Free Speech Or Conspiracy To Commit A Terrorist Act?

[Formaldehyde]

How the NYPD Uses Facebook to Surveil, Entrap and Arrest Teenagers

In October 2012, then-New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly announced a new initiative, called “Operation Crew Cut,” which would target gang activity by focusing on so-called street crews. Kelly doubled the size of the anti-gang unit to 300 police officers, assigned to the task of surveilling teenagers on Facebook. Many of these kids are under 18, some as young as 12, and just about all of them are black and brown, from low-income neighborhoods. The officers involved are encouraged to make fake Facebook profiles in order to spy on individuals’ Facebook statuses. The operation often entails reading private Facebook messages between friends and is sometimes coupled with phone and video surveillance. Soon press releases were coming out of the NYPD offices announcing dozens of alleged gang members had been arrested due to the Crew Cut initiative.

The operation began to draw criticism, however, as people questioned why teenagers were being arrested on obscure conspiracy charges that were meant to take down serious organized crime. One teenager, Jelani Henry, said he was held in Rikers for nearly three years simply because of his associations on Facebook and his likes and comments on various Facebook posts.

"The mix of social media and conspiracy statutes creates a dragnet that can bring almost anybody in," attorney Andrew Laufer told The Verge. "t’s a complete violation of the Fourth Amendment and the worst kind of big brother law enforcement.”

On June 4, 2014, the largest NYPD raid in history occurred as a result of Operation Crew Cut. Some of the kids arrested had been surveilled as young as age 12 and four years later were (now, at age 16) charged as adults, and faced dozens of years in prison for allegedly conspiring to commit crimes on Facebook.

But it was in the aftermath of the murders of Officer Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos last December that the NYPD found a new purpose for Operation Crew Cut: arresting teenagers, most of them black and Latino, who wrote, shared or liked anti-cop Facebook statuses. The pretext was that the alleged killer of the officers, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who then committed suicide, had posted his desire to "put wings on pigs" on Instagram before setting out to kill cops. Following the murders, NYPD Commissioner William Bratton promised to take social media threats against the police more seriously. New York wasn’t alone; overzealous arrests based on anti-cop social media posts were occurring across the country.

In New York, the NYPD announced that nearly 30 people were arrested for alleged “threats against police,” within a month. One of those arrests was Yasin Shearin, who turned himself in after the Brooklyn district attorney’s office put out a call for his arrest because of a Facebook status. The 16-year-old, who had no criminal record, was charged with making terroristic threats and sent to Rikers with a $200,000 bail his mother couldn’t pay. During his court date, the prosecutor, citing the criminal complaint, said Shearin’s Facebook status was found by an “officer who investigates youth crews on Facebook,” or Operation Crew Cut. Devon Coley,18, who was arrested for posting an anti-cop photo with the status “73next,” was also being surveilled through Operation Crew Cut. He was charged with making a terroristic threat by the Brooklyn district attorney’s office. Neither the county clerk’s office or the NYPD would give information on how often arrests like these occur.

For some lawyers and critics of these police practices, these social media posts are considered dissenting speech. They argue that, while some people may not agree with the statement or find it in bad taste, the speech is still protected by the first amendment. The current case law of what constitutes a “threat” includes a specific date or time in the future, as Eugene Volokh wrote in the Washington Post.

“We’re going down an interesting road here. I think the police are trying to make people worried," Moira Meltzer-Cohen, an attorney who is also a legal activist with Mutant Legal, told AlterNet. "They don’t want people saying negative things about police but the problem is these kinds of laws or the enforcement of laws in these creative ways isn’t actually going to prevent people from making real threats against police officers. The danger is it’s going to be used — and it looks like it has been already — to punish legitimate dissent that is not a threat.”

Samuel Cohen, a partner at Stecklow Cohen and Thompson who teaches First Amendment law, referenced People v. Stephen (1992) as a “case…[that] illustrates the tension between the concept of the First Amendment and law enforcement’s instinctive desire for respect and obedience…[it] underline the purpose of the first amendment is to protect people from being penalized for pure speech against police officers.”

People v. Stephen involved an individual getting arrested for saying, “If you didn't have that gun and badge, I'd kick your ass, I'd kill you,” to a police officer. The decision was that while his words may have been “vulgar, derisive and provocative speech” — which is protected by the First Amendment — they could not be considered an imminent threat because it was hypothetical and that “at [its] worst, [his words] counseled unlawful conduct at some future, unspecified time.” Thereby not making the threat imminent. Furthermore, the case outlines there should be a higher tolerance to speech directed at police since the police are expected “to be less sensitive to provocation [since] ‘[t]he freedom of individuals verbally to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state.’” Lawyers who spoke to Buzzfeed came up with the same conclusion.

Both Shearin and Coley failed to be indicted on the charges, which seemed to validate many lawyers' viewpoints that the arrests were baseless and even unconstitutional. This result makes NYPD’s actions appear even more shady: Why were they using an anti-gang surveillance operation to arrest teenagers for dissenting anti-cop speech? The NYPD declined to comment on the arrests. When asked about the ethics regarding the arrests, a spokesperson from the Brooklyn district attorney's office said only, “Our standard procedure is to evaluate each case that’s brought to us on the merits and bring the appropriate ones to the grand jury."

What do you think?

Are inner city black youths the latest victims of terrorism hyperbole?

Or do the police have a legitimate reason to pose on social media as cop haters to stop these imminent terrorism threats?

 

[Agent327]

The operation began to draw criticism, however, as people questioned why teenagers were being arrested on obscure conspiracy charges that were meant to take down serious organized crime. One teenager, Jelani Henry, said he was held in Rikers for nearly three years simply because of his associations on Facebook and his likes and comments on various Facebook posts.

"The mix of social media and conspiracy statutes creates a dragnet that can bring almost anybody in," attorney Andrew Laufer told The Verge. "t’s a complete violation of the Fourth Amendment and the worst kind of big brother law enforcement.”

On June 4, 2014, the largest NYPD raid in history occurred as a result of Operation Crew Cut. Some of the kids arrested had been surveilled as young as age 12 and four years later were (now, at age 16) charged as adults, and faced dozens of years in prison for allegedly conspiring to commit crimes on Facebook.

But it was in the aftermath of the murders of Officer Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos last December that the NYPD found a new purpose for Operation Crew Cut: arresting teenagers, most of them black and Latino, who wrote, shared or liked anti-cop Facebook statuses. The pretext was that the alleged killer of the officers, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who then committed suicide, had posted his desire to "put wings on pigs" on Instagram before setting out to kill cops. Following the murders, NYPD Commissioner William Bratton promised to take social media threats against the police more seriously. New York wasn’t alone; overzealous arrests based on anti-cop social media posts were occurring across the country.

The bolded part seems most to the point here. People post a lot of stuff on fb. These associated charges (conspiracy to commit) seem vague in the extreme. Meanwhile the accused can spend indefinite time in hold while these 'cases' are being sorted out.

 

[Formaldehyde]

I think the basic problem is that once we started doing it to Muslims after 9/11 that the police decided anybody they could possibly label a terrorist could receive the very same abridged rights treatment no matter the age.

I just watched Red State. It is based on the premise that in order to avoid a Branch Davidian type embarrassment by the press that a group like the ATF might decide to kill everybody involved as domestic terrorists during the next standoff. That is if nobody in the media knows about it yet. It is a Hollywood flick, but it still raises an interesting point. How far would the authorities now go in such a situation given how you can basically disappear anybody you label to be a terrorist anymore.

One teenager, Jelani Henry, said he was held in Rikers for nearly three years simply because of his associations on Facebook and his likes and comments on various Facebook posts.

 

[BenitoChavez]

The current case law of what constitutes a “threat” includes a specific date or time in the future, as Eugene Volokh wrote in the Washington Post.

This seems pretty clear cut. If the police don't have this then they are unlawfully arresting people.

 

[BvBPL]

Police use social media to bust gang responsible for 34 shootings that caused 43 causalities.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

It is a known fact when dealing with cops that anything that can be (intentionally mis)construed as a threat is grounds for arrest. When involved in a conversation with cops it is critical to have an independent recording, as this is something they are known to outright lie about as well. If they say you threatened them and you say you didn't, guess what, you are convicted. One of many reasons why it is wisest to never talk to cops about anything, on duty, off duty, SHUNNING them is the best approach.

On social media you are effectively "having a conversation" with everyone, including cops. Therefor an effort to avoid anything that can be represented, or even misrepresented, as a threat is critical. The benefit is that it is effectively recorded so that they can't lie about it, but the bad news is that the precedent that anything a cop can say "oh I feel threatened" about is a terrorist act has been well established.

Recommendation...get used to using the word "hope". Hoping conveys no intent. I might hope that a motorcycle cop slides that bike under a semi and dies a gruesome death as a road pizza, or that a cop eating his lunch chokes on his food and dies, or that a cop writing me a ticket has a crisis of conscience and eats a bullet from his own gun, and tell anyone about my hopes, including them. There is no threat because there is no statement of intent. Again independent recording is critical!!!

 

[BvBPL]

NYC murders down by a third thanks to social media snooping.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

NYC murders down by a third thanks to social media snooping.

I assume you are trying to defend this program. If so you should read the stuff you are linking. This article makes the clear point that the commissioner was spouting "murder rate down" when the period was actually too short to be of any statistical significance. Also, while he credits this program as the cause of this mythical result, there is nothing but his spouting to establish such a causal link. In fact his credibility is called into question in the article when they point out that he has made the exact same unsupportable claim linking the cause of the same result as "stop and frisk".

He clearly will grab any good result, real or not, and link it to anything he is trying to justify.

 

[BvBPL]

Timsup2nothin says NYC drop in murder rates is "mythical" and not significant.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Actually, I said that the period the commissioner was citing (two months) was too short to be of statistical significance. His two month period at the start of 2013 comes at the end of the full year period of 2012, which saw a 20% drop over the twelve month period, most of which occurred before operation crew cut was instituted. He grabs a number that passes by, and attaches it to whatever he is trying to justify. The commish has zero credibility, and thank you for providing the link to show that.

There was a huge increase in murders in the first two months of 2015. Where is the commish commenting that this indicates the abject failure of all his favorite civil rights violations? Hundred to one that he is calling this (correctly) a possible statistical anomaly due to the short period.

 

[bhavv]

Lol... At 2 posts up.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Police use social media to bust gang responsible for 34 shootings that caused 43 causalities.

From the very same source:

"Operation Crew Cut" Has NYPD Trolling Facebook For Gangs

At a press conference in August, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly told us that the department "only monitors social media for specific investigations," which contradicted comments he made in June. And today in a speech to a gathering of police chiefs in San Diego this morning, Kelly will announce that his force will be trolling Facebook and other social media as part of Operation Crew Cut, aimed at curbing the activity of local gangs who use social media to, in Kelly's words, "add fuel to the fire."

FYI: NYPD Maybe Be Following Your Twitter And Facebook

After the "Freaky Friday" house party shooting that left one man dead and eight other people injured, the NYPD has been upping its monitoring of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, because the East New York party had been advertised there. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said, "Oh, we look for house parties all the time."

He further explained, “We look at social networking. We’re very much focused on weekend parties, the type of parties that happened last weekend, and we visit them ahead of time. But not every one of these parties happen at a place we can readily identify... Our gang division, our borough personnel look at party advertisements. A lot of these things are at peoples’ apartments." Kelly also pointed out that many ads say no ID is needed.

NY1 spoke to some people who had a range of emotions about the NYPD checking out residents' social media profiles: One said, "If it is going to help cut down on the homicides, then I guess I’m for it," while another opined, "I really do think it is an invasion of privacy."

Photos: Inside The NYPD's New "Domain Awareness" Surveillance HQ

This afternoon the NYPD debuted their "all-seeing" Domain Awareness System, which syncs the city's 3,000 closed circuit camera feeds in Lower Manhattan, Midtown, and near bridges and tunnels with arrest records, 911 calls, license plate recognition technology, and even radiation detectors. Mayor Bloomberg dismissed concerns that this represented the most glaring example of Big Brother-style policing. "What you're seeing is what the private sector has used for a long time," Bloomberg said. "If you walk around with a cell phone, the cell phone company knows where you are…We're not your mom and pop's police department anymore."

NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly stated that the system, which is currently operational out of the department's Lower Manhattan Security Commission HQ, was developed with a "state of the art privacy policy" and "working with the privacy community," but did not offer specifics. DAS does not have facial recognition technology at this time, but "it's something that's very close to being developed," the mayor said.
The system was developed with Microsoft and paid for by the city for $30 to $40 million, and has already been in use for six months. The feeds compiled by the system are kept for thirty days, then erased.

Reports of suspicious cars can be followed up with license-plate scanners, which will track and beam back the location of the vehicle to the system so that the police can follow it in real-time—video feeds will also show delayed images to help the officers determine if the car is in a caravan. Arrest and driving records are shown alongside the camera image. "This system is the ultimate in domain awareness," Tisch said.

Regarding the department's recent request for information from Twitter for a threat made by one of its users, Kelly said that social media monitoring "is not done at this location," and that "[The NYPD] only monitors social media for specific investigations. That's the world we live in."

The City will receive 30% on the profits Microsoft will make selling it to other cities, although Mayor Bloomberg declined to say if that money would go back into the NYPD. "Maybe we'll even make a few bucks."

Timsup2nothin says NYC drop in murder rates is "mythical" and not significant.

What the article you posted actually states:

NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly says that the city's murder rate keeps dipping, and is already down by 33% in the first two months of 2013, and credits the decrease in part to his department's increased focus on social media to catch gang members. "My idea, the Crew Cut concept, focuses on this directly," Kelly told the Post in an interview, referring to Operation Crew Cut, which used the Facebook activity of alleged gang members to string together charges of organized crime. New units called Strategy Enforcement Teams work with officers focused on narcotics and gangs to track criminal activity. "In each initiative, [Strategy Enforcement Teams] help us monitor social media and we gather information we can use on these groups."

This is sheer speculation on his part to try to rationalize this Big Brother program.

And what the hell is "Gothamist" anyway?

Gothamist LLC is the operator, or in some cases franchisor, of eight city-centric blogs worldwide that focus on news, events, food, culture, and other local coverage.

The namesake blog, Gothamist, focused on New York City, was founded in 2003, with launches in other cities shortly thereafter. Other blogs operated by the company As of June 2014 include LAist, DCist, Chicagoist, and SFist in the United States, as well as Shanghaiist internationally.[2]

In this particular case, they appear to basically be the PR department for the NYPD. That is with the exception of reporting a single glaring inconsistency in their statement from a previous article, and including a few contrary statements to give the appearance they are being objective.

 

[BvBPL]

Cops use Facebook to help suicidal teen.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Did you read the article?

The unidentified 18-year-old NJ resident posted a picture of the GW Bridge with the words “I'm thinking of jumping" on his Facebook page on Tuesday afternoon. A friend saw the post and contacted the Port Authority Police Department; Michaels gave out a Facebook photo of the college student to his officers, and left a message on the teen’s Facebook page with his number, encouraging him to call him.

At least they weren't spying on him for a welcome change. But then again he is probably not Muslim or black.

And it looks like I was right. Gothamist is really nothing but the NYPD PR department. The NYPD Press Relations department probably have them on speed dial.

 

[BvBPL]

Police use Facebook to catch purse-napper.

 

[BenitoChavez]

Police use squirrels on Facebook to catch nut thieves

 

[BvBPL]

Police use Facebook to sell CDs, DVDs, and posters promoting themselves.

 

[Yeekim]

Police following social media makes complete sense.

What makes zero sense is how they handle the information. I'm having great trouble wrapping my head around Tim's attitude towards police, but am beginning to suspect it is only so because life has so far spared me from coming into contact with US authorities. My own European experience probably doesn't apply here.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Reading public information is one thing. "Infiltrating" Facebook by pretending to be a friend is quite another, much less doing so under the guise that their suspects are terrorists for no legitimate reason.

Why is it that when cops think they have caught you in a lie that you must be guilty of the crime they suspect you might have committed. But they lie all the time themselves to entrap others, but it doesn't hurt their case against you if they do?

Cops shouldn't be above the law. If they want to gain access to Facebook information that is hidden to the public, they should get a court order. And "stings" should be banned entirely. I have no idea how they are considered to be constitutional. Entrapment is already banned in many countries.

The use of informants should also be banned for the same reasons.

 

[BvBPL]

Police use Facebook to fight prostitution.