Valley law enforcement's internet "Red Squad" takes center stage at International Social Media and Surveillance Conference

A group of law enforcement officers who coordinated the crackdown on Occupy Phoenix, and regularly monitor the pages of activists through internet surveillance, are scheduled speakers at next week's "Social Media the Internet and Law Enforcement" (SMILE) three day conference.  The Phoenix Police Department are the host agency for this year's conference,  Detective CJ Wren and  Terrorism Liaison Officer (TLO) All Hazards Analyst Brenda Dowhan will be representing Phoenix,  Detective Chris Adamczyk, a TLO from Mesa Police Department will also be presenting.

What they will be presenting on, should be of interest to anyone concerned with the powers given to police agencies to spy and collect information on individuals and groups engaged in political activity.  While the justification has been provided that these departments are concerned with anarchists and "criminal activists," much of the documentation surrounding Occupy Phoenix revealed that these individuals and their respective police organizations (Phoenix PD and Mesa PD coordinating with other departments through the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center (ACTIC)) were using secretive technologies to identify individuals who merely criticized department policy.

Phoenix police prepare to make arrests during Occupy Phoenix (Downtown Devil)

Journalist Beau Hodai obtained thousands of pages of documents from various law enforcement agencies on the varied multi-agency responses to  Occupy Phoenix, and related events.  What Hodai learned was that the counter-terrorism infrastructure established in Arizona, through the ACTIC fusion center, worked closely with corporate partners to pass information along information on protests being organized against them. 

We made good use of the Hodai's source materials, which were generously posted online, to write a series of stories that Hodai had not covered, including the revelations that a co-owner of Changing Hands Books was passing information about Occupy Phoenix along to the Phoenix PD.  Another unsettling story we covered was on the Facial Recognition Unit within ACTIC that was using a facial recognition software to scan the state's drivers license database to identify participants in protests, using photos found on social media.  Given that most of the information regarding the activities of ACTIC, and the TLOs involved in targeting Occupy Phoenix, is approaching four years old, the upcoming SMILE conference affords us the opportunity to shine a light on these digital spies.  Here are some highlights from the conference agenda:

TLO All Hazards Analyst Brenda Dowhan is giving a presentation on Using Social Media for Event Planning and Real-time Monitoring, in her event description Dowhan advocates for "pro-active policing," citing an anti-police protest as an event which "could impact public safety and the community."  Given what we know from Dowhan's history with the Occupy protests, anarchist events, and marches affiliated with indigenous causes, her objective is not to merely pass along information to other regional TLOs about a possible protest or activist gathering, but to coordinate disruption.  Hodai noted in his "Dissent or Terror" article that after Tempe Homeland Defense Unit Detective Derek Pittam wrote of a guerrilla gardening event successfully disrupted by Tempe police, Dowhan responded with "Good to hear. Every site I've been on, they know that we are watching them."

Dowhan was often aided by Mesa Detective Chris Adamczyk, a TLO and self-described expert in "subversive organizations."  Adamczyk will also be presenting to other officers on the topic of  Unmask the Movement: Using social media to assess the risks of subversive organizations.  In his description, Adamczyk laughably describes the "dark side of social media," the world of street gangs, syndicates, criminal activists, and terror organizations. In addition to his obsessing over the Facebook page of Food Not Bombs, Adamczyk has launched a private enterprise to share his unique skill set.  His website and smartphone app, called the Protestus Project, claims to be"making sense of the world of activism," but for who?  The site is updated infrequently, and appears to rely of the same open source information that Adamczyk receives on the daily from his position as a TLO at the Mesa Police Department.  The website and app are uneven in what information is shared, for example the website documents an activist group involved in recent anti-police protests and provides analysis of the local Black Lives Matter/Rumain Brisbon protests, while the app appears to be an alphabetized threat assessment of local activist groups.  It's unclear if Detective Adamczyk writes all content for the website or app.

Perhaps nothing is more humorous than the presentation given by Detective CJ Wren on Stalking 2.0 ~ Stalking in the Social Media Era, which is apparently about a man who found 30 social media pages belonging to the police and saved the info to disk, and why police officers should lock down their social media profiles.  Detective Wren is the Arizona Chapter President at Association of Threat Assessment Professionals, and Law Enforcement President of the Arizona Terrorism Liaison Association.  Despite Detective Wren's counter-terrorism expertise and his online privacy tips for law enforcement, a simple Google search reveals that Wren himself has a revealing social media footprint.  Perhaps he should consider using his own online activities as a case study!  This is all the more laughable considering his employment (along with Dowhan and Adamczyk) relies on him stalking radicals, anarchists, indigenous activists, and immigrant rights groups on their respective social media pages and storing the information forever through a joint partnership with the Federal government.

Detective Wren would like to have it both ways; an open internet for for Wren, Dowhan, and Adamczyk to prowl, collecting "open source intelligence" to share with their TLO partners and the FBI through ACTIC; and, under the justification of officer safety,  a closed internet to protect the identities, actions, and opinions of police officers, shielding them from criticism. These agents of the law are speaking at SMILE because they are skilled in the use of surveillance, disruption, and repression to halt protests and groups opposed to the actions of government and business.

Creepy name aside, networking hubs such as SMILE, the ACTIC fusion center, and the activities of the anti-protest "Red Squad" counter-terrorism departments must be dragged out into the light.  The increasing efforts of local police departments to spy on and disrupt the efforts of activist groups and political protest goes hand in hand with the riot police using military equipment to intimidate and control people when they sign off from the internet and take to the streets.

Scottsdale Police join ranks of Valley cops using "Stingray" device to spy on cell phones

As we revealed in a recent post, the Tempe Police Department has made at least two purchases of the Stingray device from the Harris Corporation, both shrouded in secrecy due to a non-disclosure agreement.  We can now reveal that another valley police department is in possession of a Stingray device. Down & Drought has learned that the Scottsdale Police Department used the controversial Stingray surveillance device on 29 "missions" in 2010, citing a Scottsdale police report which identifies the device by name in a section on the department's Technical Operations Unit.

The 2010 annual report appears to be the only public admission of Scottsdale's use of a Stingray, no other web searches by Down & Drought could find any other reference of the device by the City of Scottsdale or Scottsdale Police Department.  In the 2010 City of Scottsdale Annual Report, the Stingray is mentioned briefly in the section on the Scottsdale Police Department's Special Investigations Section Technical Operations.  According to the report, the Technical Operations Unit is "responsible for the installation and maintenance of technical surveillance equipment and systems. The Tech Ops Unit assists other work groups within the police department, including Patrol, with special technical investigative assistance." 

Police departments across the valley, and through out Arizona, are increasingly utilizing electronic surveillance devices to eavesdrop and record information with very little public knowledge about the techniques being used in the mass gathering of private and confidential information of individuals.  In an article published in March on Down & Drought, we raised concerns over the civil rights implications of the Tempe Police Department's use of an electronic surveillance device called the Stingray by citing the secrecy surrounding the devices as a result of a contractual confidentiality agreement between the City of Tempe and the manufacturer of the Stingray, the Harris Corporation.

It has been confirmed, through articles from the Arizona Republic and statements from the Arizona branch of the ACLU, that police departments in the valley, and across Arizona have purchased Stingray technology.  The AZCLU's Alessandra Meetze identified the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, the Gilbert PD, and Glendale PD as valley departments in use of the Stingray device, and the Pinal County Sheriff's Department and Flagstaff PD as agencies outside the valley with Stingrays. A subsequent Arizona Republic article from December 2013 identified the Mesa PD and Phoenix PD as departments using the Stingray, with Phoenix having one in use since 2001.

The Stingray is a surveillance technology used by police to imitate a cell phone tower causing every cell phone and wireless device within range to connect with the police tower and unwittingly sharing data.  As of now, there is no way for an individual to know if their cell phone or wireless device is currently having its communications and data intercepted by police.

Scrutiny from media outlets over the Stingray technology has intensified in recent weeks after US Marshals intervened in a public records request regarding a Florida police department's use of the device.  Wired writer Kim Zetter has followed the legal battles over the non-disclosure agreements which protect police departments from releasing any information on their purchases from the Harris Corporation.  In her most recent piece on the Stingray, she covered the eyebrow raising actions of the  US Marshals seizing records requested by the ACLU regarding the Stingray's use by detectives from the Sarasota Police Department. While this brazen intervention by federal authorities has shocked civil libertarians, such efforts to thwart a public records request are common. The FBI routinely has its agents working to obscure the price, function, and uses of the Stingray device by testifying in courtroom hearings that the secrecy is necessary to stop criminal targets from learning how police may be monitoring their activities.

READ MORE COVERAGE OF LOCAL POLICE SURVEILLANCE

Most troubling is the revelation, which came from the Associated Press, that the Obama administration is actively advising local law enforcement agencies to not disclose the details of their agreements with the Harris Corporation, or the applications of the secret surveillance technology used for the Stingray device.  Whereas the FBI's public defense of the non-disclosure agreements concerned "criminals" evading the device's detection, the Obama administration is defending the secrecy surrounding the device on the grounds that to reveal any information could constitute a threat to national security. As Washington Post columnist Radley Balko remarked this week, if revealing the particulars of this device is such a threat to national security, then why is it being widely used by local police departments across the country?

Since it seems likely that these devices will continue to be used in greater number across the country, and not seized as Balko jests, then it is imperative that the core questions regarding these devices be answered.  How do they work, how many are they, how many people are going to prison due to their use, and how can an individual prevent such a device from accessing their personal information on a wireless device.  Until that occurs, it's safe to presume that the Stingray, and similar devices, can do a lot more than log call information and triangulate an individuals location, and the public deserves to know how they're being spied on this time. 

Spier beware: Is the Mesa PD's new snitch app actually spying on you?

Is the new Mesa Police Department's new mobile app spying on the very "good citizens" it purports to gather tips from?  If the permissions section of the Android download page is to be believed, it very likely is.  But just how it might be spying on you depends on which app you download, and it's not clear from the cops' webpage which one you're getting.

The MPD announced the other day that they have a new app for taking tips on crime in Mesa, paid for with funds raised through RICO seizures.  Interestingly, clicking on the Android link on their website actually takes you to an application called TipSubmit.  If you are foolish enough to download it, not only does the program track your location very specifically, but it also has full access to the camera on your phone, which it can use "at any time without your confirmation."  Quite disturbing.

But if you go to Google Play, however, and do a manual search for "mesa police Arizona", what you get is a link to a different app, presumably the new one.  Of course, this one, too, has access to your location, but it also has the ability "to call phone numbers without your intervention".

A search for that specific permission brought up a Geek Squad article titled "How to spot a bad Android smartphone application",  which labeled the ability to directly call phone numbers as "[v]ery suspicious".  Indeed, the app itself notes in its own description that this permission "doesn't allow the app to call emergency numbers" -- ironically probably one of the main functions one would expect from such an app.  So who is it calling?  And what does it need those numbers for?  Does this power extend to turning on the microphone?  Certainly, this ought to give any potential user pause before downloading.  Apparently the Mesa PD didn't think these issues were important enough to address in their press conference -- or maybe no reporter thought to ask them.  Certainly users deserve to know.

The Mesa PD has been quite purposeful in its adoption of policing technology over the last few years, recognizing it as a potential force multiplier in its war on the poor.  In a recent Fox 10 article, Chief Frank Milstead said, "We're a very lean department so we have to use technology to make up for deficiency in staff."  At the same press conference in which he rolled out the new snitch app, he likewise touted the MPD's new mobile identification system and on the spot ticketing system.

Clearly the Mesa PD is dedicated to the 1984-ification of policing, and their new snitch app should be seen in this light.  It masquerades as a tool for making everyone safe, but it's really just yet another Big Brother weapon in their arsenal -- an arsenal that is aimed squarely at us.  It's not intended to make us safer, it's meant to make us more easily controlled, to sow the seeds of distrust and turn us against each other.  To turn us all into potential snitches.

What's more, these police apps bombard us with crime news from our neighborhood and city.  Mesa PD's app promises a paranoia-inducing "crime maps" feature, in which we can  "[v]iew real-time crime maps of activities in your neighborhood or across the city. Explore the details behind the crimes."

Chief Milstead put it this way: "People accusing us of misuse of force. I think our officers are safer because people realize they're on video and they're actually being held accountable by videotape for their actions."  In a January interview, Mesa PD Sgt. Tony Landato described the application of their new fingerprint system.  He said, “Our officers stopped a subject who matched the description who was acting very suspicious. ... We ran his fingerprint. It was not our suspect in the domestic violence. It was a homicide suspect.”  They arrested him.  He had been caught in a very wide virtual and physical dragnet.

The Mesa PD wants to watch us at all times, and it's not about making us safer.  In their unblinking eyes, we are all suspects, especially if we are poor or if we're not white.  We're all suspicious in their eyes.  And where gaps in their surveillance exist, they expect us to do the work for them.  Milstead summed it up in a recent NPR interview: “If we don’t use the public’s eyes to help not only to report crime but to help solve crime, we’re going to miss things."  This app is meant to fill in those gaps by reporting on everyone.