5 ms·

This is surprising. Why are the police monitoring constitutionally protected activity?

shadowgovt 2y ago
For the same reason they use ancestry databases to narrow the field of potential serial killers to a few that can be investigated through legally-admissible means. There is a vast gap between what the cops can do in general and what holds up in court, but to a first approximation: the things they aren't allowed to do because it would taint the case are in general explicitly spelled out, and if it isn't spelled out it's legal to use as a stepping stone to conventional, more-understood-protections police tactics. Thus arresting someone for a general Twitter post is probably off-limits (the incitement-to-riot or sedition laws are narrowly tailored), but taking someone online who says "Hey let's all get together and do a riot" seriously, and allocating police resources to prepare for it as if they're telling the truth about their intentions, is almost certainly legal. (This is the battleground that the ACLU fights on in this day and age).
Mountain_Skies 2y ago
[flagged]
- skrtskrt 2y ago
  True, when the Zionist gangs showed up at UCLA and started shooting Roman candles, and choking out and beating protestors it did get violent really quick. Luckily the police showed up to protect the Zionists so they could keep committing violence.
- giraffe_lady 2y ago
  How many gaza protests have there been in the US alone in the past two years and how many of them had any violence at all? I wouldn't call it a "high probability."
  - mschuster91 2y ago
    MANY Gaza protests in Germany escalated into violence, especially against the press - the local RSF section posted about this a few months ago [1], and in numbers more journalists are attacked at Palestine rallies than at far-right rallies [2], and that one is a legitimate challenge to achieve given how many attacks against journalists came from that wing. No matter one's stance on I/P, the pro Gaza crowd is absurdly militant. [1] https://www.reporter-ohne-grenzen.de/pressemitteilungen/meldung/pressefreiheit-rund-um-nahost-reporte-unter-druck https://www.reporter-ohne-grenzen.de/pressemitteilungen/meld... [2] https://taz.de/Angriffe-auf-Journalisten/!6072709/ https://taz.de/Angriffe-auf-Journalisten/!6072709/
    - giraffe_lady 2y ago
      I specifically constrained it to the US because I'm aware that the dynamics and tactics of these movements are highly regional and I simply don't know what it's like elsewhere. Sometimes I get annoyed how US-centric the conversations can be on here but given the subject is american police using a US-made surveillance tool against protestors in the united states I think it makes some amount of sense this time. Thanks for the info about another area though, it is interesting to me.
      - mschuster91 2y ago
        For what it's worth, German pigs are just as bad when it comes to surveillance of (at least) Twitter during protests. I myself earned a nasty letter after a live-reporting from a Nazi rally a few years ago.
        giraffe_lady 2y ago
        Yeah I know I've lived in three countries and the details vary but the police suck shit in every one. I assume it's universal.
  - bluescrn 2y ago
    [flagged]
- mmooss 2y ago
  > Protests over issues like Gaza have a high probability of turning violent What is the probability? I'm not saying it never happens, but a 'high probability'? Let's see some data! Maybe there's a bias based on what you see in the news - they naturally cover the violent ones (and then depict them as the entire protest instead of something that happened off to the side that most people didn't even know occurred).
  - zdragnar 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - mmooss 2y ago
      > pretty much anything that might attract the attention of antifa will also attract violent elements like the black bloc types or opposition What does that have to do with Gaza-related protests? If you are saying it applies to them, you haven't established that there is a significant level of violence.
tptacek 2y ago
When the police watch you walk down the street they are also monitoring constitutionally protected activity.
- text0404 2y ago
  a police officer observing you briefly with their eyes is quite different than an entire police department outsourcing surveillance of protected activities to a third party which monitors your online activity over time.
  - tptacek 2y ago
    How? What expectation of privacy do you have walking down the street, or in your public social media posts?
    - Tostino 2y ago
      The expectation is there is a limitation on resources that can be deployed for law enforcement officers viewing things with their eyes. It's virtually unlimited with technology.
    - text0404 2y ago
      mostly scale: accumulation of data over time and use of that data (a single brief observation of an anonymous person vs identification and observation of a person over time, with real-time activities reported to law enforcement). same way that it's unacceptable/illegal for a police officer - without probable cause or a warrant - to follow you down the street to your home, then wait outside your home and follow you 24/7, recording all your activities which exist in the public sphere, then putting you on a departmental watchlist where your protected activities are broadcast to all officers in real-time. you may be ok with that ("i don't have anything to hide", "i trust the police/government", "the free market will prevent abuses [by companies like Dataminr]" are some rebuttals i've heard recently), but it undermines our constitutional rights, setting a dangerous precedent and chilling free speech/association (per the ACLU). additionally, how else is this collected information being used by the police and Dataminr? what are their retention policies? what other kinds of analysis are being done (fta, there seems to be a not-insignificant number of false positives)?
CodeWriter23 2y ago
Acts in public are not protected. This, however is: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
- stvltvs 2y ago
  Posting on a publicly accesible website is the legal equivalent of standing on the street corner having a conversation. A police officer doesn't need to search anything because it's out in the open.
  - sixothree 2y ago
    Yes. But you cannot follow a person around indefinitely.
    - CodeWriter23 2y ago
      That's the thing about exigency, it is temporary.
      - sixothree 2y ago
        Then the metaphor is broken. So find a new metaphor.
        CodeWriter23 2y ago
        Nah, that’s a malfunction of your reading comprehension.
    - ImJamal 2y ago
      Maybe as an individual you cannot, but I don't see why a group of people (cops) couldn't.
  - 2y ago
lenerdenator 2y ago
They do it more than you'd think. There're a ton of pictures of La Cosa Nostra members walking around in Brooklyn taken by FBI agents. They even made sure to get the good side of Casso and Gotti. Walking around and talking to each other? Constitutionally protected.
- mmooss 2y ago
  Very possibly those people were named subjects of active investigations for crimes; the protestors are not named (it's a dragnet), not subjects of investigations, and are suspected of no crimes.
  - lenerdenator 2y ago
    > the protestors are not named (it's a dragnet), not subjects of investigations, and are suspected of no crimes. That could very well be true, though there's also the possibility that there are people there who are subjects of investigations. The article doesn't really say; it just mentions that it's a possible threat to civil liberties. And to be fair, it very well can be, particularly in the hands of the current administration.
imperfect_light 2y ago
Police in my city go to pretty much every protest and take video and photos (with big zoom lens) from the roofs of nearby buildings. It's always surprising to me that more people don't notice.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- bjoli 2y ago
  I am pretty sure this would be a crime in my home country. There are court cases cementing that anything except superficial photography/filming by law enforcement lacks any kind of support in law. There are even laws restricting use of photography in situations when exercising any coercive measures ("tvångsåtgärd").
  - chneu 2y ago
    The USA is pretty behind in personal rights. Americans love to shout about freedom but don't realize how many rights we don't have that other countries do. Especially after 9-11 when we signed away a ton of rights.
    - lenerdenator 2y ago
      I'd say we're not too far away from par for the course, Western nations-wise, when it comes to civil liberties. At least for now. There are still things that you can do in the US (particularly related to speech) that are very different in Europe, for better or worse. Actually here of late it's been worse more than it's been better, but alas. It's the whole "freedom to fail only applying to the layperson" thing that we're behind on. EDIT: Western nations/Common Law countries, I should specify.
throwawayffffas 2y ago
Because it involves gatherings of large crowds in public spaces. It is their job to make sure that such gatherings result in no harm of either the protesters nor the local community.

For the same reason they use ancestry databases to narrow the field of potential serial killers to a few that can be investigated through legally-admissible means. There is a vast gap between what the cops can do in general and what holds up in court, but to a first approximation: the things they aren't allowed to do because it would taint the case are in general explicitly spelled out, and if it isn't spelled out it's legal to use as a stepping stone to conventional, more-understood-protections police tactics. Thus arresting someone for a general Twitter post is probably off-limits (the incitement-to-riot or sedition laws are narrowly tailored), but taking someone online who says "Hey let's all get together and do a riot" seriously, and allocating police resources to prepare for it as if they're telling the truth about their intentions, is almost certainly legal. (This is the battleground that the ACLU fights on in this day and age).

Mountain_Skies 2y ago

[flagged]

skrtskrt 2y ago
True, when the Zionist gangs showed up at UCLA and started shooting Roman candles, and choking out and beating protestors it did get violent really quick. Luckily the police showed up to protect the Zionists so they could keep committing violence.
giraffe_lady 2y ago
How many gaza protests have there been in the US alone in the past two years and how many of them had any violence at all? I wouldn't call it a "high probability."
- mschuster91 2y ago
  MANY Gaza protests in Germany escalated into violence, especially against the press - the local RSF section posted about this a few months ago [1], and in numbers more journalists are attacked at Palestine rallies than at far-right rallies [2], and that one is a legitimate challenge to achieve given how many attacks against journalists came from that wing. No matter one's stance on I/P, the pro Gaza crowd is absurdly militant. [1] https://www.reporter-ohne-grenzen.de/pressemitteilungen/meldung/pressefreiheit-rund-um-nahost-reporte-unter-druck https://www.reporter-ohne-grenzen.de/pressemitteilungen/meld... [2] https://taz.de/Angriffe-auf-Journalisten/!6072709/ https://taz.de/Angriffe-auf-Journalisten/!6072709/
  - giraffe_lady 2y ago
    I specifically constrained it to the US because I'm aware that the dynamics and tactics of these movements are highly regional and I simply don't know what it's like elsewhere. Sometimes I get annoyed how US-centric the conversations can be on here but given the subject is american police using a US-made surveillance tool against protestors in the united states I think it makes some amount of sense this time. Thanks for the info about another area though, it is interesting to me.
    - mschuster91 2y ago
      For what it's worth, German pigs are just as bad when it comes to surveillance of (at least) Twitter during protests. I myself earned a nasty letter after a live-reporting from a Nazi rally a few years ago.
      - giraffe_lady 2y ago
        Yeah I know I've lived in three countries and the details vary but the police suck shit in every one. I assume it's universal.
- bluescrn 2y ago
  [flagged]
mmooss 2y ago
> Protests over issues like Gaza have a high probability of turning violent What is the probability? I'm not saying it never happens, but a 'high probability'? Let's see some data! Maybe there's a bias based on what you see in the news - they naturally cover the violent ones (and then depict them as the entire protest instead of something that happened off to the side that most people didn't even know occurred).
- zdragnar 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - mmooss 2y ago
    > pretty much anything that might attract the attention of antifa will also attract violent elements like the black bloc types or opposition What does that have to do with Gaza-related protests? If you are saying it applies to them, you haven't established that there is a significant level of violence.

tptacek 2y ago

When the police watch you walk down the street they are also monitoring constitutionally protected activity.

text0404 2y ago
a police officer observing you briefly with their eyes is quite different than an entire police department outsourcing surveillance of protected activities to a third party which monitors your online activity over time.
- tptacek 2y ago
  How? What expectation of privacy do you have walking down the street, or in your public social media posts?
  - Tostino 2y ago
    The expectation is there is a limitation on resources that can be deployed for law enforcement officers viewing things with their eyes. It's virtually unlimited with technology.
  - text0404 2y ago
    mostly scale: accumulation of data over time and use of that data (a single brief observation of an anonymous person vs identification and observation of a person over time, with real-time activities reported to law enforcement). same way that it's unacceptable/illegal for a police officer - without probable cause or a warrant - to follow you down the street to your home, then wait outside your home and follow you 24/7, recording all your activities which exist in the public sphere, then putting you on a departmental watchlist where your protected activities are broadcast to all officers in real-time. you may be ok with that ("i don't have anything to hide", "i trust the police/government", "the free market will prevent abuses [by companies like Dataminr]" are some rebuttals i've heard recently), but it undermines our constitutional rights, setting a dangerous precedent and chilling free speech/association (per the ACLU). additionally, how else is this collected information being used by the police and Dataminr? what are their retention policies? what other kinds of analysis are being done (fta, there seems to be a not-insignificant number of false positives)?

CodeWriter23 2y ago

Acts in public are not protected. This, however is: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

stvltvs 2y ago
Posting on a publicly accesible website is the legal equivalent of standing on the street corner having a conversation. A police officer doesn't need to search anything because it's out in the open.
- sixothree 2y ago
  Yes. But you cannot follow a person around indefinitely.
  - CodeWriter23 2y ago
    That's the thing about exigency, it is temporary.
    - sixothree 2y ago
      Then the metaphor is broken. So find a new metaphor.
      - CodeWriter23 2y ago
        Nah, that’s a malfunction of your reading comprehension.
  - ImJamal 2y ago
    Maybe as an individual you cannot, but I don't see why a group of people (cops) couldn't.
- 2y ago

lenerdenator 2y ago

They do it more than you'd think. There're a ton of pictures of La Cosa Nostra members walking around in Brooklyn taken by FBI agents. They even made sure to get the good side of Casso and Gotti. Walking around and talking to each other? Constitutionally protected.

mmooss 2y ago
Very possibly those people were named subjects of active investigations for crimes; the protestors are not named (it's a dragnet), not subjects of investigations, and are suspected of no crimes.
- lenerdenator 2y ago
  > the protestors are not named (it's a dragnet), not subjects of investigations, and are suspected of no crimes. That could very well be true, though there's also the possibility that there are people there who are subjects of investigations. The article doesn't really say; it just mentions that it's a possible threat to civil liberties. And to be fair, it very well can be, particularly in the hands of the current administration.

imperfect_light 2y ago

Police in my city go to pretty much every protest and take video and photos (with big zoom lens) from the roofs of nearby buildings. It's always surprising to me that more people don't notice.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bjoli 2y ago
I am pretty sure this would be a crime in my home country. There are court cases cementing that anything except superficial photography/filming by law enforcement lacks any kind of support in law. There are even laws restricting use of photography in situations when exercising any coercive measures ("tvångsåtgärd").
- chneu 2y ago
  The USA is pretty behind in personal rights. Americans love to shout about freedom but don't realize how many rights we don't have that other countries do. Especially after 9-11 when we signed away a ton of rights.
  - lenerdenator 2y ago
    I'd say we're not too far away from par for the course, Western nations-wise, when it comes to civil liberties. At least for now. There are still things that you can do in the US (particularly related to speech) that are very different in Europe, for better or worse. Actually here of late it's been worse more than it's been better, but alas. It's the whole "freedom to fail only applying to the layperson" thing that we're behind on. EDIT: Western nations/Common Law countries, I should specify.

throwawayffffas 2y ago

Because it involves gatherings of large crowds in public spaces. It is their job to make sure that such gatherings result in no harm of either the protesters nor the local community.