In what is starting to look like COINTELPRO updated and outsourced for the 21st century, it was recently revealed that cybersecurity firm ZeroFox monitored at least two high-profile Black Lives Matter protest organizers and labeled them as 'physical threats' in secret reports to Baltimore city administrators and to an unnamed 'classified partner' organization at Fort Meade (headquarters of the NSA and other intelligence agencies).
McKesson and Elzie both tell Mother Jones they were "not surprised" that they were being watched. "It confirms that us telling the truth about police violence is seen as a threat," McKesson says. Both activists say they do not know why they were identified as physical threats. McKesson and Elzie live in Missouri, where they helped organize the Ferguson protests. They traveled together to Baltimore for a week and a half during the Freddie Gray protests.
This classification of non-violent political protesters as threats follows the nationwide, FBI-orchestrated purge of the Occupy movement that was legally enabled by labeling them a terrorist threat.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 09 2015, @02:26AM
Negative mods do still lower a comment's score. Except Disagree, which is a +0 mod.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by gman003 on Sunday August 09 2015, @02:46AM
Odd, I must have misremembered the announcement about that change.
So now instead of an incorrect hypothesis as to why unsavory comments are on the rise, I have no hypothesis. Which is better but still not good.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2015, @03:18AM
You just haven't read enough to notice them. Your UID is relatively high. I don't think we've cracked 6000 yet.