A Freedom of Information Request performed by The Intercept has uncovered endless monitoring of the Black Lives Matter movement by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) since protests erupted last year (2014). DHS operates under The DHS National Operations Center statutory authority (Section 515 of the Homeland Security Act (6 U.S.C. § 321d(b))) and is limited to providing situational awareness and establishing a common operating picture for the federal government, and for state, local, tribal governments as appropriate, in the event of a natural disaster, act of terrorism, or other man-made disaster, and ensures that critical terrorism and disaster-related information reaches government decision-makers.
Situational awareness is what has many concerned. DHS was specifically tasked when it was created with providing terrorism-related updates to the federal government. The idea of situational awareness being provided to federal, state, and tribal governments implies that they consider the Black Lives Matter movement to be terrorist-related or have the ability to become terrorist in nature. This raises serious questions about the activities of DHS and whether they are truly providing terrorism intelligence to the government(s) or if they have intentions of quelling first amendment-based domestic demonstrations. Whether they actually do anything with the intelligence is beside the point. Their surveillance alone is enough to discourage most American citizens from taking part in the protests, social media, or vigils associated with the movement.
Baher Azmy, a legal director at the Center for Constitutional Rights, said with regard to the concerns raised about DHS providing situational awareness intelligence:
“providing situational awareness is just another word for surveillance and that creating this body of knowledge about perfectly legal events is a problem in and of itself. What they call situational awareness is Orwellian speak for watching and intimidation. Over time there’s a serious harm to the associational rights of the protesters and it’s an effective way to chill protest movements. The average person would be less likely to go to a Black Lives Matter protest if the government is monitoring social media, Facebook, and their movements.”
