While all Amer ic ans may be harmed by untrammeled social media monit or ing, people from histor ic ally margin al ized communit ies and those who protest govern ment policies typic ally bear the brunt of suspi cion less surveil lance. Social media monit or ing is no differ ent.

Echo ing the trans gres sions of the civil rights era, there are myriad examples of the FBI and DHS using social media to surveil people speak ing out on issues from racial justice to the treat ment of immig rants. Both age cies have monitored Black Lives Matter activists. In 2017, the FBI created a specious terror ism threat category called “Black Iden tity Extrem ism” (BIE), which can be read to include protests against police viol ence. This category has been used to ration al ize contin ued surveil lance of black activists, includ ing monit or ing of social media activity. In 2020, DHS's Office of Intel li gence & Analysis (I&A) used social media and other tools to target and monitor racial justice protest ors in Port land, OR, justify ing this surveil lance by point ing to the threat of vandal ism to Confed er ate monu ments. I&A then dissem in ated intel ligence reports on journ alists report ing on this over reach.

DHS espe cially has focused social media surveil lance on immig ra tion activists, includ ing those engaged in peace ful protests again the Trump admin is tra tion's family separ a tion policy and others char ac ter ized as “anti-Trump protests.” From 2017 through 2020, ICE kept tabs on immig rant rights groups' social media activity, and in late 2018 and early 2019, CBP and HSI used inform a tion gleaned from social media in compil ing dossiers and putting out travel alerts on advoc ates, journ al ists, and lawyers — includ ing U.S. citizens — whom the govern ment suspec ted of help ing migrants south of the U.S. border.

Muslim, Arab, Middle East ern, and South Asian communit ies have often been partic u lar targets of the U.S. govern ment's discrim in at ory travel and immig ration screen ing prac tices , including social media screen ing. The State Department's collection of social media iden ti fi ers on visa forms, for instance, came out of Pres id ent Trump's Muslim ban, while early social media monit or ing and collection programs focused dispro portion ately on people from predom in antly Muslim coun tries and Arabic speak ers.