<story><title>Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr</title><url>https://theintercept.com/2020/07/09/twitter-dataminr-police-spy-surveillance-black-lives-matter-protests/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>DoofusOfDeath</author><text>I get the sense that most HN commenters are against having police surveil this kind of event in the U.S.&lt;p&gt;Could someone share the reasons for this strong opposition?&lt;p&gt;Personally, I can imagine valid reasons &lt;i&gt;for and against&lt;/i&gt; conducting such surveillance. But given how many people feel otherwise, I wonder if I&amp;#x27;m missing something.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>stefan_</author><text>The first obvious point is that protesting is a constitutionally protected activity, as is any political speech on Twitter, and this is interpreted extremely widely - so why are public institutions in the business of surveilling this legal, ney protected activity?&lt;p&gt;But there is more to it. Courts have long recognized that state activity that can be reasonably construed to &lt;i&gt;chill&lt;/i&gt; exercise of ones constitutional freedoms is similarly an infringement on those rights, and certainly take a very dim look on any sort of surveillance of political activity.</text></comment>
<story><title>Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr</title><url>https://theintercept.com/2020/07/09/twitter-dataminr-police-spy-surveillance-black-lives-matter-protests/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>DoofusOfDeath</author><text>I get the sense that most HN commenters are against having police surveil this kind of event in the U.S.&lt;p&gt;Could someone share the reasons for this strong opposition?&lt;p&gt;Personally, I can imagine valid reasons &lt;i&gt;for and against&lt;/i&gt; conducting such surveillance. But given how many people feel otherwise, I wonder if I&amp;#x27;m missing something.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>colordrops</author><text>Because the political class has demonstrated repeatedly that they are mostly corrupt and will take advantage of the data illegally, just like with echelon and prism, and what they are now trying to do with the EARN IT act.</text></comment>