SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
An aerial drone view of a Juneteenth rally and march at the Port of Oakland in California on June 19, 2020. (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Police Aerial Surveillance Threatens Freedom to Protest
"We must act now to protect future protestors from the civil liberties infringements the government conjures on a regular basis. Aerial surveillance of protests must stop."
Nov 27, 2021
The ACLU of Northern California has concluded a year-long Freedom of Information campaign by uncovering massive spying on Black Lives Matter protests from the air. The California Highway Patrol directed aerial surveillance, mostly done by helicopters, over protests in Berkeley, Oakland, Palo Alto, Placerville, Riverside, Sacramento, San Francisco, and San Luis Obispo. The footage, which you can watch online, includes police zooming in on individual protestors, die-ins, and vigils for victims of police violence.
"Many people would be deterred from attending a demonstration protesting against police violence if they knew the police were going to film their face, and potentially identify them."
You can sign the ACLU's petition opposing this surveillance here.
Dragnet aerial surveillance is often unconstitutional. In summer 2021, the Fourth Circuit ruled that Baltimore's aerial surveillance program, which surveilled large swaths of the city without a warrant, violated the Fourth Amendment right to privacy for city residents. Police planes or helicopters flying overhead can easily track and trace an individual as they go about their day--before, during, and after a protest. If a government helicopter follows a group of people leaving a protest and returning home or going to a house of worship, there are many facts about these people that can be inferred.
Not to mention, high-tech political spying makes people vulnerable to retribution and reprisals by the government. Despite their constitutional rights, many people would be chilled and deterred from attending a demonstration protesting against police violence if they knew the police were going to film their face, and potentially identify them and keep a record of their First Amendment activity.
The U.S. government has been spying on protest movements for as long as there have been protest movements. The protests for Black Lives in the summer of 2020 were no exception. For over a year, civil rights groups and investigative journalists have been uncovering the diversity of invasive tactics and technologies used by police to surveil protestors and activists exercising their First Amendment rights. Earlier this year, for example, EFF uncovered how the Los Angeles Police Department requested Amazon Ring surveillance doorbell footage of protests in an attempt to find "criminal behavior." We also discovered that police accessed BID cameras in Union Square to spy on protestors.
Like the surveillance used against water protectors at the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, the Occupy movements across the country, or even the Civil Rights movements in the mid-twentieth century, it could takes years or even decades to uncover all of the surveillance mobilized by the government during the summer of 2020. Fortunately, the ACLU of Northern California has already exposed CHPs aerial surveillance against the protests for Black lives.
We must act now to protect future protestors from the civil liberties infringements the government conjures on a regular basis. Aerial surveillance of protests must stop.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Matthew Guariglia
Matthew Guariglia is a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) working on issues of surveillance and privacy at the local, state, and federal level. He received a PhD in history at the University of Connecticut where his research focused on the intersection of race, immigration, U.S. imperialism, and policing in New York City.
The ACLU of Northern California has concluded a year-long Freedom of Information campaign by uncovering massive spying on Black Lives Matter protests from the air. The California Highway Patrol directed aerial surveillance, mostly done by helicopters, over protests in Berkeley, Oakland, Palo Alto, Placerville, Riverside, Sacramento, San Francisco, and San Luis Obispo. The footage, which you can watch online, includes police zooming in on individual protestors, die-ins, and vigils for victims of police violence.
"Many people would be deterred from attending a demonstration protesting against police violence if they knew the police were going to film their face, and potentially identify them."
You can sign the ACLU's petition opposing this surveillance here.
Dragnet aerial surveillance is often unconstitutional. In summer 2021, the Fourth Circuit ruled that Baltimore's aerial surveillance program, which surveilled large swaths of the city without a warrant, violated the Fourth Amendment right to privacy for city residents. Police planes or helicopters flying overhead can easily track and trace an individual as they go about their day--before, during, and after a protest. If a government helicopter follows a group of people leaving a protest and returning home or going to a house of worship, there are many facts about these people that can be inferred.
Not to mention, high-tech political spying makes people vulnerable to retribution and reprisals by the government. Despite their constitutional rights, many people would be chilled and deterred from attending a demonstration protesting against police violence if they knew the police were going to film their face, and potentially identify them and keep a record of their First Amendment activity.
The U.S. government has been spying on protest movements for as long as there have been protest movements. The protests for Black Lives in the summer of 2020 were no exception. For over a year, civil rights groups and investigative journalists have been uncovering the diversity of invasive tactics and technologies used by police to surveil protestors and activists exercising their First Amendment rights. Earlier this year, for example, EFF uncovered how the Los Angeles Police Department requested Amazon Ring surveillance doorbell footage of protests in an attempt to find "criminal behavior." We also discovered that police accessed BID cameras in Union Square to spy on protestors.
Like the surveillance used against water protectors at the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, the Occupy movements across the country, or even the Civil Rights movements in the mid-twentieth century, it could takes years or even decades to uncover all of the surveillance mobilized by the government during the summer of 2020. Fortunately, the ACLU of Northern California has already exposed CHPs aerial surveillance against the protests for Black lives.
We must act now to protect future protestors from the civil liberties infringements the government conjures on a regular basis. Aerial surveillance of protests must stop.
Matthew Guariglia
Matthew Guariglia is a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) working on issues of surveillance and privacy at the local, state, and federal level. He received a PhD in history at the University of Connecticut where his research focused on the intersection of race, immigration, U.S. imperialism, and policing in New York City.
The ACLU of Northern California has concluded a year-long Freedom of Information campaign by uncovering massive spying on Black Lives Matter protests from the air. The California Highway Patrol directed aerial surveillance, mostly done by helicopters, over protests in Berkeley, Oakland, Palo Alto, Placerville, Riverside, Sacramento, San Francisco, and San Luis Obispo. The footage, which you can watch online, includes police zooming in on individual protestors, die-ins, and vigils for victims of police violence.
"Many people would be deterred from attending a demonstration protesting against police violence if they knew the police were going to film their face, and potentially identify them."
You can sign the ACLU's petition opposing this surveillance here.
Dragnet aerial surveillance is often unconstitutional. In summer 2021, the Fourth Circuit ruled that Baltimore's aerial surveillance program, which surveilled large swaths of the city without a warrant, violated the Fourth Amendment right to privacy for city residents. Police planes or helicopters flying overhead can easily track and trace an individual as they go about their day--before, during, and after a protest. If a government helicopter follows a group of people leaving a protest and returning home or going to a house of worship, there are many facts about these people that can be inferred.
Not to mention, high-tech political spying makes people vulnerable to retribution and reprisals by the government. Despite their constitutional rights, many people would be chilled and deterred from attending a demonstration protesting against police violence if they knew the police were going to film their face, and potentially identify them and keep a record of their First Amendment activity.
The U.S. government has been spying on protest movements for as long as there have been protest movements. The protests for Black Lives in the summer of 2020 were no exception. For over a year, civil rights groups and investigative journalists have been uncovering the diversity of invasive tactics and technologies used by police to surveil protestors and activists exercising their First Amendment rights. Earlier this year, for example, EFF uncovered how the Los Angeles Police Department requested Amazon Ring surveillance doorbell footage of protests in an attempt to find "criminal behavior." We also discovered that police accessed BID cameras in Union Square to spy on protestors.
Like the surveillance used against water protectors at the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, the Occupy movements across the country, or even the Civil Rights movements in the mid-twentieth century, it could takes years or even decades to uncover all of the surveillance mobilized by the government during the summer of 2020. Fortunately, the ACLU of Northern California has already exposed CHPs aerial surveillance against the protests for Black lives.
We must act now to protect future protestors from the civil liberties infringements the government conjures on a regular basis. Aerial surveillance of protests must stop.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.