropped a plan Tuesday to turn Frontex into a much bigger agency: 30,000 officers, a Quick Reaction Force, a Return Coordination Centre, and the power to help deport people from one non-EU country to another. All of that will get argued about. But one line jumped out at me.

The proposal creates an "Online Monitoring and Response Centre" with "the explicit mandate for Frontex to monitor publicly accessible social media content, detect developments relevant for external border management, and support action against illegal online content linked to border-security risks."

Read that twice. A border police force, monitoring social media, and helping take down content it links to "border-security risks." The announcement doesn't define what counts. Smuggler ads? Sure, obviously. Activists posting where a boat is in trouble? Journalists? The text I read doesn't say.

My take: the Commission says everything happens "in full respect of fundamental rights." Great. Put the definition in the regulation then. And for a plan that doubles the agency and adds a 17,000-officer reserve, the announcement has no price tag.

What we still don't know: what the budget is, who oversees the monitoring center, and what the European Parliament changes before any of this becomes law.