The U.S. Department of Homeland Security monitored social networking
sites to harvest information – described as “items of interest” —
during the lead up to Barack Obama’s inauguration.
The existence of the surveillance program is laid out in a set of slides
obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The EFF and the
University of California, Berkeley’s Samuelson Clinic last year filed a Freedom of Information lawsuit against six government agencies in response to news articles reporting government monitoring of social networks.
In the document, DHS details how it would collect and use social network
information. It also refers to privacy guidelines it would employ as
its operatives went about gathering data for what it called its Social
Networking Monitoring Center or (SNMC.) The target list reads like a
“Who’s Who” of the most popular social networking sites, including the
likes of Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and CraigsList, among others. One
page, in particular, notes:
Throughout the Inauguration SNMC will look for “items of interest” in
the routine of social networking posts on the events, organizations,
activities and environment
SNMC will use Trend Analysis and established Critical Information Requirements (CIRs) for reportable events
While much of the information on public websites is out in
the open for others to view, EFF staff attorney Jennifer Lynch still
expressed concern about the government collecting “a massive amount of
data on individuals and organizations explicitly tied to a political
event.” “The information is certainly open to whoever comes looking for
it. What’s concerning, though, is that the government was scouring
information on people any reason. From those slides, it looks like DHS
was concerned about protecting peoples’ privacy – which is great to
hear. What we were worried about was how long DHS was holding onto the
information after the election and why they were monitoring sites where
they didn’t think there was a threat. Was it based on race or ethnicity
or assumptions about a site? “
DHS said it has since deleted the information.