Over the last ten years, the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., has used automated, online surveillance tools to monitor individuals’ social media activity during protected activities, such as protests, and even employed fake social media accounts, according to a report released Tuesday.

The report, which was a collaboration between the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law and the Data for Black Lives collective, shared the results of a 2020 Freedom of Information Act request that yielded more than 700,000 pages of internal documents from the Washington police department. The documents showed how MPD police used the online surveillance tools between 2014 and 2021, monitored social media activity, amassed user data and surveilled protest activity though online posts.

City documents acquired through the records request revealed that MPD employed a company called Dataminr, which is an official partner of the social media website X. Dataminr claims to use artificial intelligence to provide its clients real-time alerts about “high-impact events” by monitoring social media posts. According to the Brennan Center report, Dataminr provided MPD with 40 user licenses through a no-cost pilot project in January and February 2017. During that time, the documents showed, MPD used Dataminr software to search for terms such as “riots” and collected social media data surrounding events including Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration and the Women’s March.

Following the pilot, the documents show, MPD purchased seven annual Dataminr licenses at a cost of almost $48,000 using Homeland Security Grant Program funding. And in 2020, the police department renewed its partnership with Dataminr, this time purchasing 50 licenses. The District’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, which handled procurement of the licenses, paid about $200,000 for the 50 licenses and provided 45 of them to the District’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency.

In an email dated May 29, 2020, OCTO’s then-chief data officer, Barney Krucoff, wrote that access to Dataminr “would be very handy” in the event that large-scale protests — like those in Minneapolis after George Floyd’s murder — were to occur in Washington, D.C.

Another vendor used by District police, called Voyager, claims it can run keyword searches on social media platforms and identify activists or “disrupters,” and then tap into their networks to glean information about their personal relationships and interests. The tool uses fake accounts to gain access to information that it uses to construct reports of users’ social media activity. That activity includes information about user posts and locations.

Ivey Dyson, counsel with the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program, told StateScoop that the project was inspired by work from the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, which in 2016 discovered through FOIA requests that state law enforcement agencies were monitoring social media activity. Dyson said the Brennan Center and Data for Black Lives submitted their own FOIA requests to several police departments for similar information, including in Baltimore, Boston, Los Angeles and New York City.

“Something that’s concerning about that is the fact that online relationships might not translate to in person relationships,” Dyson told StateScoop about Voyager’s technology. “And so while these might be accurate about online activity, it’s not really — if Voyager can do what it says it can do — online activity does not necessarily reflect real-life relationships. And so how useful that information is to law enforcement is questionable.”

Initially, MPD produced only a handful of documents, and in response, the Brennan Center and Data for Black Lives, represented pro bono by Ballard Spahr LLP, in March 2022 sued the city for the remainder of the documents, which included procurement records and emails exchanged among the department, the city’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer and several private software vendors that collect and analyze social media activity.

Dyson said the social media vendors used by the District police department, which purport to collect massive amounts of data, often do so against the social media platforms’ terms and conditions agreements. Last year, Meta — the parent company of Facebook and Instagram — sued Voyager for scraping user data with dummy accounts.

“These tools specifically are unable to understand context, and so what might be an innocent post could then get taken by law enforcement and interpreted into something that is seen as threatening. And this can result in real-life, human-police interactions,” Dyson said. “As we know, those interactions — specifically for communities of color — can be quite harmful, even deadly.”

Dyson said that to avoid chilling free speech and First Amendment-protected activities such as protesting, it’s important for law enforcement agencies to be transparent about their technology policies. That advisement is a key part of the Brennan Center’s social media use policies for law enforcement, a rubric of best practices that also takes into account the risks of automated social media monitoring software.

“I think what’s unique about Washington, D.C., is that it’s a place that hosts hundreds of protests every year,” Dyson said. “It’s a place where important decisions are being made that affect people nationwide. And so there should be strong protections in Washington, D.C., to prevent unwanted scrutiny of protected speech online.”

Neither the Metropolitan Police Department nor the Office of the Chief Technology Officer responded to requests for comment.

Editor’s note: Scoop News Group has previously consulted with Ballard Spahr’s Media and Entertainment Law practice.

CJ ABRAMS’ WORLD:

Going into last night’s series opener in Arlington, TX, CJ Abrams had reached base safely in 15 straight games, with a .317/.414/.700 line, five doubles, three triples, four home runs, and eight walks in 70 plate appearances over course of the on-base streak, and hits in 14 of the 15 (reaching via HBP on an 0 for 3 night in his only hitless game in that stretch).

Abrams homered (7) and walked twice in the series finale in Miami on Monday night, and his manager, Davey Martinez, talked about how important those walks were to the shortstop for his continued development.

“We talk all the time about him walking, and I said, ‘You’re going to have to do that. Get on for the next guy.’ When you walk, it’s a double, a triple,’” Martinez told the Nats’ 23-year-old infielder, repeating his persistent message for Abrams.

“He’s doing outstanding, he really is. And I’ve said this before, he’s matured so much just in his overall game.”

It’s not just his skipper and Nationals fans who’ve noticed Abrams taking things to another level this season…

Abrams did swipe a bag in the finale with the Marlins too, his 6th in 8 attempts this season.

Last night in Texas, Abrams reached base via infield single in his first at-bat, extending that on-base streak to 16-straight games, stole his 7th base, and scored when Luis García, Jr. hit a two-out single to left to drive in the first run of the game, 1-0.

Talking Abrams with Audacy’s The Sports Junkies on 106.7 the FAN in D.C. last Wednesday, GM and President of Baseball ops Mike Rizzo pinpointed last June as the turning point for Abrams, the 2019 1st Round pick by the Padres acquired in the deal which sent Juan Soto and Josh Bell to San Diego in 2022.

“I remember we sat down with CJ,” Rizzo recalled, “… and had a nice meeting with him and said, ‘Hey this is what is expected of you and this is how you need to conduct yourself’ and several players took him under [their] wing and showed him how to prepare, get a routine as a major league player.”

“And I know [Third Base and Infield coach] Ricky Gutierrez has been very instrumental in his defensive work,” the GM added, “and [Hitting Coach] Darnell [Coles] has worked with him in a lot in the batting cages.”

“His chase rate is down … the pitches he’s swinging at are better pitches, he knows what he can handle,” Rizzo explained. “And the pitches that he had trouble with when he first came up to the big leagues, and when he played in San Diego, he’s worked really, really hard to compensate for that and to overcome that.

“You start with a really talented you player, you get a work ethic that is extremely good, you got an attitude of a kid that’s got some swagger to him, that wants to be great, doesn’t want to settle to be good, and I think you’re kind of seeing this guy scratch the surface of what he can possibly be as a player.”

GORE IN TEXAS:

Evan Grant, who’s covered the Rangers for the Dallas Morning News since 1997, previewed last night’s game with an ominous tweet for the home team in Globe Life Field:

While the Rangers haven’t hit left-hander’s fastballs well, Gore started the series with a .278 BAA on his fastball overall this season, after opposing hitters hit .279 on the pitch in 2023.

Gore held Rangers off the board through three, but gave up three straight hits in the fourth, with Nathaniel Lowe, Adolis García, and Jonah Helm connecting for their second, third, and fourth hits off the southpaw as a team and tying things up at 1-1.

The Nationals’ starter was up to 74 pitches overall after he struck out two and fielded a weak grounder for three straight outs after the hits, having thrown 31 pitches in the fourth, with 17 swinging (five on his heater, six on his curve, five on his change, and one on his slider), and a total of six called strikes on the night.

Marcus Semien tripled on a 1-0 fastball from Gore with one out in the fifth, and he scored to put the Rangers ahead on a dribbler in front of the plate off of Corey Seager’s bat which the Nats’ starter fielded and angrily threw to first as the go-ahead run scored, 2-1.

Gore issued his first walk of the game with two out, on his 88th pitch, and hit the next batter on pitch No. 89, but got out No. 3 and stranded both baserunners with his 91st pitch.

MacKenzie Gore’s Line: 5.0 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 7 Ks, 91 P, 59 S, 5/3 GO/FO.

Gore finished the night with 18 swinging strikes, adding one on his curve in the fifth, and he leaned on his curveball overall, throwing it 25% of the time (up from a season average 18%), with 45% fastballs, 15% changeups, and %15 sliders. [ed. note – “Checks math, twice.”]

Jordan Weems and Jacob Barnes gave up a run each in the sixth and seventh, respectively, as the Rangers added to their lead with three off of Tanner Rainey in the eighth, and took the opening game of the three-game series, 7-1, snapping the Nationals’ four-game winning streak.

Outside of Abrams’ early run, the Nationals didn’t do much against Jon Gray (1 ER on 3 H in 8.0 IP), and they dropped the first of three in Texas.

“We’ve been playing well,” Martinez said after the loss. “We hit the ball really well before we came in here, so let’s come back tomorrow and try to go 1-0 tomorrow.

“The bats weren’t good today, but I’m not going to lose sleep over it, it’s one game.”

In assessing Gore’s outing, the manager said his starter put together a solid turn in the rotation.

“Look, he gave up two runs, right? He threw the ball really well. His pitch count was up. We knew coming into today that we were going to keep him around 90 pitches. Last outing he had 102, but I thought he threw the ball really well.”

BONUS QUOTE:

With the loss, the Nationals wrapped up the first month-plus of the 2024 campaign at 14-15, in 4th place in the NL East as of the end of the game last night.

Davey Martinez offered his take on the first month of the season when he spoke to reporters in Arlington:

“You look back and there’s some games we could have won, we could have been above .500, right? But overall, we’re playing good baseball, we’re playing hard, our pitchers have done well, other than today our bullpen has been pretty good, so we got to keep going. It’s April, it’s nice to win games in April. Now we’re going into May. I break the season down and I always tell myself, ‘We can win 15 games a month, that’s pretty good.’ So let’s win 16 next month.”

Dear Miss Manners: There are so many requests to give donations at the checkout line these days — sometimes multiple times in a day! I do give to worthy causes, but I have been asked at every visit to a particular grocery store, where I shop almost daily, for a contribution.