from insignia-sportsmen-fishermen-amateurs department
Documents obtained through public records requests by the Brennan Center reveal that the Los Angeles Police Department has incorporated social media into its daily operations. The LAPD fully embraces the 21st century. That doesn’t mean its public relations department is tapping into multiple platforms to address citizen concerns and engage in greater transparency.
No, it just means that LAPD officers can be just as harassing as disgruntled exes or future employers.
The Los Angeles Police Department allows officers to engage in extensive social media monitoring without internal oversight of the nature or effectiveness of searches, according to results of a public records request filed by the Brennan Center. (h/t Michael Vario)
And starting this year, the department is adding a new social media monitoring tool: Media Sonar, which can create detailed profiles on individuals and identify connections between them. This acquisition increases opportunities for abuse by expanding officers’ ability to conduct extensive social media monitoring.
The LAPD has been doing this for years, though its “2015 Social Media User’s Guide” [PDF] is an indication. By then, the LAPD was already doing a lot of social media monitoring. The guide mentions things like surveillance, seeking approval for certain forms of surveillance, and the possibility of First and Fourth Amendment violations.
However, he also mentions the use of fictional characters to engage in undercover investigations and the use of fictional characters to engage in fishing expeditions.
The use of a fictional online character to engage in investigative activity. Fictitious Online Personas created for the purpose of identifying and examining trends and tactics, developing profiles, or conducting research do not constitute online undercover activity.
The LAPD doesn’t mind. There are no rules for this. Long-term surveillance of people suspected of not using anything from fictitious accounts that could give officers access to non-public messages and posts is something the LAPD performs in a vacuum of accountability, constitutional concerns be damned.
This document indicates that no authorization is required and that no supervision governs these activities. Other documents obtained by the Brennan Center confirm the LAPD’s hands-off approach to long-term social media surveillance – some involving officers engaged in subterfuge indistinguishable from “undercover online activity” more closely. governed by rules applying to ongoing investigations.
Although it has given its officers broad social media surveillance powers, the LAPD has done little to ensure that these powers are not abused. According to a letter responding to our request for records, it “doesn’t track what (if any) [its] employees monitor[]on social media sites and “has not conducted any audits regarding the use of social media”.
Great. So we don’t know how much surveillance unrelated to criminal investigations is happening under the inattentive and presumably closed eye of the LAPD. We also don’t know how many times officers broke the few rules that govern their online interactions and passive surveillance. We also don’t know if this ongoing surveillance has had any impact on law enforcement activities, such as providing new leads or evidence in other criminal cases. And even if that’s the case, the unanswered question remains: Why does the LAPD keep tabs on people it doesn’t have a reasonable suspicion of engaging in criminal activity?
Equally disturbing are the paperwork the battered cops fill out during “field interviews,” which encompass everything from conversations to witnesses/crime victims to townspeople the LAPD interacts with while on patrol. Not only are these cards used to keep the LAPD’s extremely dubious gang database filled with suspected gang members, they encourage officers to request information they have no legal reason to require – such as numbers. social security or, as is the case here, media account(s).”
All of this information is fed into LAPD databases and social media monitoring tools, like Media Sonar. It’s all called “intelligence,” even if it’s just bait for social media fishing expeditions by cops with time and technology to waste on efforts that do little to help reduce crime or assist in ongoing investigations. And that seems to be something unique to LA: The Brennan Center says its review of “field service” maps (which cover 40 U.S. cities at this point) has yet to uncover any other agency responsible for l. law enforcement seeking to collect information from people’s social media accounts. .
This does not mean that no other police service is trying to collect this information. It just means that the LAPD thinks it’s an acceptable thing to ask people in field interviews and relies on social media monitoring software to do its investigative work for it. . The LAPD seems to be doing this simply because no one – not department officials, not internal control, not external control, not judges at any level of the justice system – told the PD they couldn’t.
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Filed Under: 4th amendment, lapd, social media, survival
