[News] Memphis Police Spying on Black Lives Matter Runs Deep
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Mon Jul 30 10:57:29 EDT 2018
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/07/memphis-police-spying-on-activists-is-worse-than-we-thought/566264/
Memphis Police Spying on Black Lives Matter Runs Deep
Brentin Mock - <https://www.citylab.com/authors/brentin-mock/>Jul 27, 2018
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Demonstrators gather in Memphis, Tennessee, earlier this year to mark
the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Demonstrators gather in Memphis, Tennessee, earlier this year to mark
the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Shawn Escoffery
As ACLU lawyers prepare for an upcoming trial with the Memphis Police
Department, the things they’ve learned about the law enforcement
agency’s spying habits have “surprised” them.
When the ACLU of Tennessee filed a lawsuit against the Memphis Police
Department
<https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/04/the-evolution-of-domestic-spying-since-mlk-in-memphis/557468/>
in March 2017, its lawyers accused the police department of spying on
local protesters in violation of a consent decree. The lawsuit was based
on the existence of a “City Hall Escort List” created by Memphis police,
at Mayor Jim Strickland’s request, and mostly filled with names of Black
Lives Matter activists to be flagged by police if ever on City Hall
grounds. However, after deposing key police officials and collecting
hundreds of pages of documented evidence, ACLU lawyers learned that this
was just a fraction of what was going on. Based on court documents
<http://www.aclu-tn.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/107-02-Statement-of-Undisputed-Facts_Redacted.pdf>
the ACLU filed this week in the case, they also found out about these
actions:
*
The “City Hall Escort List” not only flagged the names of certain
Black Lives Matter-affiliated activists, but it also included
“associates in fact”—people connected to those activists via social
media, prior arrests, or “often seen at unlawful assemblies with” them.
*
Police prepared “joint intelligence briefs,” or JIBs, that initially
were about protests against police violence in Memphis, but quickly
became a dossier of any kind of anti-police violence activity
happening across the nation, namely “any of the organizations that
arose out of Ferguson” or that were part of the Black Lives Matter
network, even it had nothing to do with Memphis.
*
These intel briefings weren’t just shared within the police
department; they were also shared with Shelby County sheriff and
government officials, the county school district, the Tennessee
Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of Justice, the
U.S. Military, the Memphis Light, Gas, & Water
<http://www.mlgw.com/about/> municipal utility company, the
Tennessee Valley Authority <https://www.tva.gov/About-TVA> (a
regional electricity utility company), and, curiously, the private
companies FedEx and Autozone.**
*
The police used “social media collator” software, such as Geofeedia
<https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2016/10/12/geofeedia-is-just-the-tip-of-the-iceberg-the-era-of-social-surveillence/>
and NC4
<https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fort-myers-police-department-chooses-nc4-street-smart-to-help-fight-crime-300621350.html>,
to easily search and monitor open-source data and other social media
“chatter” concerning protest activities.
*
Police also set up a dummy social media account under the name “Bob
Smith” to access information and correspond with people whose social
media profiles were private and not accessible to the public.**
*
Undercover and plain-clothed officers used this intel to monitor
African American-hosted events and activities even if they weren’t
protests—like flash mob dance rallies. Among the events the police
monitored in stealth mode: several black church meetings; a memorial
service for Darrius Stewart
<https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/news/2017/07/17/darrius-stewart-memorial/481493001/>,
a teenager who was shot and killed by a Memphis police officer in
2015; a black-owned food truck festival
<https://allevents.in/memphis/soulful-food-truck-sunday-mbrw/1379333275461297>;
and a gathering at a local park where an organization gave out free
book bags and school supplies to students. **
The ACLU of Tennessee filed a motion this week
<http://www.aclu-tn.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/107-Mtn-for-Summary-Judgment_Redacted.pdf>
asking the judge to render a decision based on all the information
gathered, instead of going to trial, which is currently scheduled for
August. These operations are questionable enough on their own, but
police surveillance of protesters has been forbidden in Memphis since a
1978 consent decree
<https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/04/the-evolution-of-domestic-spying-since-mlk-in-memphis/557468/>,
after the police department was accused of carrying out similar spying
functions on civil rights activists dating back to 1968, when Martin
Luther King was in the city advocating on behalf of sanitation workers.
Police also set up a dummy social media account under the name “Bob
Smith” to access information and correspond with people.
The information unearthed about the police department’s recent
activities shows that such surveillance operatives have evolved, though.
Back in King’s day, Memphis police were planting undercover agents in
activist circles to gather intel—today, they continue to do that, but
are also going undercover in people’s private social media accounts and
using the city’s SkyCop cameras
<https://wreg.com/2012/11/29/police-sky-cams-aim-to-reduce-crime/> to
discreetly profile and monitor activists throughout the city.
“The information we got about just how the police were monitoring
protesters both through social media and surveillance, and through
undercover means, was not something we anticipated when we filed the
lawsuit,” said ACLU-TN Legal Director Thomas H. Castelli. “We knew they
were using social media collators, but we didn’t know how they were
using them. The use of covert social media accounts to friend people [on
Facebook], or to break through open source barriers to find out more
information from individuals was somewhat surprising to us.”
The joint intelligence briefings the Memphis police created not only
included photographs of people involved in protests (or even “those who
posted about the possibility of protest action,” according to court
documents
<http://www.aclu-tn.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/107-01-Memo-in-Support_Redacted.pdf>)
but also sensitive information such as drivers’ license details,
juvenile arrest records, and mental health histories. Agents used a tool
called the i2 Analyst’s Notebook
<https://securityintelligence.com/news/ibm-i2-qradar-offense-investigator-the-new-i2-cyber-threat-hunting-app/>
to construct a matrix or “map of associations” between the various
activists they were watching—basically, a Facebook of protesters used by
police to track their movements.
Some of the intelligence the police agents collected from social media
turned out to be wrong, or literally fake news. In one of the briefings,
exhibited in court documents, police distributed warnings to its law
enforcement network about a “Day of Rage”—a /Purge
<https://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/the-first-purge-review-1202863400/>/-like
revolt that was supposed to occur on July 15, 2016, in several cities
where violence could be expected. The police said they scooped this
intel up from Black Lives Matter social accounts. But nothing happened
on July 15 and Black Lives Matter had publicly disavowed having anything
to do with the fake event and the rumors promoting it. It turned out to
be a hoax, as /Al-Jazeera/ reported
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/11/documents-show-monitoring-black-lives-matter-171128110538134.html>.
This is the kind of misfortune that black activists can’t afford in a
climate where Russian hackers have posed as online provocateurs to stir
up racial polarization and discord
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/if-russia-can-create-fake-black-lives-matter-accounts-who-will-next/2017/10/15/ffb2e01e-af79-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html?noredirect=on>
to sway elections. Meanwhile, as George Joseph has reported for /The
Intercept
<https://theintercept.com/2018/03/19/black-lives-matter-fbi-surveillance/>
/and /The Appeal
<https://theappeal.org/memphis-police-collected-black-lives-matter-activists-private-facebook-posts/>/,
Black Lives Matter groups have been tracked and monitored by the FBI,
with some possibly identified by state and federal authorities as “black
identity extremists
<https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/02/new-jersey-homegrown-terrorism/515163/>.”
While the ACLU’s lawsuit mostly focuses on enforcing the consent decree,
Castelli says they would challenge the police departments tactics even
if there was no decree in place.
“If the decree didn’t exist, there may be a different approach to
calling out this kind of surveillance,” said Castelli. “It’s problematic
and can have chilling effects on people exercising their constitutional
rights. Police in general have a tremendous amount of power and they can
have a coercive effect, so we would be condemning these practices as bad
for free speech and public policy.”
About the Author
Brentin Mock
Brentin Mock <https://www.citylab.com/authors/brentin-mock/>
Brentin Mock <https://www.citylab.com/authors/brentin-mock/>is a staff
writer at CityLab. He was previously the justice editor at /Grist/.
--
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