The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) has directed its officers to collect the social media information of every person they stop and interview, which could be used to surveil targetted groups en masse according to a new report.
According to a report from the Brennan Center for Justice, LAPD officers have been instructed to collect this information from civilians regardless if that person has been arrested or even accused of a crime.
The practice, which the Brennan Center found was not being reproduced by any other police department in the country after reviewing 40 other police agencies in the United States, is a method by which the leadership of the LAPD is ordering and authorizing its officers to engage in extensive mass surveillance of social media without any oversight.
Additionally, the Brennan Center reports that at the beginning of 2021, the LAPD added a new tool called Media Sonar, which can build detailed profiles on individuals and link them together using social networks. The Center argues that this along with the requirement of its officers to collect social media information greatly expands the police organization’s ability to conduct wide-ranging social media surveillance.
“This has serious implications for people’s privacy and First Amendment rights, especially for communities of color and activists,” writes Mary Pat Dwyer of the Brennan Center. “Social media surveillance can facilitate surveillance of protest activity and police presence at protests,...
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