#ftpfriday — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #ftpfriday, aggregated by home.social.
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How Government #FusionCenters Violate Americans’ Rights — and How to Stop It
The Biden administration and Congress must impose oversight and accountability on the state-run centers.
by Mike German
December 15, 2022"A federal jury awarded $300,000 this month to a #MaineStatePolice trooper who was demoted after blowing the whistle on privacy violations at the state’s intelligence #FusionCenter. The federal government spurred the development of fusion centers after 9/11 as a means for sharing counterterrorism intelligence among state and local governments, as well as select private entities. The facts revealed during this trial adds to a mountain of evidence that fusion centers require greater regulation and oversight.
"The trooper alleged that the Maine Intelligence and Analysis Center, 1 in a network of 80 fusion centers operating across the country, was illegally collecting and sharing information about Maine residents who weren’t suspected of criminal activity. They included gun purchasers, people #protesting the construction of a new power transmission line, the employees of a #peacebuilding #SummerCamp for teenagers, and even people who travelled to New York City frequently. The whistleblower also claimed that fusion center supervisors pressured him to illegally share sensitive FBI information he had access to because of his position on the Joint Terrorism Task Force.
[...]
"Shortly after the Maine trooper filed his lawsuit in May 2020, a hack of a fusion center contractor exposed 296 gigabytes of intelligence records from more than 200 law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and DHS. The records substantiated the trooper’s complaints about privacy and #CivilRights violations at the #Maine fusion center and showed similar abuse occurring throughout the network, particularly in tracking #BlackLivesMatter #protests. The documents also showed that fusion centers had regularly spread misinformation sourced from dubious social media posts, including false reports alleging that #antifascists were starting wildfires or planning acts of violence. These specious reports distracted law enforcement during public safety emergencies."
#FTPFriday #ACAB #SLAPPs #Fascism #CivilLiberties #ClimateActivists #QuebecHydro #CMP #CMPCorridor #ForestDefenders #WaterProtectors #CorporateColonialism
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#Oregon's #FusionCenter Spied on #Activists -- Violated Oregon's Law on #Surveillance
#CivilLibertiesDefenseCenter Crosses Important Hurdle in Case Against Oregon Dept. of Justice
Government Overreach on Activist Surveillance Again
"Fusion Centers, where law enforcement agencies share information, have been secretly violating rights and laws. The first #NativeAmerican Tribe to join a law enforcement Fusion Center was the Tohono O'odham Nation in Arizona, enabling it to share surveillance with state and federal agencies. The Fusion Center in North Dakota, during the resistance to Dakota Access Pipeline, secretly engaged in surveillance of #WaterProtectors."
By Civil Liberties Defense Center, Censored News, March 8, 2024
"After the events of September 11, 2001, a total of 79 Fusion Centers were created throughout the United States, with the purported goal of helping law enforcement agencies coordinate and share information with each other.
In the wake of the successful citizen challenge to the Jordan Cove pipeline in southern Oregon, investigative journalists at the Guardian and the Intercept revealed that Oregon’s Fusion Center had for years been amassing information and creating dossiers about activists’ work to challenge the pipeline."In doing so, the Oregon DOJ violated an Oregon statute going back to the 1980s, that prohibits such surveillance. Very simply worded, the one-sentence statute (ORS 181A.250) prohibits all Oregon law enforcement agencies from collecting or maintaining 'information about the political, religious or social views, associations or activities' of any person or organization, 'unless such information directly relates to an investigation of criminal activities, and there are reasonable grounds to suspect the subject of the information is or may be involved in criminal conduct.'
"When we learned that the Fusion Center had gathered and maintained files about our clients, #360Eugene and #RogueClimate, we joined the Oregon state court lawsuit challenging that behavior (Farrell-Smith v. Oregon Department of Justice, Marion Co. No. 21CV47809).
"Rather than seeking financial compensation, this suit goes deeper, to the roots, asking the court to declare that the Fusion Center is operating in violation of the law and without legal authority, and to issue an injunction prohibiting the Center from conducting such surveillance in the future.
Examples of the types of activities the Center surveilled were #PeacefulMarches, letter-writing campaigns, and planning meetings. CLDC and our clients are concerned that such surveillance chills free speech and organizing, and that the little-used Oregon statute must be enforced."Read more:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/03/oregons-fusion-center-spied-on.html
#FTPFriday #ACAB #Activists #Fascism #FusionCenters