EFF wants to know what the government knows about social network
Lawsuit seeks information on federal surveillance of social networking sites
Computerworld – 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.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. It invoked the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in seeking information from the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, Department of Treasury, Central Intelligence Agency, and Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
The eight-page complaint lists several media reports about law enforcement’s use of social sites for surveillance purposes. One of the reports includes an Associated Press story about police searching Facebook photos for evidence of underage drinking and watching YouTube videos to identify suspected rioters.
Another example cited in the compliant is a story in The New York Times about the FBI searching the house of s social worker because of Twitter messages he sent during the G-20 summit about police movements in the city.</em>
Don’t think the DHS is gonna be responding to my friend request anytime soon…
