Privacy concerns arise over DHS’ monitoring of social media

WASHINGTON— Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have a new audience: the Department of Homeland Security.

After a Freedom of Information Act request by the Electronic Privacy Information Center revealed that the government has hired a contractor to monitor social media for potential threats and public opinion, privacy advocates and government officials are butting heads on the implications on whether the program oversteps privacy boundaries.

The documents obtained by EPIC, which total nearly 300 pages, center around a Department of Homeland Security contract with General Dynamics to provide information on “potential threats” as well as “media reports that reflect adversely on DHS and response activities.”  The company will monitor content from social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and MySpace as well as comments posted on news websites such as Drudge Report, Newsweek and The New York Times blogs.

In an interview with The Washington Post, officials of EPIC highlighted their concerns about the program’s legality, saying it does not meet the DHS’s mission to “secure the nation.”

“This is entirely outside the bounds of the agency’s statutory duties, and it could have a substantial chilling effect on legitimate dissent and freedom of speech,” Ginger McCall, director of EPIC’s open government program, told The Washington Post.

The Republican chairman and top Democrat onf the House Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence –  Reps. Patrick Meehan of Pennnsylvania and Jackie Speier of California, respectively —  submitted a letter to the DHS stating that they “believe it would be advantageous for DHS and the broader Intelligence Community to carefully parse the massive streams of data from various social media outlets to identify current or emerging  threats to our homeland.”  The letter did, however, include the representatives’ privacy concerns, explaining that any actions must have oversight “stringent enough to protect the rights of our citizens.”

The documents requested by EPIC include a section titled “Privacy Compliance Review,” which outlines steps General Dynamics must take to protect individuals’ privacy.  The section’s newest revisions from January 2011 state that personally identifiable information can be collected only in explicit circumstances.  These include extreme situations involving “potential life or death circumstances,” government and private sector officials who make public statements, members of the media who “use traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audiences informed, anchors and on-scene reporters, and terrorists or “other persons known to have been involved in major crimes of Homeland Security interest who are killed or found dead.”

According to the memo, DHS will not collect personally identifiable information on those suspected or charged in crimes, private citizens in any capacity and high-profile people “such as celebrities, sports figures or media members who are victims” unless they served as public officials.