DHS scoured social media sites during Obama inauguration for ‘items of interest’

Computerworld – An electronic rights advocacy group is expressing concern over what it contends was an overly broad surveillance of social networking sites conducted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in the days leading up to the 2009 inauguration of President Barack Obama.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation EFF recently obtained documents pertaining to the DHS’s monitoring of social networking sites through a Freedom of Information Act FOIA lawsuit.

The documents show that the DHS established a unit called the Social Network Monitoring Center SNMC last year to scour social sites for signs of potential security threats during the presidential inauguration.

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