In some cases DHS produced minute-by-minute reports on #BlackLivesMatter protesters’ movements http://t.co/iSWYn9x0rY pic.twitter.com/QinTqM2ffQ
— The Intercept (@the_intercept) July 24, 2015
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Shakezula
Not at all surprised and I assume DHS is only one of the intelligence agencies watching them because this country can’t kick its racism habit. But this is the same agency that backed off classifying violent right wing groups as extremists, so fuck them with a bag of spicy Doritos.
Tree With Water
Admiral Poindexter must be feeling pretty damn smug nowadays.
Major Major Major Major
OT: Asshole cat is asshole
Carolinus
The Intercept is really overselling their FOIA produced documents. It’s ridiculous to compare following public posts on twitter about mass gatherings to the wiretapping, infiltration and subverting of protest movements of the civil rights era.
Roger Moore
@Major Major Major Major:
If it not for sitting, why it made of warm?
Kropadope
This is why we need legislation delineating limits to this spying, mainly in the form of concrete standards for starting an investigation and some teeth for the FISA court.
Cervantes
Wait — government surveillance is not something only “dudebros” worry about?
After all, don’t Facebook and Amazon perform an equal surveillance and more?
Surely if we apply a few choice epithets to the likes of Snowden and Greenwald, the problem will simply melt away.
Cervantes
@Carolinus:
Ridiculous to compare the two things, sure, provided you have never seen, or cannot imagine, the one leading inexorably to the other.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Dunno about this story. The writer seems to be conflating lots of things to try to create a picture of vast federal government operation that is chilling freedom of speech and association. Maybe there is something like that, but the story doesn’t seem to demonstrate it.
E.g. the first “DHS e-mail” linked mentions NYPD SHIELD “will continue to monitor the situation” – with the implication that they are the source of the e-mail – not DHS. NYPD SHIELD is part of the NY City PD.
Given that there were occasional gunshots at some of the protests, and occasional arson and looting, it is not unreasonable for sensible police departments and DHS to be aware of planned protests. Of course that awareness can expand to repression and worse, so we shouldn’t automatically pooh-pooh the story. But …
So, I dunno. Maybe there’s some fire there, but I’m not seeing it so far. The framing doesn’t seem to match the evidence presented.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Cervantes
@Tree With Water:
Why?
Another Holocene Human
No, DHS, the cool kids STILL do NOT want to fuck you! Also, stalking is creepy. Knock it off.
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: warm *and* sproingly.
Another Holocene Human
@Shakezula: Not spicy enough.
Another Holocene Human
@Major Major Major Major: Cats also have a 6th sense for whatever object you’re going to need right this minute–so they can sit on it.
Carolinus
What spying? They documented the locations of mass gatherings using publicly available information (news reports, twitter posts, etc). They didn’t wiretap, access private e-mails, intercept internet traffic, request phone logs …
Cacti
@Carolinus:
No spying at all.
BLM was deemed “dangerous” enough to have their public activities monitored by a federal agency.
But we’ve already had someone check in to tell us how this is totes the same as cell phone metadata.
Kropadope
@Carolinus: Ok, maybe spying was the wrong word, but this surveillance is admittedly being done in situations where there is no cause to suspect violence or crime. Even still, the article didn’t really say one way or the other whether this monitoring goes beyond what would be generally public information.
Major Major Major Major
@Cacti: This isn’t exactly COINTELPRO level stuff, man. If I can do it legally with a week off work and a laptop it’s not really spying.
Carolinus
Since no front pager seems interested enough to post about Obama’s Kenya trip I’ll just drop this in here ~
Obama, Kenyatta clash on gay rights in Kenya
Obama Speaks Out For LGBT Rights In Kenya
Cacti
@Kropadope:
There’s no expectation of privacy in your public movements, or in social media content that you put out for public consumption. So, no Fourth Amendment issue to speak of.
The pertinent question is why local and federal law enforcement were devoting resources to monitoring the public activities of a group called “BlackLivesMatter”.
Tree With Water
@Cervantes: He got fired by Bush-Cheney for for a slip of the tongue in which he betrayed the scale of the intelligence agencies information gathering intentions. And in retrospect, he didn’t reveal all that much, either. Snowden picked up where the admiral left off..
Kropadope
@Cacti: So, can a police officer just decide to follow someone around on the street for no reason? There’s nothing preventing generalized surveillance as long as it’s in public spaces? What about stalking and harassment laws? This is flagrantly inappropriate.
ETA: And, again, are we absolutely sure all the info was public? They didn’t get around anyone’s filters for friends or group members?
Cervantes
@Tree With Water:
You’re referring to his “Policy Analysis Market”?
LAC
@Carolinus: consider the source – between greenwald’s self serving nonsense and the thin skinned folks in Sanderitaville ( how dare you try an #occupy Wall Street on us!”) I am surprised that we are allowed to even have a modern civil rights movement at all. Lawdy, what is we gonna do???
? Martin
@Carolinus: This sort of reeks of the ‘all lives matter’ counterargument. If DHS were putting as much energy into investigating bad policing (before someone dies and BLM has to run it up the media flagpole) as monitoring BLM, then it might be a valid argument, but this is a one-sided interest by DHS by all accounts. I’m not aware of any lives taken by BLM.
msdc
@Major Major Major Major:
Or by following a hashtag.
“How dare they monitor all that information we made public!”
Cacti
@Kropadope:
I wish I had a more satisfying answer for you. But if you’re in an open, public space, there is no constitutional expectation of privacy. There is also no bright line rule for when law enforcement surveillance crosses the line into harassment.
Most stalking statutes also have exceptions for law enforcement officers “in the course of their duties”.
ETA: Federal law enforcement officials “in the course of their duties” would also have immunity from any state statute on stalking or harassment.
Cacti
@Kropadope:
IDK the answer to that one.
Josie
@Major Major Major Major: Such a wonderful facial expression. “If you were needing to use this computer, you are out of luck, sir.”
BillinGlendaleCA
@? Martin:
That would also be a useful FOIA request.
chopper
@Cacti:
i’m imagining that ‘line’ regarding harassment is pretty much non-measurable when the cop is instead keeping tabs on your public posts on the internet.
Mike J
@efgoldman:
Why don’t you file a FOIA request and find out?
Carolinus
@? Martin:
Is it really though? Does the DHS document the locations of mass gatherings in general for “situational awareness” as the memos claim (parades, sporting events, protests, marches, etc) or was BLM singled out? The Intercept certainly never bothers to answer that basic question between all the slippery-slope quotes and hyperbole.
dogwood
@Kropadope:
Twitter and all social media are public spaces. We have to remember that monitoring what’s going on with BLM on social media means monitoring the people who respond to them as well. If BLM is being credibly threatened by hate groups, I’m fine with DHS being aware of it in real time. DHS may have backed down publicly about right wingers being a major threat, but I’m pretty sure they’re still watching them.
? Martin
@Carolinus: I’m not arguing that they aren’t following other protest groups. I’m arguing that between BLM and law enforcement, law enforcement is the bigger threat to the public, and DHS isn’t following law enforcement.
For the record, I don’t think it’s illegal, I just think its misplaced effort.
the Conster
@dogwood:
I think that’s right. The nutjobs are all showing their asses, big time. Fortunately most of them are really really dumb, but unfortunately are all armed to the teeth. There are more of them than ISIS wannabes, for sure.
ruemara
I’m starting to think some people like having their hair on fire. A FOIA only answers the questions asked whick means this –
– thank you, Carolinus; is the main cogent question to determine if they were targeted. And to think you could start a social movement and somehow not be on some agency’s radar… history, do you know any?
KG
@Kropadope: a cop can follow someone in public based on a hunch. They can’t detain someone without more. But as mentioned above, when you’re in public there is no constitutional or reasonable expectation of privacy so following or otherwise investigating is fair game. If it’s on going for no reason, there’s probably grounds for a harassment complaint.
gwangung
@dogwood: Well, at least under THIS administration I might believe it. Under a Republican admin, though, they’d totally ignore them and pay attention only to the uppity BLMers….
(I’ve had some notion of nuance where I could conceive of outside agents using the legitimate grievances of Black Lives Matter as a cover, but I do realize it’s something that’s easily perverted….)
Anne Laurie
@Major Major Major Major:
To expand on other commentors’ replies: If it’s something a volunteer can do, why are we paying our professionals so much to do it? Especially when there are so many more worthy targets for professional attention, like the groups that encouraged Dylann Roof and Rusty Houser to target innocents?
It may not qualify as “spying”, but as surveillance it’s a huge waste of money & effort, even before you get to the questions about ‘deliberate intimidation’ and ‘mission creep’.
As with the historical tactics discussed in the YouTube video, this is (also) another display of racism — labelling #BLM protestors as dangerously anti-American & in need of ‘security monitoring’.
gian
So DHS reads the BLM twitter feeds and Bernie Sanders doesn’t
gwangung
If I recall correctly, the Republicans quickly put a stop to that.
There was a DHS unit devoted to stopping lone wolves, but it was disbanded under pressure.
cokane
@Anne Laurie: you’re really exaggerating the actual findings in the article. So is the Intercept, but that’s what they always do. Essentially, the docs prove that DHS does some data collection and has passed out some information about the groups. Honestly, it doesn’t sound like this was any kind of resource intense “surveillance” just a giant nothingburger, some data collection and a few emails passed around… also a bunch of your other claims in this comment are pretty much baseless — DHS IS monitoring white power groups.
gwangung
@efgoldman: Well this was in the wake of the DHS report that predicted (correctly, in my book) the greatest threat from domestic terrorism was from right wing extremists. The report correctly identified that as coming from lone wolf individuals.
The Republican manufactured outrage forced the disbanding of the unit (and several agents were let go). I think politically speaking, it was understood it was discouraged for a while to take too much initiative against right wing-tinged individuals.(Probably put them behind in a lot of ways)
? Martin
@efgoldman: No, the unit was shut down.
Basically, the GOP shut it down in order to gin up even more victimization on the right. It was part of the ‘Obama is coming after your guns, coming after Christians, etc.’
Carolinus
@Anne Laurie:
A FOIA’ed gov’t memo containing anything remotely like that — now that would be an outrage.
gwangung
@? Martin:
Basically, I understand the unit was specifically looking at people like the Lafayette gun man.
gwangung
@efgoldman: Yeah, but you do know that there couldn’t be a specific focus on the lone wolves the DHS warned about, right? Gotta take some effectiveness out of the effort.
Emma
Surprised…. not. SOP with any progressive movement.
Steve from Antioch
@Carolinus:
This.
I read the article and kept waiting for the “surveillance.”
different-church-lady
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Wait wait wait wait wait… you’re saying a publication run by Glen Greenwald is doing such things?
rikyrah
MLK
His Daddy
His Granddaddy
ALL had FBI files…
and I’m supposed to be mad or surprised about BLM surveillance?
really?
Gian
@Emma:
The Bush administration spied on Quakers.
nbcnews.com/id/10454316/ns/nbc_nightly_news_with_brian_williams-nbc_news_investigates/t/pentagon-spy…
redshirt
@efgoldman: If you’re out there in the public, voicing an opinion, you should assume you’re monitored.
If you use electronic communications of any sort in 2015, you should assume you’re being monitored.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cacti: Obviously, because if black lives matter, then the lives of police do not. This is, like everything else in this society, a zero sum game. Always.
At least as far as the simpletons of the “law and order” crowd are concerned.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@redshirt:
More than that, of course.
The wonderful functions in our phones only work as well as they do because they are constantly measuring and reporting where they are and who the user is. Google can tell me that it will take 20 minutes to get to work the usual way because it has measured the path I’ve taken before and kept a record of it. That functionality would be impossible without that information (and the information from other users that is reconstructed to calculate the current travel time).
Google, the companies it shares that data with, and any government agency with an appropriate warrant, can get access to that information. And since that information is transmitted via radio and via wired internet connections once it hits the tower, the information can be recorded by anyone with the knowledge and gumption to do so (legally or not).
So yes, you should assume you’re being “monitored” if you have a smart phone. But more than that, it only works as a smart phone when it knows where you are, who you are, and keeps track of that information. If that information exists, governments have ways of retrieving it.
Personally, that doesn’t make me paranoid about the NSA or DHS or any other government agency “spying” on me, anymore than I worried that my phone calls were being tapped before the cell phone was invented. YMMV (and Greenwald’s and Snowden’s apparently does).
Cheers,
Scott.
Chris
@Cacti:
Yeah, near as I can tell, it’s not spying or anything illegal. Just a waste of effort, as AL said. DHS’ resources, like everyone else’s are finite. Do they really have such a perfect handle on all the country’s violent criminals that they can afford to waste time monitoring twitter activists? And if they absolutely have to monitor black people, can it at least be the Crips or Bloods or someone like that?
henqiguai
@efgoldman (#61): Dead thread but I couldn’t resist —
And the Emancipation Proclamation was when?
Cervantes
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
As the kids say, “Check your privilege.”
Cervantes
@rikyrah:
Being “mad or surprised” may require additional action — performative leftism? — and anyway history shows, and some have argued above, that all that surveillance must be for your own good.
And speaking of that: are you “surprised” when the system makes plain for the umpteenth time that “Black Lives” do not Matter (as much)? Is anyone surprised?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Cervantes: Ok, good pithy comeback.
Yes, we need to watch the watchers.
Is there anything here in this story other than some law-enforcement agencies reading and noting discussions on public forums? IOW, following a few hash tags? If so, maybe I missed it (certainly possible).
You’re not concerned that the writer phrased and hedged things to put the worst possible spin on what was in the FOIA documents? (E.g. is following a public hashtag really the same thing as “watching and intimidation” or “monitoring BLM”?)
Cheers,
Scott.
White Trash Liberal
I’m not defending DHS. There was the mmurder of those two police officers in NYC. Given that lone wolf white violence is just random, this black gunman could be The Shape of Things to Come. But the surveillance focus on BLM probably stems from that shooting. Too bad DHS can’t surveille the real problem.