29 Sep Privacy Advocates Say Feds Monitoring of Social Media an Overreach
The recent initiatives of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on the collection of social media information of naturalized citizens and permanent residents received intense criticism especially from privacy advocates, who argued that it is causing more harm than good.
Immigration experts and digital privacy advocates expressed their skepticism on the initiatives which started in the Obama administration. Edward Hasbrouck, a consultant to the Identity Project, says that admission decisions should be based on specific criteria defined in laws or regulations. Meanwhile, Center for Democracy & Technology’s Nuala O’Connor considers the move a widespread fishing expedition and a gross invasion of privacy.
The DHS, however, stated that it is merely monitoring publicly available social media data in its law-enforcement and immigration-process capacity.
Source: Wired
