Documents Reveal Widespread Abuse of Social Media Spying Tools by California CopsBy Derrick Broze The American Civil Liberties Union of California has obtained thousands of pages of documents pertaining to California law enforcement agencies secretly purchasing social media surveillance software. The ACLU of California filed open records requests with63 police departments, sheriffs, and district attorneys across Californiaand found that at least 20 agencies across California are in possession of social media monitoring tools. We found no evidence in the documents of any public notice, debate, community input, or lawmaker vote about use of this invasive surveillance, the ACLU writes. And no agency produced a use policy that would limit how the tools were used and help protect civil rights and civil liberties. The ACLU reports thattools like MediaSonar, X1 Social Discovery, and Geofeediahave been marketed in ways to target protesters. The records show thatGeofeedias marketing materialsrefer to unions and activist groups as overt threats, and suggest the product can be used in ways that target activists of color. At least 13 California law enforcement agencies have used or acquired Geofeedia. This is not the first time the ACLU of California found a police department using social media monitoring to target activists. Earlier this yearlocal activists in Fresnofought thepolice departmentover a five-year, $132,000 contract with Intrado Inc., effectively ending funding for the controversial Beware program. Beware was first exposed in January 2016 in a report from the Washington Post which outlined a number of surveillance tools at the Fresno PDs disposal. The tools are part of Fresnos Real Time Crime Center, which the Post described as a cutting-edge $600,000 nerve center which has become the model for high-tech policing nationwide. Similar centers have opened in New York, Houston and Seattle over the past decade. The Real Time Crime Center has 57 monitors that connect to more than 200 police cameras around the city, 800 camera feeds from city schools and traffic cameras, and they had hoped to connect 400 streams from police body cameras. The Beware program is only one part of the Crime Centers arsenal.It works by examining billions of data points, including arrest reports, property records, commercial databases, deep Web searches and social media postings. It was also reported that Beware has close to 100 percent of the adult population in Fresno, as well as almost 100 percent of residential address, landlines, and cellphone registrations. Most concerning of all, the program assigns a threat-score to local residents and alerts officers to possible dangers. The growing use of social media monitoring tools by local law enforcement is coupled with the expansion of social media monitoring by the federal government. In February 2016 Truth In Media reported thatthe U.S. Department of Justice met with officials from Facebook, Twitter, and Google to discuss how online social media firms can take the lead in disrupting online radicalization. Seamus Hughes, the deputy director of George Washington Universitys Program on Extremism, attended the meeting and told Reuters it wasa recognition that the government is ill-positioned and ill-equipped to counter ISIS online. George Selim, director of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) office forcountering violent extremism activities, said the federal government is not equipped to push back againstonline recruitment efforts from terror groups. Selim said the objectiveis to help communities and young people to amplify their own messages. Reuters reports that the U.S. government is also investing in counter-narrativeprograms at schools and community groups. Another program, funded by Facebook and the U.S. government, involvedpeer-to-peer (P2P)college courses that teach students to create their own anti-militant messaging. What does surveillance of social media and targeting of activists mean for the future of freedom of speech and assembly? How will the federal governments use of social media as a propaganda tool affect impressionable minds? Its time for those who are paying attention and recognize the value of privacy in a free world to stand up and fight back. Protect your private life, expose the Surveillance State, and support technology that values privacy and protection for the consumer. Derrick Broze is an investigative journalist and liberty activist. He is the Lead Investigative Reporter for selfnewsPost.com and the founder of the TheConsciousResistance.com. Follow him on Twitter. Derrick is the author of three books: The Conscious Resistance: Reflections on Anarchy and Spirituality and Finding Freedom in an Age of Confusion, Vol. 1 and Finding Freedom in an Age of Confusion, Vol. 2 Derrick is available for interviews. Please contact Derrick@activistpost.com This article may be freely reposted in part or in full with author attribution and source link. Image Credit be the first to comment here. Dozens of police departments, the Feds, and foreign intelligence agencies are waiting to hear from you. 01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111 00100000 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 01111001 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100001 00100000 01010111 01100101 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101110 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110100 00100000 01101001 01101110 01101110 01101111 01110110 01100001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110010 01100101 01101110 01100100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01101101 01100001 01110011 01110011 01101001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01110011 01111001 01110011 01110100 01100101 01101101 01110011 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101110 01110100 01110010 01101111 01101100 00100000 01110101 01110011 01100101 01101100 01100101 01110011 01110011 00101110 00100000 01000001 01100110 01110100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110111 01100101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100100 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01110111 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101001 01101101 01110000 01110010 01100101 01100111 01101110 01100001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01110111 01101111 01101101 01100101 01101110 00100000 01100110 01101111 01101100 01101011 00101110 00100000 00001010 When the openly counterfeiting Federal Reserve is finally rolled up, destroyed and gone, we will withhold nearly all of the funding for all of these people. Cut off head of snake. End of problem. Razed haha not my women folk! Imagine! The government using our money to spy on and abuse us. Knock me over with a freaking feather! Not surprising Fresno is front and center here. Fresno is the armpit of California. They, big city police forces, are looking for and finding every loose dollar out there. Big city Police Forces are little more than a part of the Organized (in Washington D.C.) Crime Syndicate; told it is a free for all, get what you can, our Judges will support you, stealem blind, when we need you though, you better come running. 