The Department of Homeland Security has been keeping close watch over the "Black Lives Matter" movement that was born last year in the wake of the police shooting death of Michael Brown that led to anti-police protest in Ferguson, Missouri and across much of the country.

Through a Freedom of Information request, The Intercept was able to obtain DHS documents that illustrate that the department regularly "collects information, including location data, on Black Lives Matter activities from public social media accounts."

The report goes on to detail intricate social media surveillance of protest movements and related events, even those that were expected to be peaceful, in cities from Ferguson to Baltimore to Washington D.C. to New York.

Such intense monitoring of domestic groups raises serious questions about the mission of an agency largely created to combat terrorism and that commands a multi-billion dollar budget for doing so.The surveillance cataloged in the released documents dates all the way back to August of last year, when protests first broke out in Ferguson following Brown's death at the hands of then-officer Darren Wilson.

Released emails also reveal DHS officials were soon monitoring national reaction to the tragedy and the developments it precipitated, including keeping watch over the "National Moment of Silence" day, planned to mark the somber occasion and call greater attention to a spiraling conflict between law enforcement departments across the country and the communities they're charged to protect and serve.

In an email to The Intercept, DHS spokesman S.Y. Lee refuted concerns that the department intentionally infringes upon the rights of citizens under the First Amendment. He added DHS does not provide resources to monitor any specific planned or spontaneous protest, rally or public gathering.

Yet, at least 400 DHS officers were on hand at recent protests in Baltimore following the police killing of 25-year-old Freddie Gray. Vice also reported that the agency "integrated" reps into two local intelligence centers in hopes of keeping a more exacting watch over a larger rally that was prepared for that weekend.

"It is concerning that the government would be diverting resources towards surveilling citizens who are assembling and expressing their First Amendment rights," says Maurice Mitchell, an organizer with Blackbird, a group that helps support activism against police violence in communities across the country.

Michell continued, "The fact that our government is doing this - I can only assume to disrupt us - is pretty alarming... Directly after 9/11, people said, 'if you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about.' Well, now we're fighting back against police brutality and extrajudicial killings, yet they are using this supposedly anti-terrorist infrastructure against us."