Helicopter Footage Obtained By The ACLU Shows Pervasive Surveillance Of Peaceful Anti-Police Violence Protests

from the because-of-course-it-does dept

Thanks to a trove of public records, the ACLU can provide some insight on how the California Highway Patrol engaged in surveillance of anti-police brutality protests. While one would expect police helicopters to fly over protests to keep an eye out for any illegal activity, it appears the officers manning the surveillance cameras were more interested in trying to identify protesters who weren't breaking any laws.

Some lowlights of the aerial footage can be seen in this video produced by the ACLU:

Here's how the ACLU describes what it observed in the recordings liberated from from the CHP:

In Sacramento, CHP closely zooms in on a protester as they sit alone on a fountain next to a Black Lives Matter poster. An hour later, when people peacefully assemble in front of the fountain to hear an organizer speak, CHP continues to hover and record, zooming in closely on people’s faces and signs.  

In Placerville, CHP captures detailed footage of several dozen protesters peacefully assembled in front of the El Dorado County courthouse. The video captures an organizer thanking and hugging participants as they hold up signs. CHP also recorded a Riverside County courthouse protest described as a “vigil... so quiet that the loudest sound was helicopters overhead.” In the CHP recordings, police cameras zoom in on faces and linger over people speaking at vigils, handing out water, making signs, participating in die-ins, and even dancing.

This is the Press-Enterprise's recounting of the peaceful protest in Riverside not-so-quietly observed by CHP helicopters:

The demonstration ended peacefully in the mid-afternoon, after protesters took a symbolic nine-minute knee in front of the Riverside Historic Courthouse. The vigil was so quiet that the loudest sound was helicopters overhead.

Then they returned to the park and dispersed, with some demonstrators cleaning up the streets as they went.

There were no arrests. “Very peaceful. No issues reported,” Riverside Police spokesman Officer Ryan Railsback said.

But despite there being no signs of criminal activity, the helicopters continued to circle the protest while camera operators zoomed in on faces for reasons that went undocumented in the reports obtained by the ACLU. That lack of information implies the apparent attempts to photograph or identify protesters fell outside the stated purpose of the surveillance and was deliberately left out of CHP reports.

That's not the only troubling aspect of the CHP surveillance footage. It also appears the CHP took particular interest in anti-police protests, allowing other large protests to go unobserved by its eyes in the sky.

We asked CHP whether it had any surveillance footage of other protests last year, including those related to the COVID-19 pandemic and associated shelter-in-place orders. But in hour after hour of footage provided by CHP, what we saw were protests against police violence, not protests of pandemic policy.

There are several reasons a law enforcement agency might find anti-police brutality protests more "worthy" of extended surveillance than other protests over other issues. Very few of those reasons are excusable. At best, it would be safe to assume that anti-police protests are more volatile because they historically have been. But when no criminal activity is observed, the CHP should maintain its distance. When it's clear it's a peaceful protest, the CHP has no business targeting individual protesters.

The rest of the reasons suck. The CHP targeted the protests because the protests targeted law enforcement. A majority of protesters in these protests (as compared to COVID-related protests) were persons of color. The eyes in the sky weren't so much about keeping the peace as reminding protesters law enforcement is omnipresent and its eyes can be pretty much anywhere at all times. Circling over peaceful protests with police helicopters is a form of intimidation. Destroying a nine-minute silent tribute to a black man killed by a white cop with whirling rotors and engine noise is a feature, not a bug, of this form of surveillance.

This implicit ugliness will, of course, be denied by law enforcement officials. Just like they've denied all sorts of evidence of biased policing pretty much since the inception of their respective law enforcement agencies. But everyone can see it's still there. The footage obtained here says what police officials are unwilling to confront: that cops go after minorities whenever possible and still feel very comfortable singling them out for whatever form of surveillance they happen to have on hand.

Filed Under: blm, california, chp, helicopter, protests, surveillance

Recordings, Transcripts Show Police, Prosecutors Lied To A Grand Jury To Bring Gang Charges Against BLM Protesters

from the ends-aren't-even-justifiable,-never-mind-the-means dept

More information has come out about the disastrous attempt by Arizona prosecutors to turn anti-police-violence protesters into a street gang. Phoenix police officers waded into the protest comprised of (checks official documents) 17 protesters, showering them with pepper balls and arresting them all. Charges were brought, including one very damaging one: assisting a criminal street gang. Gang charges are automatic felonies with hefty sentence enhancements.

According to the prosecutors handling the case, the use of the acronym ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards) by the protesters was indicative of their gang status. That and their use of umbrellas and black clothing. According to grand jury transcripts obtained by ABC15, a county prosecutor and Phoenix police Sgt. Doug McBride led jury members to believe "ACAB" was a street gang. Here's the prosecutor questioning McBride during a grand jury presentation:

Q: And are you finding that ACAB is following the exact same type of philosophy of let’s say the Bloods and the Crips?

A: Yes.

Q: And what about even maybe the same philosophy as the Hells Angels?

A: Very similar, yes.

Q: And why would that be similar?

A: I think because the tattoos, the intimidation factor, how they are directing their violent behavior very similar to the Hells Angel organization where they actually organize their violent behavior, and then they carry that out in a very organized fashion. It’s not random with the Hells Angels.

Q: And are you finding that’s exactly what this ACAB group is doing is they are organizing for the intent to create violence?

A: Yes.

That's how you end up securing gang felony charges against protesters who, at their worst, ignited a smoke bomb and dragged some traffic barriers around during their 30 minutes of 17-person mayhem. The claims that "ACAB" is a street gang were reiterated during bond hearings. The equivalence was made between these protesters who were otherwise unaffiliated and dangerous criminal organizations that are responsible for thousands of homicides over the past few decades.

These charges didn't stick. And now one of the prosecutors, April Sponsel (who is married to a state trooper), is being investigated for assertions she made during grand jury hearings.

April Sponsel is a Maricopa County prosecutor currently on administrative leave and under an outside investigation ordered by Maricopa County Attorney Allister Adel. Adel took the action following a series of ABC15 reports that showed Sponsel and Phoenix officers presented clearly false information to a grand jury in order to charge protesters as gang members.

It gets uglier still. A retired police officer engaged in an unauthorized investigation into the protest arrests with seemingly the sole purpose of protecting this prosecutor:

After a one-week contract to review a controversial protest case, a retired Phoenix gang detective continued a shadow investigation with the goal to protect officers and a prosecutor entangled in the scandal.

According to audio recordings obtained by ABC15, retired Phoenix Police Detective Clint Davis has interviewed at least one witness in the protest cases.

[...]

“My only skin in the game is protection of the public and protection of officers,” Davis said to the case witness in a March 4 meeting. “That's what I care about. And, I care about April Sponsel.”

The conversation involved Clint Davis, Gilbert PD Detective Terry Burchett, and Riley Behrens, an arrested protester who agreed to act as an informant. Davis reiterated his support of April Sponsel after Behrens called her a "jerk" for continuing to press charges after Behrens agreed to supply evidence and testify.

Behrens provides another link to more questionable law enforcement activity surrounding Black Lives Matter protests in the Phoenix area. The FBI was brought in by the Phoenix PD to interview Behrens and make them an official informant. Information supplied by Behrens appears to have been put to use later during other protests.

Protesters and their attorneys have long suspected that police and prosecutors have been surveilling certain demonstrators and targeting leading activists for arrests.

In some cases, body camera footage shows officers clearly identifying certain protesters in the crowds before moving in to specifically arrest them.

Police reports from various criminal cases also mention intelligence briefings about protests but don’t elaborate on where the information came from.

This meeting -- also secretly recorded and handed to ABC15 -- occurred just two days before officers arrested the 17 protesters and hit them with gang charges.

This is all a hell of lot of coordination for law enforcement activity that targets something that is -- for the most part -- protected First Amendment expression. That it continued from there to a prosecutorial farce involving providing false information to a grand jury solely to hit arrested protesters with gang-related sentence enhancements is incredibly disturbing. If law enforcement officers and officials thought they were dealing with too much blowback previous to the George Floyd flashpoint, they've done nothing more than add fuel to the fire currently consuming them.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, arizona, black lives matter, blm, free speech, gang, police, police violence, protests

Bureau Of Land Management Decides It's Going To Be A Lot Less Receptive To FOIA Requests

from the adding-power,-subtracting-accountability dept

The new administration's plan to undo everything Obama ever did (along with lots of stuff other presidents put in place) continues. Fighting leakers and multiple investigations, the Trump administration is steamrolling regulation by slashing through red tape and common sense with equal aplomb. This administration may have a reputation for inadvertent openness, but its new directives aren't so much draining the swamp as building a swamp in its own image.

The Bureau of Land Management is apparently viewed as the Fed version of Greenpeace. Previously-protected federal lands are being opened up for business, starting with the removal of environmental impact reviews. This should speed up the return of the government's land to certain people -- mining companies, the CBP's inland expeditions, wall builders, etc. This affects nearly 950 million acres of federal land. A raft of exclusions would make it easier for the Bureau of Land Management to manage land however it sees fit.

The package, which includes policy changes with immediate impact as well as regulatory and legislative proposals that would take more time to execute, would eliminate lengthy federal reviews in many instances through “categorical exclusions” if officials determine the activities have no environmental impact.

Such exclusions would cover everything from the BLM’s coal leases to efforts to euthanize wild horses and burros. Such an exclusion also would be pursued for “oil and gas wells that run horizontally from private wells into adjacent federal minerals,” according to the document.

But that's not the only thing the BLM is doing. As its power expands, it's working to scale back its transparency and accountability. J. Pat Brown of MuckRock noticed something else in the BLM's report on its post-Trump plans: an attempt to recraft existing FOIA law to deter records requests.

According to records obtained by the Washington Post, the Bureau of Land Management is recommending new legislation that would limit the number of FOIA requests individuals and agencies could file with the agency, create stricter criteria for fee waivers, as well as increased fees for “search and redaction.”

The BLM says it just doesn't have the budget for handling FOIA requests at the speed it used to. But that's obviously a huge misrepresentation of the facts. The BLM spent 0.2% of its $1.3 billion annual budget handling records requests, which is hardly an onerous amount. This is nothing more than an attempt to bypass its accountability to the public under the guise of federal agency belt-tightening. It claims answering requests "diverts resources" and hampers "decision-making processes," as though an integral part of government accountability were nothing more than a timesinking pain in the ass.

Capping requests from any entity or group is going to harm journalists and the downstream beneficiaries (the general public) of their reporting. This hard cap will probably affect corporations the most, as J. Pat Brown points out, but it's not as though the damage will be limited to well-funded participants in the FOIA process.

Federal agencies were never friendly to FOIA requesters under President Obama. But under Trump, they've become downright hostile. Granted, agencies like the DHS, FBI, and CIA were already openly hostile, but with Trump's revamp of multiple agencies, they've been joined by more generally-docile entities like the BLM and EPA. The more things are disrupted in DC, the more likely it is that federal agencies will circle the wagons. And it will be the taxpayers who are locked out, but still expected to foot the bill for antagonistic policies aimed at them.

Filed Under: blm, bureau of land management, foia, transparency

FBI Acts Like It's Still 1960 With Its Report On 'Black Identity Extremists'

from the agency-eats-its-own-speculative-dog-food dept

We already knew Jeff Sessions was a throwback. The new head of the DOJ rolled back civil rights investigations by the agency while calling for harsher penalties and longer jail terms for drug-related crimes, while re-opening the door for asset forfeiture abuse with his rollback of Obama-era policy changes.

But it's more than just the new old-school DOJ. The FBI is just as regressive. Under its new DOJ leadership, the FBI (inadvertently) published some speculative Blue Lives Matter fanfic [PDF] -- an "Intelligence Assessment" entitled "Black Identity Extremists Likely Motivated to Target Police Officers."

There's no hedging in the title, despite what the word "likely" usually insinuates. According to the FBI, this means there's an 80-95% chance it believes its own spin.

Here's the opening sentence:

The FBI assesses it is very likely Black Identity Extremist (BIE) perceptions of police brutality against African Americans spurred an increase in premeditated, retaliatory lethal violence against law enforcement and will very likely serve as justification for such violence.

And here's what the term "very likely" means when the FBI uses it:

Beyond that, the FBI says this:

The FBI has high confidence in these assessments…

And here's how the FBI defines "high confidence."

High confidence generally indicates the FBI’s judgments are based on high quality information from multiple sources. High confidence in a judgment does not imply the assessment is a fact or a certainty; such judgments might be wrong. While additional reporting and information sources may change analytical judgments, such changes are most likely to be refinements and not substantial in nature.

What's in this open-and-shut report? What key elements lead the FBI to believe "BIEs" will be killing cops in the future? Well, it appears to be nothing more than a recounting of recent cop killings, coupled with anecdotal evidence, like the expression of anti-white sentiment in social media posts. Beyond that, there's little connecting those who have killed cops with the ethereal FBI BIE ideal. There's certainly no organization behind the killings -- only a few common factors. And those factors -- if the FBI is allowed to continue to treat "BIE" as a threat to police officers -- will do little to discourage violence against police officers.

What it will do is allow law enforcement to engage in racial profiling and to overreact to social media rants by angry black men. And it will allow the FBI to turn into the same FBI that targeted Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights activists during the 1960s. In fact, it almost acknowledges as much in the report.

BIEs have historically justified and perpetrated violence against law enforcement, which they perceived as representative of the institutionalized oppression of African Americans, but had not targeted law enforcement with premeditated violence for the nearly two decades leading up to the lethal incidents observed beginning in 2014. BIE violence peaked in the 1960s and 1970s in response to changing socioeconomic attitudes and treatment of blacks during the Civil Rights Movement.

The composers of this report may have a lot of confidence in their assumptions, but no one else seems to.

Daryl Johnson, a former Department of Homeland Security intelligence agent, when asked by Foreign Policy in October why the F.B.I. would create the term “B.I.E.,” said, “I have no idea” and “I’m at a loss.” Michael German, a former F.B.I. agent and fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice’s liberty and national security program, said the “Black Identity Extremists” label simply represents an F.B.I. effort to define a movement where none exists. “Basically, it’s black people who scare them,” he said.

“Could you name an African-American organization that has committed violence against police officers?” Representative Karen Bass asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions at Tuesday’s hearing. “Can you name one today that has targeted police officers in a violent manner?” It’s no surprise that he could not. Mr. Sessions, who confessed that he had not read the report, said he would need to “confirm” and would reply in writing at a later time. The F.B.I. itself admits in the report, that, even by its own definition, “B.I.E. violence has been rare over the past 20 years.”

If the report is acted on, it will be the 1960s all over again.

Although it’s unclear what actions the F.B.I. will take as a result of the report, the conclusions pave the way for it to gather data on, monitor and deploy informants to keep tabs on individuals and groups it believes to be B.I.E.s. This could chill and criminalize a wide array of nonviolent activism in ways that have terrifying echoes its infamous Cointelpro program, which investigated and intimidated black civil rights groups and leaders, including Marcus Garvey and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Under this program, F.B.I. agents concocted a false internal narrative connecting Dr. King to foreign enemies, allowing agents to justify threatening to publicize his private life and encouraging him to commit suicide. This is a reminder that while the “Black Identity Extremist” designation is new, the strategy of using a vague definition to justify broad law enforcement action is not.

This is what the report looks like from the outside. It's unclear if those inside the agency feel the same way. The leaked report confirms many people's suspicions about law enforcement agencies: they view minorities as threats and will concoct narratives to support these views. There's no evidence any sort of BIE organization exists, much less the existence of a concerted effort to inflict violence on police officers. But this report is a gift to every police officer and FBI agent who really wants to believe African Americans are out to get them. Given the administration's unqualified support for law enforcement, coupled with the Commander in Chief's off-the-cuff encouragement of violence, this report is basically an invitation to start policing like it's 1960, rather than 2017.

Filed Under: black lives matter, blm, doj, extremism, fbi