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posted by janrinok on Thursday October 13 2016, @05:27AM   Printer-friendly
from the trust-no-one dept.

Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have revoked access to their data to an analytics firm accused of selling information that allowed US police to track activists and protesters.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said Chicago-based Geofeedia had allowed police to "sneak in through a side door" to monitor protests.

Geofeedia said it was committed to the principles of personal privacy.

It comes amid growing concern about government access to social media.

ACLU said Geofeedia had been marketing its services to police agencies to help track activists using location data and social media posts.

The group said it had seen internal documents in which Geofeedia said that it "covered Ferguson/Mike Brown nationally with great success," referring to protests which erupted in 2014 after an unarmed African-American man was shot dead by police.


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  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday October 13 2016, @04:28PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Thursday October 13 2016, @04:28PM (#413952)

    That's a reason why the trend in activist circles is to have protests without defined leaders: If there's a defined leadership, then that leadership is invariably targeted for arrests on trumped up charges directly before the protest.

    For an example, on the eve of the Republican National Convention back in 2004, a large group of activists were arrested on the grounds that the PVC pipe they were using to make street puppets could also be used for making bombs. The cases were all thrown out as soon as they could get in front of a judge, but the police made sure that they were in jail during the approved time for the protest, so the protest did not take place.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Thursday October 13 2016, @11:47PM

    by edIII (791) on Thursday October 13 2016, @11:47PM (#414112)

    Another trend in activist circles is to abandon the Internet entirely, and completely forbid social media for all logistical purposes.

    You can talk about shit on social media, but when the time comes to get serious about what dates you will be doing what and were, it goes offline. Which is a real boon for myself, since I'm not missing any important communications by not participating in social media.

    Many of the activist groups I've been participating with this year approached me on foot, and haven't dealt with me over the Internet at all. Phone calls are the preferred method, and we have training for obfuscation policies where we use nicknames and initials when referring to people. Nobody is ever allowed to mention a date, place, or time over the phone. Just confirmations that plans are underway and to meet at your designated staging location.

    When it comes time to protest, we're divided up into groups with our message each with its own captain, ready in stages in case the first group gets nailed by the police. It also helps if your group has lawyers staged in the lawyerpult ready to go.

    Interestingly enough, future protests will forbid the carrying of smart phones with their batteries in place. We won't even be tracked during the protest. It takes more leadership and logistics, but it is possible and extremely effective at deterring government surveillance.

    Activist circles *have* gotten smarter. We're going offline :)

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