Black Lives Matter Activists Sue Police for SPYING on Them Illegally

After several years of peacefully protesting police brutality against black people, Black Lives Matter activists have accused a local police department of spying on them. Since BLM wasn’t actually suspected of any criminal wrongdoing, surveilling them is technically ILLEGAL on the part of the police -- but they didn’t seem to care! The Rockland County, NY chapter of BLM filed a lawsuit in August.

The surveillance took place from January through December 2015. At least, that’s the length of time that the documents show. Who knows how long this has been going on, and how deep the surveillance goes? The police do, after all, have a LONG history of interfering with groups that promote black civil rights.

The court documents have evidence of social media surveillance. This is a bit of a gray area legally, since data from social media posts is publicly available. However, there’s a difference between a person gathering information and a GOVERNMENT body gathering data to disrupt an organization.

As one ACLU attorney says, “the question is, does it change when it goes from individual manual investigations to bulk surveillance?”

One thing is clear — the chief detective of the county’s DA office TOLD the head of these investigations that Black Lives Matter should not be a target. However, the unit continued to surveil.

It doesn’t look like there will be much pushback against this surveillance in the grand scheme, though we’re hopeful that the lawsuit is successful. This past summer, the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division created a new category of domestic terrorist: “Black Identity Extremists.” Wow!!!

Framing BLM as a terrorist group is harmful on multiple levels. It paints a picture of a violent, bloodthirsty group that is plotting to destroy the country. In reality, BLM primarily uses protest and direct action to draw attention to police brutality and demand equal treatment.

The kicker? White supremacist groups are an ACTUAL terrorist threat. According to one intelligence bulletin, “white supremacist groups had already carried out more attacks than any other domestic extremist group over the past 16 years.”