Homeland Security Trackiing Black Lives Matter

[JDPriestly]

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.

. . . .

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/07/24/documents-show-department-homeland-security-monitoring-black-lives-matter-since-ferguson/

I recommend reading the entire article.

[Aerows]

1. K&R n/t!

[PatrickforO]

2. Sure they are! ANY time the people EVER decide they want to push back for social or economic

justice, you can BET the FBI and DHS will be watching. COINTELPRO is still alive and well. We will also be able to expect provocateurs to be planted, perhaps violent ones, so the police can then come in with truncheons and rubber bullets and worse.

Have you all noticed how the racist Ku Kluxer sicko who gunned down those people in Charleston is NOT being called a terrorist even though he definitely IS, while the Islamic guy who opened up in that shipyard is being called a terrorist.

Corporate propaganda folks. It has that much nuance. They call the one a terrorist because it's good for a few million in appropriations to the military industry complex, but some racist kills a bunch of innocent PoC and nothing is said - because they won't make any profit off calling that what it actually is.

[JDPriestly]

3. Thank you.

[Cheese Sandwich]

4. BET?

you can BET the FBI and DHS will be watching.

LOL is this some other BET I have't heard of?

[Scootaloo]

6. He's capitalizing for emphasis.

But you know, the vision of BET offered by The Boondocks might be relevant...

[Cheese Sandwich]

8. LOL sorry

I was like why are BET and the FBI watching us?

[bravenak]

11. I always see BET as B.E.T. too. It's automatic.

[PatrickforO]

7. No - a wager - like the term you can bet on it, or you can bank on it.

But I wouldn't be surprised if there were some sinister federal/corporate entity like a giant paranoid eye spying out every move we make with the initials BET...

[Cheese Sandwich]

9. My brain it go too fast

It saw BET as the TV channel

sinister federal/corporate entity like a giant paranoid eye spying out

Oooh that's good. Have you considered designing logos for the government they might like that idea?


Yes, the NRO's Latest Logo Really Is a Hideous Octopus Encircling the Earth

[Cheese Sandwich]

5. An eye opening report.

Thanks for posting.

[Warpy]

10. Yeah, just like the FBI kept close tabs on the Raging Grannies and the Quakers

They're always terrified of anything left of center, they might cost rich men a few bucks if they manage to get reforms.

Meanwhile, every democracy that has been overthrown has been killed by the far right, never the left. There are no historical exceptions.

It's how we know top law enforcement is generally both corrupt and stupid.

[djean111]

12. I would be surprised if they were not. Look how they went after Occupy.

Anything that may threaten their status quo is suspect. And this gives law enforcement the go-ahead to mace and pepper spray and worse. Again - Occupy.

[hobbit709]

13. Does anyone expect less from the modern day Gestapo?

[JEB]

14. Fascism. eom

[JDPriestly]

15. Black Lives Matter would be wise to limit itself to silent marches and prayer and

always practice non-violent techniques before marching. That was pretty much Martin Luther King's methodology.

Because it is easy for a movement like Black Lives Matter to be infiltrated and used to stir up a reaction against it. Excitement can lead to careless actions.

I think it is important for people who support Black Lives Matter to remember that they are being watched.