The DHS's Social Media Monitoring Is Causing Collateral Damage, But Doesn't Seem To Be Making The Nation Safer

from the no-surprises-here dept

The DHS has made traveling in and out of the US an experience worth sharing. Not so much with your fellow travelers or friends and family back home, but with CBP officers and other DHS employees, who are demanding access to social media accounts under its "extreme vetting" program.

While DHS components have stepped up the intrusiveness of their border screenings, they haven't been able to show all these manhours and infringed rights are actually doing anything to keep the country safer. More and more information is being gathered, but it's either of little to no use, or the agencies engaging in these searches can't be bothered to tally up the wins and losses of the border security game.

The Brennan Center, however, has compiled a report on the DHS's screening programs and their various enhancements. It isn't just about what has been done by DHS components, but the side effects of these efforts. The Fourth Amendment might be the noticeable victim, but these programs -- especially the social media monitoring -- have adverse effects on other rights as well.

[S]ocial media monitoring — like other forms of surveillance — will impact what people say online, leading to self-censorship of people applying for visas as well as their family members and friends. The deleterious effect of surveillance on free speech has been well documented in empirical research; one recent study found that awareness or fear of government surveillance of the internet had a substantial chilling effect among both U.S. Muslims and broader U.S. samples of internet users. Even people who said they had nothing to hide were highly likely to self-censor online when they knew the government was watching. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned in a 2012 Supreme Court case challenging the warrantless use of GPS tracking technology, “[a]wareness that the Government may be watching chills associational and expressive freedoms. And the Government’s unrestrained power to assemble data that reveals private aspects of identity is susceptible to abuse.”

"Susceptible to abuse" is the DHS's middle name. Going beyond the dubious wisdom and Constitutionality of demanding travelers and visa applicants hand over passwords for social media accounts, there's the CBP's recent surveillance of journalists, immigration lawyers, and activists. The DHS wields a lot of power, but doesn't handle much of it responsibly.

The report [PDF] shows the DHS collects a lot of social media information but doesn't do a great job matching accounts to applicants and detainees. These social media-reliant searches act more like dragnets than targeted investigations, sweeping up information on friends, family members, and social media contacts who interact with targeted accounts. This excess info is often retained under the theory it may, someday, be "relevant" to an ongoing investigation.

These problems are made worse by the DHS's reliance on third-party analytic software and data harvesting. The tools may be great at collecting data, but they're of little use when it comes to making informed decisions about the risk level of travelers and visa applicants. As is the case with any analysis done at this scale, nuance and context are lost as analysts zero in on phrases and keywords, discarding relevant info that could lead to better risk assessments.

The DHS's haystacks -- gathered en masse with minimal restraints -- are then fed to law enforcement agencies across the US and around the world. What was gathered for the purpose of vetting immigrants and travelers can now be used for any purpose whatsoever by a number of government agencies.

Unfortunately, DHS programs generally have low standards for sharing highly personal information, such as that found on social media, and the standards do not differentiate between Americans’ information and that of people from other countries. This information can easily be shared with entities ranging from the Department of State, the FBI, and congressional offices to foreign governments and Interpol. For example, data obtained from CBP searches of travelers’ electronic devices at the border, which can include the full contents of these devices, can be shared with federal, state, tribal, local, or foreign governmental agencies or multilateral government organizations when CBP believes the information could assist enforcement of civil or criminal laws. ICE, too, can disseminate any device information “relating to national security” to law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Information from ICE’s LeadTrac system, which is used to vet and manage leads of suspected overstayers and status violators and includes social media information, can be shared with any law enforcement authorities engaged in collecting law enforcement intelligence “whether civil or criminal.”

Through its massive data-sharing program, the DHS could conceivably gain access to any information it has walled itself off from with internal policies. Since this sharing is usually two-way, other agencies could unwittingly (or wittingly) launder off-limits data for the DHS, sending it back in the form of "relevant" info for use in its vetting/investigations.

That's just the social media end of it. The Brennan Report also discusses the CBP's warrantless and suspicionless device searches, and the fact that the information pulled from devices can be stored for up to 75 years if it's related to an arrest, detention, or removal. If it isn't, the CBP will only hold onto it for 20 years. This includes everything pulled from social media accounts, much of which is fed to ICE, which has its own social media monitoring program.

ICE's monitoring program was going to be automated but that was shelved after the agency sustained some public and Congressional backlash. Instead, it has turned this over to contractors -- 180 people who keep an eye on social media posts from the 10,000 foreign visitors ICE has declared to be "high risk."

The DHS is awash in social media posts but hasn't shown it can do anything useful with all of this information. The only thing guaranteed is incursions on rights, self-censorship by those who've been targeting by this vetting, and a whole lot of people targeted solely because of their religion or national origin.

Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: dhs, extreme vetting, national safety, social media, social media monitoring


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2019 @ 12:21pm

    Some friendly advice from a once frequent international traveler.

    The less you want to be in a country the harder it is to get into that country. This especially applies to Africa and South Asia.

    Do not take any drugs, including aspirin, with you.
    Do not take anything liquid, including hair tonic.
    Do not take electronic devices including telephones.
    Do not take magazines with girlie pictures.
    If you take a book make sure it is technical, not political, romance, or sexual.

    If you take tools have a work permit.

    Take as little as possible if on a tourist visa. If on a work visa, and working for a government entity, take as much as possible with all the correct paperwork. Government visa, dolly loads of paper especial technical drawings means government political connections; please leave customs as fast as possible; we want nothing to do with you.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Rekrul, 29 May 2019 @ 3:24pm

    I have no social media accounts. No Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram, nothing. The only sites I've ever given my real name to are Amazon and eBay and that's only because I buy stuff from those sites.

    I created a Facebook account just to be able to use it as a login on some sites, but it's not "mine", it belongs to "Bob Smith" who has no content. Actually it's my second account, for some reason Ben Dover's account got nuked...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    bobob, 29 May 2019 @ 4:00pm

    Of course. The political success of a program depends on theater and the ability to question the patriotism of its critics, not the methods used, the constitution or any actual results.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2019 @ 4:04pm

    DHS wants you to violate the TOS.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2019 @ 9:33pm

    If your doing something you don't want people knowing about maybe you shouldn't be doing it.

    /s

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2019 @ 5:26am

    Did I Miss something?

    "The DHS's Social Media Monitoring...Doesn't Seem To Be Making The Nation Safer"

    Was there something else they were doing that WAS "making the nation safer"?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2019 @ 6:29am

    What you talkin’ bout, Tim? I feel safer already. (slowly loads bullets into pistol)...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2019 @ 6:36am

    Re:

    That is what they want you to think.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    R,og S/, 30 May 2019 @ 9:18am

    targets, targets, targets

    self-censorship by those who've been targeting by this vetting, and a whole lot of people targeted solely because of their religion or national origin

    these are targeted individuals for sure.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. icon
    FlatZOut (profile), 30 May 2019 @ 9:34am

    No Nation Was Safe to Begin With

    Every nation has one or more vulnerabilities that can’t be fixed. And often the country itself creates these vulnerabilities depending on the condition of that country.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2019 @ 10:05am

    So, if you don't have a social media amount, you can't travel to certain countries? I don't have any. I am sure Facebook is aware of me because people who have my email use Facebook but I have no social media accounts at all.

    Customs: We need your social media accounts and passwords
    Me: I don't have any
    Customs: Sorry entry/ re entry denied

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. identicon
    Fred, 30 May 2019 @ 10:21am

    Re:

    A-ha! Someone after my own heart. I also try and remain as anonymous as possible in and around the net, also using false user-names and a disposable e-mail address where ever possible. Not easy not to be found though, is it?

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.