The Department of Homeland Security has been monitoring the Black Lives Matter movement since anti-police protests erupted in Ferguson, Missouri last summer, according to hundreds of documents obtained by The Intercept through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The documents, released by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Operations Coordination, indicate that the department frequently collects information, including location data, on Black Lives Matter activities from public social media accounts, including on Facebook, Twitter, and Vine, even for events expected to be peaceful. The reports confirm social media surveillance of the protest movement and ostensibly related events in the cities of Ferguson, Baltimore, Washington, DC, and New York.

They also show the department watching over gatherings that seem benign and even mundane. For example, DHS circulated information on a nationwide series of silent vigils and a DHS-funded agency planned to monitor a funk music parade and a walk to end breast cancer in the nation’s capital.

The tracking of domestic protest groups and peaceful gatherings raises questions over whether DHS is chilling the exercise of First Amendment rights, and over whether the department, created in large part to combat terrorism, has allowed its mission to creep beyond the bounds of useful security activities as its annual budget has grown beyond $60 billion.

Hundreds of people are packing into a Kansas City ballroom and standing along the walls for a @SenSanders event. pic.twitter.com/tOUe4QerZl
Justin Wingerter (@JustinWingerter) July 13, 2015

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Societal ills such as income inequality and youth unemployment adversely harm the Hispanic community, Sen. Bernie Sander, I-Vt., told a crowd at a Hispanic conference Monday morning.

About 250 people crowded into a small ballroom at the Kansas City Convention Center to hear Sanders speak as part of the National Council of La Raza’s annual conference. An hour before the event, a line wound through the halls of the convention center as conference goers clamored for an opportunity to see the progressive candidate.

Sanders called for comprehensive immigration reform, free tuition at all public universities, affordable child care and a $15-per-hour minimum wage. Sanders, who has pledged not to accept campaign donations from super PACS, said the U.S. Supreme Court’s “disastrous” ruling on Citizens United should be overturned.