EFF Sues government over social network surveillance

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the University of California, Berkeley's Samuelson Clinic have filed a lawsuit (PDF document) against six government agencies, seeking information on their use of social networking sites for data collection and surveillance.

This is because six government agencies Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, Department of Treasury, Central Intelligence Agency, and Office of the Director of National Intelligence. On it's use of social networks for information gathering.

The eight page complaint list  an example of law enforcements use of social networking sites to look for photos of underage drinking and watching YouTube videos to spot rioters. The complaint would like to address the formula these agencies are following and make that known. Are they looking randomly or searching for the top 20 offenders.


According to Informationweek.com

"  Surveillance and intelligence gathering from the Internet and social networks is not just an issue in the U.S.
In early October, Wikileaks published a document from the European INDECT Consortium that describes a system designed to mine Web logs, social networks, online forums, and news reports, and to use that data to generate electronic dossiers detailing online individuals and their links to one another.

And this according to the Register

""Although the Federal Government clearly uses social-networking websites to collect information, often for laudable reasons, it has not clarified the scope of its use of social-networking websites or disclosed what restrictions and oversight is in place to prevent abuse," the complaint stated.

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