Technology

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In recent years, police have used fake accounts to spy on Black Lives Matter protesters; pose as ordinary citizens and post comments attacking law enforcement critics; and send Facebook friend requests to targets of their investigations and then gather personal information without a judge’s approval for the digital search.

“What we see in these documents is just how widespread the use of undercover accounts is, with these attempts to hide their tracks while using social media,” said Rachel Levinson-Waldman, the managing director of the Brennan Center’s liberty and national security program, which provided the records to the Guardian.

“We require everyone, including law enforcement authorities, to use their authentic name they go by in everyday life on Facebook and we make this policy clear in our community standards,” he wrote in an emailed statement to the Guardian.

Additional documents released as part of the Brennan Center’s expansive request about the DHS’s social media surveillance suggest that the department works with a wide range of outside government entities and at times private companies, raising broader questions about where people’s data could end up.

The documents show Ice and HSI had an agreement to use a service called Giant Oak Search Technology (Gost), which says it “can find negative news in chat rooms, social media and discussion websites, the deep web, and articles or sources in foreign languages”.

And CBP recently announced plans to more broadly collect social media handles of current visa holders when they are traveling to and from the US – a proposal several digital privacy groups have opposed.

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