{"id":291390,"date":"2023-05-22T10:36:13","date_gmt":"2023-05-22T15:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=291390"},"modified":"2023-05-19T20:43:03","modified_gmt":"2023-05-20T01:43:03","slug":"us-marshals-monitored-abortion-protests-dataminr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/us-marshals-monitored-abortion-protests-dataminr\/","title":{"rendered":"US Marshals service reportedly monitored abortion protests with Dataminr"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

The U.S. Marshals office, which is responsible for protecting the federal court system, is facing scrutiny for receiving alerts about pro-abortion social media chatter from the monitoring service Dataminr.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Internal emails obtained by The Intercept reportedly showed the Marshal\u2019s Service receiving information about protests following the leaked draft opinion in <\/span>Dobbs<\/span><\/i>. Those included tweets about events like the protest at St. Patrick\u2019s Cathedral in New York City.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to The Intercept, the Marshals received email digests based on particular search terms. The outlet said the service subscribed to topics like \u201c\u2018SCOTUS Mentions,\u2019 \u2018Federal Courthouses and Personnel Hazards_V2,\u2019 \u2018Public Safety Critical Events,\u2019 \u2018Attorneys,\u2019 and \u2018Officials.\u2019\u201d Emails reportedly indicated that the service would receive notice of mentions of certain political figures like judges and state attorneys general.<\/span><\/p>\n

The outlet reported:<\/span><\/p>\n

The lists suggest that the Marshals were not specifically seeking information on abortion rallies; rather, the agency had cast such a broad surveillance net that large volumes of innocuous First Amendment-protected activity regularly got swept up as potential security threats. What the Marshals did with the information Dataminr collected remains unknown.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

The Intercept\u2019s discovery as well as recent events in the abortion debate have fueled an age-old debate about the balance between security and civil liberties.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As Live Action News <\/span>previously noted<\/span><\/a>, pro-life centers <\/span>encountered<\/span><\/a> threats, vandalism, and even fire bombing as the nation awaited the final decision in <\/span>Dobbs<\/span><\/i>. The Department of Homeland Security even released a memo in May that warned of a \u201csignificant increase in violent threats\u2014many made online via social media and some of which are under investigation\u2014directed toward some US Supreme Court Justices and the Supreme Court building.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Walgreens<\/a><\/p>\n

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the leaked opinion, has gone as far as to argue that he and the other justices who signed onto his opinion were \u201ctargets of assassination<\/a>.\u201d And, in fact, a California man who plotted to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh was arrested<\/a> in Maryland.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to The Intercept, Dataminr sent a series of alerts related to the protests<\/a> planned at or near the homes of Supreme Court justices. Other alerts seemed not to indicate threats. For example, one showed a fan account for Timothee Chalamet saying \u201ci would destroy the met gala.\u201d \u201cDestroy\u201d in this context is presumably slang for dominating or stealing the show, as the outlet noted. Another seemed to contain incoherent spam.<\/span><\/p>\n

Monitoring Twitter posts is somewhat different than surveilling private venues or even public street corners. Its users are deliberately broadcasting messages for the public to see. Still, experts interviewed by The Intercept have argued that the U.S. Marshals went too far in their apparent attempts to keep the peace.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe more it\u2019s made public that law enforcement is gathering up this info broadly about U.S. residents and citizens, it has a chilling effect on whether people are willing to express themselves and attend protests and plan protests,\u201d said Mary Pat Dwyer, the academic program director of the Institute for Technology Law and Policy at Georgetown University.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Another, Jennifer Granick of the ACLU, argued that Dataminr\u2019s \u201cfirehose\u201d feature, which allows clients to comb through Twitter posts in real time, is \u201cripe for abuse, but it\u2019s not subject to either legislative or judicial oversight.\u201d <\/span>Granick also argued that \u201ca tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of protests at courthouses pose any kind of risk of either property damage or personal injury.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Twitter policy<\/span><\/a> also forbids third parties from using the platform to monitor \u201csensitive events\u201d like protests without the company\u2019s consent. The social media giant reportedly didn\u2019t respond to The Intercept\u2019s request for comment. Neither did the U.S. Marshals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Dataminr, however, denied violating Twitter\u2019s policy. In a statement, Dataminr spokesperson Georgia Walker reportedly said: \u201cDataminr supports all public sector clients with a product called First Alert which was specifically developed with input from Twitter, and fully complies with Twitter\u2019s policies and the policies of all our data providers.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Walker added that \u201cFirst Alert delivers breaking news alerts enabling first responders to respond more quickly to public safety emergencies. First Alert is not permitted to be used for surveillance of any kind by First Alert users. First Alert provides a public good while ensuring maximum protections for privacy and civil liberties.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time law enforcement has encountered scrutiny for suspicions that it monitored activists in the abortion debate. Live Action President Lila Rose previously <\/span>called out<\/span><\/a> the FBI for allegedly using an undercover informant to record a meeting of Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising activists.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) sent Attorney General Merrick Garland a letter requesting additional information on the alleged informant\u2019s actions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAllegations that the FBI is spying on pro-life gatherings in tandem with the rise in high-profile FBI investigations into <\/span>pro-life Americans<\/span><\/a> raise well-founded concerns for millions of Americans,\u201d the lawmakers wrote. \u201cThe American people deserve the truth \u2013 are their tax dollars and federal law enforcement agencies being used to spy on pro-life Americans?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Did you know that as little as $10 a month is enough to reach more than 3,000 people with the truth about abortion that no one else is telling them? Click here to start saving lives 365 days a year.<\/i><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Marshals office, which is responsible for protecting the federal court system, is facing scrutiny for receiving alerts about pro-abortion social media chatter from the monitoring service Dataminr.\u00a0 Internal emails obtained by The Intercept reportedly showed the Marshal\u2019s Service receiving information about protests following the leaked draft opinion in Dobbs. Those included tweets about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":868,"featured_media":291574,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nUS Marshals service reportedly monitored abortion protests with Dataminr<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The U.S. Marshals office, responsible for protecting the federal court system, is facing scrutiny for receiving alerts about pro-abortion social media chatter.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/us-marshals-monitored-abortion-protests-dataminr\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"US Marshals service reportedly monitored 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