SoylentNews

takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Twitter has cut off U.S. fusion center access to Dataminr [aclunc.org], a partly-owned search tool that sifts through tweets in real time:

As of this week, Twitter has made sure that federally funded fusion centers can no longer use a powerful social media monitoring tool to spy on users. After the ACLU of California discovered [aclunc.org] the domestic spy centers had access to these tools, provided by Dataminr [dataminr.com] (a company partly owned by Twitter), Dataminr was forced to comply with Twitter's clear rule prohibiting use of data [twitter.com] for surveillance. Twitter sent a letter [aclunc.org] to the ACLU of California this week confirming that Dataminr has terminated access for all fusion center accounts. The letter also makes clear that Dataminr will no longer provide social media surveillance tools to any local, state, or federal government customer.

[...] This Twitter and Dataminr announcement [aclunc.org] applies to all seventy-seven fusion centers [dhs.gov] (six in California alone) that are currently operating in states across the country. These domestic spy centers—local-state-federal partnerships that aim to collect and analyze vast amounts of information to connect the dots about "threats"—have a history of sweeping in constitutionally protected political [aclu.org], religious, and artistic activity [aclunc.org]. These spy centers also gather information about innocent people deemed "suspicious" by law enforcement – people like ACLU client Tariq Razak, a "male of Middle Eastern" descent [aclunc.org] who was waiting in a train station for his mother to use the restroom.

[...] In an email to the Los Angeles Police Department [aclunc.org], Dataminr also highlighted how its products could be customized to track protests by drawing from the complete Twitter "firehose" of public tweets. In a separate brochure [aclunc.org], Dataminr touted the Geospatial App's use to surveil a student protest. [...] Dataminr has now committed that it will not provide government customers with data access or features that allow for "any form of surveillance [aclunc.org]."

Also at The Guardian [theguardian.com] and The Verge [theverge.com].

This all sounds very familiar...

Previously: Twitter Cuts Off U.S. Spy Agency Access to Search Tool [soylentnews.org]

Oh, right. Tune in next year when Twitter blocks a government-colluding advertising firm from tapping that sweet, sweet data.

Original Submission