[分享] Social Media Surveillance by the U.S. Government

密西

A growing and unregulated trend of online surveillance raises concerns for civil rights and liberties.

Social media has become a signi fic ant source of inform a tion for U.S. law enforce ment and intel ligence agents. The Department of Home land Security, the FBI, and the State Depart ment are among the many federal agen cies that routinely monitor social plat forms, for purposes ranging from conduct ing invest ig a tions to identifi ing threats to screen ing trav el ers and immig rants. This is not surpris ing; as the U.S. Supreme Court has said, social media plat forms have become “for many . . . the prin cipal sources for know ing current events, . . . speak ing and listening ing in the modern public square, and other wise explor ing the vast realms of human thought and know ledge” — in other words, an essen tial means for parti cip at ing in public life and commu nic at ing with others.

At the same time, this growing — and mostly unreg u lated — use of social media raises a host of civil rights and civil liber ties concerns. Because social media can reveal a wealth of personal inform ation — including about polit ical and reli gious views, personal and profes sional connections, and health and sexu al ity — its use by the govern ment is rife with risks for free dom of speech, assembly , and faith, partic u larly for the Black, Latino, and Muslim communit ies that are histor ic ally targeted by law enforce ment and intel ligence efforts. These risks are far from theor et ical: many agen cies have a track record of using these programs to target minor ity communit ies and social move ments. For all that, there is little evid ence that this type of monit or ing advances secur ity object ives; age cies rarely meas ure the useful ness of social media monit or ing and DHS's own pilot programs showed that they were not help ful in identifing threats. Never the less , the use of social media for a range of purposes continues to grow.

In this Q&A, we survey the ways in which federal law enforce ment and intel ligence agen cies use social media monit or ing and the risks posed by its thinly regu lated and grow ing use in vari ous contexts.