One of the things that’s supposed to separate us from the animals is the ability to distinguish between right and wrong. Supposedly, that’s also one of the traits that puts cops on one side of the Thin Blue Line and the rest of us on the other side.
But, when given the opportunity, it often seems cops will choose to do the wrong thing. Should cops be engaging in surveillance of people solely based on their First Amendment-protected activities? Of course not. They know it just as much as we know it. The difference here is that cops simply do not care.
Yet another set of protests targeting law enforcement has been followed by news law enforcement officers abused their power to place their perceived opponents under surveillance. The Brennan Center’s public records requests have resulted in a deluge of documents that show the Atlanta PD engaged in pervasive monitoring of protesters opposed to the creation of a new, privately-funded police training facility that quickly earned the nickname “Cop City.”
Over 2,300 pages of internal intelligence reports and emails demonstrate how broadly the Atlanta Police Department has monitored residents engaged in ordinary activities used by political groups of all stripes. Atlanta law enforcement’s social media surveillance targeted opponents of the construction of a police training facility that activists call “Cop City.”
The full set of documents has been made available to the public by the Brennan Center. What’s contained in them is as disappointing as it is completely expected. Under the guise of public safety, the PD engaged in active monitoring of pretty much any activist group that expressed anything other than support for the police department.
While a handful of protests against “Cop City” resulted in altercations with officers and property, a large majority of opposition activity has been peaceful. Much of what’s contained in these “intelligence reports” details social media postings and other online interactions involving groups that have engaged in nothing more than truly peaceful demonstrations, town hall-style events, and fundraisers.
While it is true that social media monitoring may help police allocate officers to maintain public safety, Atlanta police’s surveillance far exceeds any such need in many cases, instead serving to keep tabs on citizens the department views as political opponents. For instance, one monitored group hosted a “community conversation” about education, neighborhood safety, health, and the Stop Cop City movement. An intelligence report about the evening noted that the group had hosted prior canvassing efforts and other peaceful events. Another monitored event — a pizza night at a local business — was held by the group Women on the Rise and involved “a moment to reflect” on community safety. Past events organized by the group were similarly peaceful. Prior events by the host of a study group to discuss abortion politics — also the subject of an intelligence report — were logged as peaceful too.
Nothing in the reports detailed above could be remotely considered “intelligence.” And the interest of public safety definitely isn’t served when the PD expends resources monitoring groups that have never participated in events that resulted in property damage, altercations with officers, or arrests. Nor is it served when the same law enforcement officials leverage their wasted time and ignorance to demonize encryption.
Instead, this looks like “just because” efforts deployed by bored cops on homeland security duty that needed to show their bosses they were worth whatever they were being paid. And that’s the best case scenario: the “looking busy” excuse. The alternative explanation is that cops waste time and tax dollars monitoring peaceful protest groups just because they have the motive and opportunity to do so. It’s low-level surveillance that serves no greater purpose than finding any reason at all to harass group members or, worse, place them under arrest for things entirely unrelated to the mission goals of the domestic security program.
Worse, the Atlanta PD took this worthless “intelligence” and used it to make other agencies more stupid and less efficient.
These surveillance reports are likely to influence policing beyond Georgia. Atlanta police have circulated them widely to all sorts of local officials, Georgia counterterrorism agencies, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, and universities. One federal agency in this ecosystem, the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis, has provided Georgia authorities with politicized information characterizing protesters as domestic violent extremists driven by “anti-law enforcement sentiment,” a theme Georgia cited in its racketeering charges. Together, the agencies form an echo chamber of questionable intelligence that portrays dissent on- and offline as terrorism.
And this is only the stuff the Atlanta PD agreed to release to the Brennan Center. There’s no reason to believe there’s no other surveillance in play as well — something that runs deeper than constant social media monitoring enabled by private contractors. But that will take more time, effort, and litigation to pry loose. This is just the surface-level stuff plenty of cops shops engage in, despite the fact that they know better than to be doing this sort of thing.
It’s all very petty and vindictive. It’s self-serving, which is the very antithesis of “public service.” It’s cops keeping an eye on people who don’t like cops (1) because they can, and (2) because no one inside any law enforcement agency will stop them. It’s a full embrace of the appearance of impropriety because, by and large, police agencies and the officials that lead them simply don’t care what the public thinks of them, especially the members of the public who already fear and/or distrust them.
