a police officer observing you briefly with their eyes is quite different than an entire police department outsourcing surveillance of protected activities to a third party which monitors your online activity over time.
mostly scale: accumulation of data over time and use of that data (a single brief observation of an anonymous person vs identification and observation of a person over time, with real-time activities reported to law enforcement). same way that it's unacceptable/illegal for a police officer - without probable cause or a warrant - to follow you down the street to your home, then wait outside your home and follow you 24/7, recording all your activities which exist in the public sphere, then putting you on a departmental watchlist where your protected activities are broadcast to all officers in real-time.
you may be ok with that ("i don't have anything to hide", "i trust the police/government", "the free market will prevent abuses [by companies like Dataminr]" are some rebuttals i've heard recently), but it undermines our constitutional rights, setting a dangerous precedent and chilling free speech/association (per the ACLU). additionally, how else is this collected information being used by the police and Dataminr? what are their retention policies? what other kinds of analysis are being done (fta, there seems to be a not-insignificant number of false positives)?
> mostly scale: accumulation of data over time and use of that data
I'm a long-time, hardcore civil libertarian so I share your concerns about potential law enforcement abuse. However, in the instance being cited here, I'm not seeing a clear violation of 4th amendment rights. Posting on openly shared social media is not only public speech, these days it's advertising and promotion. I assume you wouldn't have a problem with law enforcement subscribing to a press release monitoring service that would notify them if someone is sends out media press releases promoting their protest in that agency's jurisdiction. Arguably, not having any situational awareness of open-to-the-public mass gatherings planned in their area might be something they'd even be blamed for if overcrowding turned into a public safety situation at a book signing or something and they were oblivious.
So, while I want to restrict police overreach as much as possible, the challenge is in how we might craft guidelines of what's allowable vs not allowable which are clear and consistent.
I've learned that when people refer to "constitutional rights/protections" outside of a strict legal setting and framework, it's almost always disappointingly predictable and devoid of merit. The gulf between the law as its written and interpreted through the courts, and what people with a casual interest believe it to be, is really impressively vast.
At the end of the day if you want privacy, don't broadcast your activities on open platforms that were DESIGNED to observer and record you.
The expectation is there is a limitation on resources that can be deployed for law enforcement officers viewing things with their eyes. It's virtually unlimited with technology.
Walking down the street is not a constitutionally protected activity not that the police should monitor it without a statutory reason. Driving also isn’t. If you think different you’ll have to cite different. But assembly and expression are constitutionally protected.
But back to my original question, why are the police monitoring constitutionally protected activity?
Walking down a public street absent some public safety or similar imposition is in fact a Constitutionally protected activity. It is not at all like driving.
No, that is your opinion and not a cite. In fact, the government can regulate your walking with cross walks and traffic lights.
Again, why are the police in this case monitoring constitutionally protected activity?
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
You're just wrong. There's a whole line of cases about this.
Walkers and strollers and wanderers may be going to or coming from a burglary. Loafers or loiterers may be "casing" a place for a holdup. Letting one's wife support him is an intra-family matter, and normally of no concern to the police. Yet it may, of course, be the setting for numerous crimes.
The difficulty is that these activities are historically part of the amenities of life as we have known them. They are not mentioned in the Constitution or in the Bill of Rights. These unwritten amenities have been, in part, responsible for giving our people the feeling of independence and self-confidence, the feeling of creativity. These amenities have dignified the right of dissent, and have honored the right to be nonconformists and the right to defy submissiveness. They have encouraged lives of high spirits, rather than hushed, suffocating silence.
You keep repeating "constitutionally protected activity" like it carries more weight the more you repeat. The Intercept article does the same thing.
If we step back and look at what's happening at "pro palestine" protests across the world, much of it is toxic and unwelcome by the wider community. Law enforcement sees the negative energy and responds using passive tracking tools and other measures. They're seeing escalating "decolonizing" associations too, as these groups try to merge with their socialist friends and agendas.
In my country Australia, they've taken the Aboriginal flag and Palestine flag and joined them together, parading them along the street screaming about colonisation. Many contain raised fist graphics and calls for resistance. And you wonder why cops are monitoring?
Barely qualifying as activity worth "protecting" in many cases. In particular, the terror-aligned rhetoric by masked mobs screaming about global intifadas, "resistance by any means necessary" and other stuff unrelated to peace or anything remotely "anti-war". No peace symbols in the crowd but plenty of Hamas flags, is the answer to your question.
Law enforcement sees the negative energy and responds
Typically, in sane societies, it's preferable that the coercive part of state power is deployed for things more concrete and definable than 'negative energy'.
In this case, negative energy often leads to civil unrest and other things in law enforcement's wheelhouse. The police were even called to Google's offices last year, you might remember. Pro-palestine clowns refused to leave the office. They were arrested and fired.
See how easily negative energy turns into trespass? Nothing wrong with cops planning ahead for the inevitable, based on historical data for that type of protest.
