Report: Homeland Security lied to Congress about spying on citizens

Already facing inquiries from the House Committee on Oversight and Government reform concerning possible perjury revolving around the Fast and Furious fiasco, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano appears to be in deeper trouble in light of a report stating that her agency lied to Congress about alleged spying on citizens who have not been charged with crimes. Secret documents recently published by The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) show that Homeland Security officials misled Congress when they claimed that the agency had not contracted with any entity to monitor social networking sites for signs of citizen discontent with government policy. The documents show that DHS did, indeed, enter into a contractual agreement with General Dynamics to monitor the Internet for signs of opposition to policies of the Obama Administration:

 Altogether, the documents released by EPIC in January and in February reveal that the Department is paying defense contractor General Dynamics to monitor the Internet for “reports that reflect adversely on DHS and response activities,” including “reports that pertain to DHS and sub agencies — especially those that have a negative spin on DHS/Component preparation, planning, and response activities,” among other things.

DHS paid General Dynamics 11.4 million dollars to keep tabs on citizen comments on the Internet about government policy. Ginger McCall, who serves as director of EPIC's Open Government Project, stated in a letter to a congressional subcommittee that Homeland Security's surveillance of citizens reaches far beyond monitoring for terrorism or natural or man made disasters:

“The DHS testimony, as well as the documents obtained by EPIC, indicate that the agency is monitoring constantly, under very broad search terms, and is not limiting that monitoring to events or activities related to natural disasters, acts of terrorism, or manmade disasters,” McCall explained to lawmakers. “The monitoring is designed to be over-broad, and sweeps in large amounts of First Amendment activity. The DHS has no legal authority to engage in this monitoring.”

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