DHS defends social media monitoring program

The Homeland Security Department monitors social media sites, blogs and online comment threads to gather "situational awareness" about threats and emergencies, but it doesn't pull identifying information about average citizens out of those comments unless it's a "life or death situation," officials told a House panel.

The hearing of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence follows news that an agency contractor mined Facebook, Twitter and the comments sections of online news articles in 2009 to gauge Standish, Mich., residents' thoughts about a short-lived proposal to move Guantanamo Bay prisoners to an area prison. The contract with General Dynamics was uncovered after the Electronic Privacy Information Center, an online privacy advocacy group, filed a Freedom of Information Act request and subsequent lawsuit. Current analysis produced by the National Operations Center, where the social media monitoring program is housed, "focus[es] on what's being reported, not who's reporting it," said DHS Chief Privacy Officer Mary Ellen Callahan. Those reports never identify people's names or other personally identifying information unless the analysts believe someone's life might be in danger or if the person being referred to is a public official, she said. When then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was shot in Tucson in January 2011, for instance, reports identified the congresswoman by name, Callahan said.