The Department of Homeland Security ’s Office of Intelligence & Analysis has been authorized to conduct social medium surveillance of protestors in guild to protect statues and repository , according to an unclassifiedthree - page document obtained by Lawfareand theWashington Post . The undated document appears to offer legal steering to analysts at I&A about how best to implement the “ elaborate intelligence activities ” necessary to fulfill the president’sexecutive ordertargeting protesters who threatened to remove antiblack statue , regardless of whether they are on federal attribute .
The move to treat comparatively venial prop crime as explicit fatherland protection threats that justify societal mass medium surveillance is alarming , but not altogether surprising given the unprecedented and unneeded force deployed against demonstrators in Portland , Oregon . Over the last workweek , reports out of Portland have described mask Union police officer disappearing dissident and brutalizing Portland ’s residents simply attempting to exert their First Amendment right field to demonstrate against taxonomical racial discrimination and police violence against fateful communities . “ What is happening in Portland right now , ” Robert Evans of Bellingcat told the New York Timesin an interviewlate last week , “ … it ’s as nigh up to the line as you may get to actual warfare without live rounds . It ’s really hard for me to see how thing go much further without the great unwashed dying . ”
According to Lawfare , which first report the I&A counsel , these so - called “ intelligence activities ” appear to include the monitoring of societal medium posts as well as the use of other public info to keep track of individuals and groups that the department claims may “ damage or destruct any public monument , memorial , or statue . ”
Photo: Tasos Katopodis (Getty Images)
While the DHS memoranda states that intelligence ingathering can only occur with “ fair suspicion ” and not for the “ lonesome purpose of monitor activities protected by the First Amendment , ” it is unclear what types of activity an psychoanalyst might define as reasonably suspicious . For example , if someone mail a television to Facebook of a foreign atomiser paint “ fuck 12 ” on a federal construction , are they now guilty by association — implicate their entire electronic connection in this single act of vandalism ?
Though the papers submit that information collected about U.S. citizens by the DHS may only be retained up to 180 day , data point can obviously be partake with other law enforcement agencies , both public and private .
The lack of oversight and transparency over the DHS is touch on to many expert . In May , the Center for New American Studiesput out a report card debate that DHS call for immediate congressional attention , claim that the “ mental home has not matured sufficiently to ensure decent oversight and accountability . ”
DHS is very distinctly a rogue arm of Union law enforcement . Chad Wolf , the acting Secretary of Homeland Security , a human being who went to college on atennis scholarship , boasted to Fox News that he did n’t need anyone’spermissionto overrun an American city . He is now in heraldic bearing of the country ’s turgid police force enforcement bureau without ever being confirm by the Senate and plans to serveagents to metropolis near you .
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