Following The Murder Of George Floyd, The Minneapolis PD Built A Large-Scale Surveillance Program

Privacy

from the surveillance-today,-surveillance-tomorrow,-surveillance-forever dept

There’s no business like cop business. When business is bad — like it can be following a high-profile murder by one of your officers — cops double down. They complain there’s too much scrutiny. They attack and punish people for engaging in First Amendment-protected activities. They engage in the very violence being protested against.

And while it’s somewhat amusing to watch The Man complaining the oppressed are actually the oppressors, the reality isn’t nearly as comical. Using outlier activity as justification for increased surveillance, the Minneapolis PD decided the trial of George Floyd’s murderer — Officer Derek Chauvin — was the only excuse it needed to place plenty of people suspected of no criminal activity under surveillance.

Thousands of documents obtained by MIT Technology Review have exposed the secret program whipped up by Minnesota law enforcement agencies following a murder committed by one of their own.

Law enforcement agencies in Minnesota have been carrying out a secretive, long-running surveillance program targeting civil rights activists and journalists in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. Run under a consortium known as Operation Safety Net, the program was set up a year ago, ostensibly to maintain public order as Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin went on trial for Floyd’s murder. But an investigation by MIT Technology Review reveals that the initiative expanded far beyond its publicly announced scope to include expansive use of tools to scour social media, track cell phones, and amass detailed images of people’s faces.

Documents obtained via public records requests show that the operation persisted long after Chauvin’s trial concluded. What’s more, they show that police used the extensive investigative powers they’d been afforded under the operation to monitor individuals who weren’t suspected of any crime.

A month before Chauvin’s murder trial, a conglomerate of Minnesota law enforcement agencies decided it was time to get a surveillance boost. As is the style of those charged with naming new government overreach projects, the new program was given an extremely innocuous name: Operation Safety Net.

But the trial of Chauvin seemed to indicate the people needed more protection from the supposed protectors. State law enforcement say it the other way: it was time for cops to be protected from the people. According to law enforcement officials, the program ran from February 2021 and (allegedly) ended January 2022. Now that there are more officers on trial for their actions during that murder, it would seem this project is due for a resurrection.

But there’s no need for a resurrection, as MIT Technology Review points out. The operation’s public website may have gone dormant and an official announcement of OSN’s alleged defunctness delivered by law enforcement officials, but the program is alive and well.

However, according to emails obtained and reviewed as part of our investigation, the operation does appear to be actively ongoing, with regular planning meetings of the executive and intelligence teams—where it has been referred to as “OSN 2.0”—and sharing of intelligence documents. No information about the goals or extent of the new engagement has been publicly disclosed and officials contacted about the program denied it had been formally renewed.

Despite OSN’s stated promise to “preserve and protect lawful First Amendment nonviolent protests and demonstrations,” state law enforcement went the other way. The Minneapolis Police secured the use of CBP (Customs and Border Protection) helicopters to engage in high-altitude surveillance. OSN participants (which included the Minnesota State Patrol) compiled a watchlist of people engaging in protected First Amendment activity, including journalists covering the protests.

This watchlist was shared. Rapidly. A real-time, data-sharing tool (the article refers to it as “Slack for SWAT”) called Intrepid Response ensured officers involved in this so-called “safety” program had a wealth of information about journalists and peaceful protesters officers might encounter while policing protests.

This wasn’t some ad hoc operation limited to officers from precincts near protests. It was a massive effort that involved at least one military agency.

In total, OSN would require officers from nine agencies in Minnesota, 120 out-of-state supporting officers, and at least 3,000 National Guard soldiers. The surveillance tools were managed by several different intelligence groups that collaborated throughout the operation. 

Helicopters, drones, a fast moving data-sharing network, the National Guard, and, of course, the Department of Homeland Security. The intel teams utilized a DHS information network to disseminate data, which would seemingly include the “watchlist” targeting journalists and peaceful protesters. The originally Minneapolis-centric “safety net” also managed to ensnare the assistance of six FBI agents, four of which were on the OSN’s “executive operation team.”

On top of all of this, some Minnesota law enforcement officers have been given seemingly permanent pay bumps and powers. This reaction to presumed reactions to cop trials/convictions have resulted in a handful of lateral promotions that are going to look pretty impressive on some officers’ resumes.

Entirely new titles and positions were created within the Minneapolis Police Department and the aviation section of the Minnesota State Patrol that leverage new surveillance technologies and methods…

This report suggests there are more unsavory details are on the way, but this is already pretty damn concerning. This was — and apparently still is — a surveillance program specifically created to monitor the public’s reactions to severe police misconduct. This isn’t the sort of thing that repairs the damage done by years of law enforcement agencies refusing to root out bad officers or treat officer misconduct seriously. This only serves two purposes: deepens the mistrust the public has for law enforcement and reminds the policed one side still has a firm grip on most of the power.

Filed Under: activists, derek chauvin, journalists, law enforcement, minneapolis, minnesota, operation safety net, safety net, surveillance