theintercept--2020-08-17--The Contours of Atlanta’s Policing Debate

the Atlanta City Council was given a test .
Protests had rocked the city since June , when the nation reacted to the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis .
Then , Atlanta police killed a Black man , Rayshard Brooks , after a DUI stop at a Wendy ’ s drive-thru .
According to footage from body cams , Brooks was running away from the officers , one of whom shot him twice in the back .
The next day , protesters blocked the interstate .
That night , arsonists among the demonstrators set the Wendy ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ police .
More flash-bang grenades in the street .
Sonic cannons dispersed crowds in the blackest of Black Atlanta and posh gentrified neighborhoods north .
The embattled district attorney levied charges against two officers for Brooks ’ s death : Garrett Rolfe and Devin Brosnan .
And then the cops went on strike , more or less .
They pulled back from street work .
For a few days , calls to service met radio silence .
Cops mostly refrained from making arrests for anything less than a shooting with injuries .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” they seemed to say , “ This is what that looks like.
” Seizing the moment , Antonio Brown , an outspoken , young , Black city council member , proposed to sequester about a third of the police budget — $ 73 million out of $ 218 million — and reallocate it to social services .
This is what activists were really calling for : a “ defund the police ” strategy with robust support network to replace it .
Holding back the money would give financial space for leaders to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ look like , Brown said .
The 15 members of the city council met over Zoom to discuss the proposal and hear feedback .
The meeting stretched over two days , because the city had 18 hours of public comment to air .
And then Black city council members shot it down .
The vote was eight to seven , with five Black council members voting against it .
After already-massive street protests had escalated , the vote left demonstrators wondering what the hell it ’ s going to take to change the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have already happened .
And Atlanta is complicated .
Black voters are a lot more complicated than people new to politics realize , generally .
There ’ s no consensus in the African American community here about what to do , even now , even after all of this .
“ There ’ s oftentimes this general misunderstanding in terms of how Black people think .
… We ’ re not monolithic thinkers , ” Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms told me in July , after the vote .
( Bottoms did not offer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) “ In many issues , we can be the most conservative of conservative people .
… When you speak of older communities , they ask for more police , not less .
They ’ re the same ones who take honey-baked hams and turkeys over to the zone precincts at Christmastime and Thanksgiving , and they ’ re constantly checking in on them and showing their appreciation.
” Atlanta ’ s Black middle class produced Bottoms .
The mayor is the child of ’ 60s soul singer Major Lance , a boxer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on their first American tour .
Lance struggled later in life — he was sentenced to a four-year prison term in 1978 for cocaine distribution — but his daughter went on to law school and to work as a prosecutor in juvenile court .
She served two terms on the Atlanta City Council representing the westside neighborhood of her youth before being elected mayor .
The people Bottoms described are the ones she grew up around .
And while Atlanta is famously filled to overflowing with transplants , almost all of her old @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Peyton Woods neighborhood in southwest Atlanta .
It ’ s old — more than 4 in 10 households has someone over 65 living in it , the highest proportion of elderly residents in the city .
Black people bought into the subdivision when it started in the ’ 60s .
By and large , they ’ ve stayed there and they ’ re going to die there .
Atlanta is gentrifying , but Peyton Woods remains almost exclusively Black and resolutely middle class .
The folks who live there , for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and postmen and social workers , with some retired judges and lawyers and clergy sprinkled in .
It ’ s not just a quiet neighborhood : It is a neighborhood that demands quiet .
Persistently .
Janet Lane Martin moved into Peyton Woods in the early ’ 80s after graduating from Spelman College and still thinks of herself as one of the new people .
“ Police reform … is one of these complicated issues , ” Martin said .
“ You look at it from how you should see it , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ experienced .
My daughter and I see the world completely differently , even though I raised her .
Older people would put their money on the police .
But you know what ?
Black people don ’ t call the police unless their backs are against the wall , and that doesn ’ t matter what socioeconomic class you are.
” Martin , 69 , is a retired social worker .
She ’ s bent the ear of half of the city ’ s administration at one point or another — about roads @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
At one point , an Atlanta assistant police chief assigned a lieutenant to take her phone calls .
She ’ s not thrilled with Atlanta ’ s police .
But she doesn ’ t want fewer cops .
She wants better cops .
“ Most of those guys aren ’ t worth nothing , ” she said .
“ What the police are good for is documenting .
If somebody is coming at you , they ’ ve got to get here , and that can take a while .
It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a survey about police reform measures to the neighborhood association on a Zoom meeting , she didn ’ t bother to fill it out because she was too busy trying to flag down a police zone commander to help her look at an apparent sexual assault at one of the “ new ” houses , she said .
“ I got the community prosecutor to give me his email address .
He said he would follow up with it.
” Peyton Woods fights .
They know exactly how to register a complaint .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ wrestles with police reform , the city government has to contend with hours of strident public commentary calling for police reform in one ear , and the quiet reservations of neighborhood leaders like Martin in the other .
She is exactly the sort of person elected officials live in fear of , because she ’ s going to be around forever and can move half a neighborhood of reliable voters .
That is how you get a majority of Black city council people to vote against a police reform proposal .
for it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who supported it .
Smith has represented an especially diverse swath of the city for nearly 20 years , and has counted on as much Black support in the Lakewood and Cornell neighborhoods of south Atlanta as she has in the increasingly posh and increasingly white neighborhoods of Summerhill and Grant Park .
She ’ s been reconsidering that vote .
“ The people who are upset are the ones who call you , ” she said .
A few days after the vote , Smith started fielding phone calls from Black neighborhood @ @ @ @ @ @ @ supports the idea .
But the messaging around it sucks , she said .
One conversation with a longtime friend struck her .
“ She said , ‘ Carla ?
Your folk are upset .
They are pissed .
They think you ’ re doing this to placate the white people.
’ ” Smith said .
“ It ’ s mostly white people who are saying defund the police .
She was like , ‘ You know we need the police.
’ In poor communities , you ’ ve got robberies and cars @ @ @ @ @ @ @ affluent neighborhoods ?
They ’ ve got cameras .
They go on vacation .
We really went over some of this .
It really made me think about this more.
” Marci Collier Overstreet is Black and represents the predominantly Black westside Atlanta City Council district formerly held by the mayor .
She ’ s leads her conversations with “ reform policing ” and not “ defund the police , ” for exactly the same reasons Smith notes .
“ My district is telling me that they just want to feel safe .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ want a better relationship with their police officers , but they don ’ t want less police officers , ” Overstreet said .
“ I don ’ t think there ’ s a broad stroke that can happen for policing throughout the city , where you can take away a full budget and you can take away half the police and change overnight the way the police do business .
I don ’ t think I would be a good councilperson doing it that way .
We have to get in and change @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wrong.
” Some people in the rich , primarily white Buckhead neighborhood seem to want to split off entirely from the city .
Inequality is highly visible , beyond the latest outrages of Buckhead Betty in a Bentley complaining about a confrontation with kids selling water on a street corner .
Separatism in Buckhead has no real hope of success , but it speaks to the anxieties of rich people about the way the city handled protests and an increase in street-level crime , said Council Member J.P. Matzigkeit , who represents much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the proposal .
“ The sentiment is here .
How do we control our own destiny ?
” he said .
“ We in Buckhead overwhelmingly support the police .
… It ’ s going to take a long time for us to build up a police force with as much morale and confidence and effectiveness as we had in the past .
We have to change policing while at the same time as supporting the police.
” The city council members representing older districts are sharply at odds with what younger voters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Council Member Antonio Brown spoke passionately about this disconnect when defending his proposal .
“ I ’ ve been in these protests , and I ’ ve been speaking to the young people , ” Brown said .
“ These young people feel so disengaged from you guys .
They don ’ t even know half of you.
” Brown is the first openly gay Black man elected to the city council .
Roughly 1 in 7 Atlantans identify in the LGBTQ community .
Atlanta has become a magnet for young gay people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to find escape from religiously intolerant homes .
And this community has a particularly fraught relationship with Atlanta ’ s cops over abusive policing .
The problem , Brown noted , was how little the rhetoric of reform and addressing inequality matches the reality for young people in Atlanta .
“ Rayshard Brooks is not the first unarmed Black man to die in Atlanta , ” Brown said .
“ We ’ ve had so many opportunities to put forth legislation to address the egregious incidents that have occurred in public safety .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ deaths of these lives .
This isn ’ t about pointing fingers .
It ’ s about taking accountability for our collective lack of action .
… .
What ’ s important about this resolution is that it ’ s no longer about talking about the changes we need to make ; it ’ s about allowing our actions to be a reflection of the things we ’ re saying.
” People who are following Black Lives Matter posts online , watching the protests unfold in Portland , Oregon — and in their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the same information network that older Black voters rely on .
Social media is no gauge for measuring Black neighborhood sentiment , Bottoms said .
“ If I want to communicate with my 60- and 70-year-old constituents , the quickest way to ensure that they will not see it is to put it up on Instagram , ” Bottoms said .
“ Those seniors aren ’ t glued to their cellphones .
They still have landlines .
They ’ re a silent majority and they ’ re not on social media .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the megaphone and this elevated platform at their disposal , but they are certainly speaking when they gather around in church basements and getting together in [ community ] meetings and sitting in the window of McDonald ’ s with their coffee in their morning chat groups.
” behind shifting money to social services is evident to anyone who has tried to help someone experiencing homelessness in an Atlanta neighborhood .
And the push and pull between older Black voters and young voters demanding change isn ’ t unique to Atlanta .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jr. in Brooklyn described the police defunding movement as “ political gentrification ” in the New York Times .
Philadelphia ’ s city council introduced a package of reforms aimed at diversifying its police force and rejected a budget increase , but have not reduced police services .
Detroit is adopting many of the NAACP ’ s policy language , but there , too , officials representing high-crime neighborhoods push back against the “ defund ” language .
“ I can tell you , residents aren ’ t asking to defund police — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but what they ’ re asking for is actually more police , ” said Detroit Council Member Scott Benson to the Detroit News .
“ Historically , crime is what drove people away from the city .
… We need to take a long , hard look at this before we start talking about defunding a police department that ’ s already underfunded.
” But the “ how ” of change — how to spin up something new or expand something in place , and how to do it without creating new problems @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A week after the first reform vote failed , the city council unanimously voted to adopt Campaign Zero ’ s “ 8 Can ’ t Wait ” proposal .
The proposal , among other things , bans chokeholds and requires deescalation before use of force .
“ 8 Can ’ t Wait ” doesn ’ t cut it with many protesters , but Bottoms vetoed the bill on technical grounds , saying that it would not pass constitutional muster in its current form .
The city already bans chokeholds as a policy and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she noted .
“ It takes an enormous amount of discipline not to buy into the noise , ” Bottoms said .
“ It doesn ’ t mean that the noise is right or wrong , but you have to know that what ’ s before you might not be reflective of the whole .
Even when you begin to get emails , you have to know your community and the areas you represent.
” The city has taken some tentative steps since the votes failed .
It increased funding for the city @ @ @ @ @ @ @ city council resubmitted the “ 8 Can ’ t Wait ” proposal as a resolution .
The city formed an advisory council in the days after the Brooks shooting to recommend changes on the Atlanta police ’ s use of force .
The council returned 10 recommendations last week , which include overhauling the police use of force continuum to emphasize deescalation , mandating immediate drug testing for officers involved in an incident in which serious injury or death occurs , and conducting more exhaustive background checks and additional screenings — including mental @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at social media history — for police applicants .
Now begins the tedium of governance : hours of city council meetings and committee meetings and community meetings that lead to policy change .
The burning of the Wendy ’ s provided spectacle .
But the complexity of the law , and the complexity of the politics , are the enemy of instant solutions .

In July, the Atlanta City Council was given a test.
Protests had rocked the city since June, when the nation reacted to the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Then, Atlanta police killed a Black man, Rayshard Brooks, after a DUI stop at a Wendy’s drive-thru. According to footage from body cams, Brooks was running away from the officers, one of whom shot him twice in the back.
The next day, protesters blocked the interstate. That night, arsonists among the demonstrators set the Wendy’s on fire.
More tear gas from police. More flash-bang grenades in the street. Sonic cannons dispersed crowds in the blackest of Black Atlanta and posh gentrified neighborhoods north. The embattled district attorney levied charges against two officers for Brooks’s death: Garrett Rolfe and Devin Brosnan.
And then the cops went on strike, more or less. They pulled back from street work. For a few days, calls to service met radio silence. Cops mostly refrained from making arrests for anything less than a shooting with injuries. “You want a defunded police department?” they seemed to say, “This is what that looks like.”
Seizing the moment, Antonio Brown, an outspoken, young, Black city council member, proposed to sequester about a third of the police budget — $73 million out of $218 million — and reallocate it to social services. This is what activists were really calling for: a “defund the police” strategy with robust support network to replace it. Holding back the money would give financial space for leaders to argue through what a proper reform might look like, Brown said.
The 15 members of the city council met over Zoom to discuss the proposal and hear feedback. The meeting stretched over two days, because the city had 18 hours of public comment to air.
And then Black city council members shot it down. The vote was eight to seven, with five Black council members voting against it.
After already-massive street protests had escalated, the vote left demonstrators wondering what the hell it’s going to take to change the police department.
If change were uncomplicated, it would have already happened. And Atlanta is complicated. Black voters are a lot more complicated than people new to politics realize, generally. There’s no consensus in the African American community here about what to do, even now, even after all of this.
“There’s oftentimes this general misunderstanding in terms of how Black people think. … We’re not monolithic thinkers,” Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms told me in July, after the vote. (Bottoms did not offer an opinion on the proposal itself.) “In many issues, we can be the most conservative of conservative people. … When you speak of older communities, they ask for more police, not less. They’re the same ones who take honey-baked hams and turkeys over to the zone precincts at Christmastime and Thanksgiving, and they’re constantly checking in on them and showing their appreciation.”
Atlanta’s Black middle class produced Bottoms. The mayor is the child of ’60s soul singer Major Lance, a boxer turned musician who opened for the Beatles on their first American tour. Lance struggled later in life — he was sentenced to a four-year prison term in 1978 for cocaine distribution — but his daughter went on to law school and to work as a prosecutor in juvenile court. She served two terms on the Atlanta City Council representing the westside neighborhood of her youth before being elected mayor.
The people Bottoms described are the ones she grew up around. And while Atlanta is famously filled to overflowing with transplants, almost all of her old neighbors are still right there.
Consider the Peyton Woods neighborhood in southwest Atlanta. It’s old — more than 4 in 10 households has someone over 65 living in it, the highest proportion of elderly residents in the city. Black people bought into the subdivision when it started in the ’60s. By and large, they’ve stayed there and they’re going to die there. Atlanta is gentrifying, but Peyton Woods remains almost exclusively Black and resolutely middle class. The folks who live there, for the most part, are long-retired school teachers and postmen and social workers, with some retired judges and lawyers and clergy sprinkled in. It’s not just a quiet neighborhood: It is a neighborhood that demands quiet. Persistently.
There’s no consensus in the African American community here about what to do, even now, even after all of this.
Janet Lane Martin moved into Peyton Woods in the early ’80s after graduating from Spelman College and still thinks of herself as one of the new people. “Police reform … is one of these complicated issues,” Martin said. “You look at it from how you should see it, and then from the reality you’ve experienced. My daughter and I see the world completely differently, even though I raised her. Older people would put their money on the police. But you know what? Black people don’t call the police unless their backs are against the wall, and that doesn’t matter what socioeconomic class you are.”
Martin, 69, is a retired social worker. She’s bent the ear of half of the city’s administration at one point or another — about roads, about code violations, about trash. At one point, an Atlanta assistant police chief assigned a lieutenant to take her phone calls. She’s not thrilled with Atlanta’s police. But she doesn’t want fewer cops. She wants better cops.
“Most of those guys aren’t worth nothing,” she said. “What the police are good for is documenting. If somebody is coming at you, they’ve got to get here, and that can take a while. It’s quality.”
When the city floated a survey about police reform measures to the neighborhood association on a Zoom meeting, she didn’t bother to fill it out because she was too busy trying to flag down a police zone commander to help her look at an apparent sexual assault at one of the “new” houses, she said. “I got the community prosecutor to give me his email address. He said he would follow up with it.”
Peyton Woods fights. They know exactly how to register a complaint. Peyton Woods votes. And as Atlanta wrestles with police reform, the city government has to contend with hours of strident public commentary calling for police reform in one ear, and the quiet reservations of neighborhood leaders like Martin in the other. She is exactly the sort of person elected officials live in fear of, because she’s going to be around forever and can move half a neighborhood of reliable voters.
That is how you get a majority of Black city council people to vote against a police reform proposal.
Carla Smith voted for it, one of four white council members who supported it. Smith has represented an especially diverse swath of the city for nearly 20 years, and has counted on as much Black support in the Lakewood and Cornell neighborhoods of south Atlanta as she has in the increasingly posh and increasingly white neighborhoods of Summerhill and Grant Park.
She’s been reconsidering that vote. “The people who are upset are the ones who call you,” she said. A few days after the vote, Smith started fielding phone calls from Black neighborhood leaders, she said.
Carla Smith poses for a portrait on August 14, 2020. Photo: Lynsey Weatherspoon for The Intercept
She still supports the idea. But the messaging around it sucks, she said.
One conversation with a longtime friend struck her.
“She said, ‘Carla? Your folk are upset. They are pissed. They think you’re doing this to placate the white people.’” Smith said. “It’s mostly white people who are saying defund the police. She was like, ‘You know we need the police.’ In poor communities, you’ve got robberies and cars being stolen. You get into the affluent neighborhoods? They’ve got cameras. They go on vacation. We really went over some of this. It really made me think about this more.”
Read Our Complete Coverage Protests for Black Lives
Marci Collier Overstreet is Black and represents the predominantly Black westside Atlanta City Council district formerly held by the mayor. She’s leads her conversations with “reform policing” and not “defund the police,” for exactly the same reasons Smith notes.
“My district is telling me that they just want to feel safe. They want law and order. They want a better relationship with their police officers, but they don’t want less police officers,” Overstreet said. “I don’t think there’s a broad stroke that can happen for policing throughout the city, where you can take away a full budget and you can take away half the police and change overnight the way the police do business. I don’t think I would be a good councilperson doing it that way. We have to get in and change some of the things we know are wrong.”
Some people in the rich, primarily white Buckhead neighborhood seem to want to split off entirely from the city. Inequality is highly visible, beyond the latest outrages of Buckhead Betty in a Bentley complaining about a confrontation with kids selling water on a street corner.
Separatism in Buckhead has no real hope of success, but it speaks to the anxieties of rich people about the way the city handled protests and an increase in street-level crime, said Council Member J.P. Matzigkeit, who represents much of the neighborhood and who voted against the proposal.
“The sentiment is here. How do we control our own destiny?” he said. “We in Buckhead overwhelmingly support the police. … It’s going to take a long time for us to build up a police force with as much morale and confidence and effectiveness as we had in the past. We have to change policing while at the same time as supporting the police.”
The city council members representing older districts are sharply at odds with what younger voters hear and see — and say. Council Member Antonio Brown spoke passionately about this disconnect when defending his proposal. “I’ve been in these protests, and I’ve been speaking to the young people,” Brown said. “These young people feel so disengaged from you guys. They don’t even know half of you.”
“I’ve been in these protests, and I’ve been speaking to the young people. These young people feel so disengaged from you guys. They don’t even know half of you.”
Brown is the first openly gay Black man elected to the city council. Roughly 1 in 7 Atlantans identify in the LGBTQ community. Atlanta has become a magnet for young gay people of color across the South who need to find escape from religiously intolerant homes. And this community has a particularly fraught relationship with Atlanta’s cops over abusive policing. The problem, Brown noted, was how little the rhetoric of reform and addressing inequality matches the reality for young people in Atlanta.
“Rayshard Brooks is not the first unarmed Black man to die in Atlanta,” Brown said. “We’ve had so many opportunities to put forth legislation to address the egregious incidents that have occurred in public safety. We’re all responsible for the deaths of these lives. This isn’t about pointing fingers. It’s about taking accountability for our collective lack of action. …. What’s important about this resolution is that it’s no longer about talking about the changes we need to make; it’s about allowing our actions to be a reflection of the things we’re saying.”
People who are following Black Lives Matter posts online, watching the protests unfold in Portland, Oregon — and in their own city — aren’t participating in the same information network that older Black voters rely on. Social media is no gauge for measuring Black neighborhood sentiment, Bottoms said.
“If I want to communicate with my 60- and 70-year-old constituents, the quickest way to ensure that they will not see it is to put it up on Instagram,” Bottoms said. “Those seniors aren’t glued to their cellphones. They still have landlines. They’re a silent majority and they’re not on social media. Literally, they’re not out with the megaphone and this elevated platform at their disposal, but they are certainly speaking when they gather around in church basements and getting together in [community] meetings and sitting in the window of McDonald’s with their coffee in their morning chat groups.”
The logic behind shifting money to social services is evident to anyone who has tried to help someone experiencing homelessness in an Atlanta neighborhood. And the push and pull between older Black voters and young voters demanding change isn’t unique to Atlanta. New York City Council Member Robert Cornegy Jr. in Brooklyn described the police defunding movement as “political gentrification” in the New York Times. Philadelphia’s city council introduced a package of reforms aimed at diversifying its police force and rejected a budget increase, but have not reduced police services. Detroit is adopting many of the NAACP’s policy language, but there, too, officials representing high-crime neighborhoods push back against the “defund” language. “I can tell you, residents aren’t asking to defund police — they want police accountability for sure, but what they’re asking for is actually more police,” said Detroit Council Member Scott Benson to the Detroit News. “Historically, crime is what drove people away from the city. … We need to take a long, hard look at this before we start talking about defunding a police department that’s already underfunded.”
But the “how” of change — how to spin up something new or expand something in place, and how to do it without creating new problems — isn’t immediately apparent.
A week after the first reform vote failed, the city council unanimously voted to adopt Campaign Zero’s “8 Can’t Wait” proposal. The proposal, among other things, bans chokeholds and requires deescalation before use of force. “8 Can’t Wait” doesn’t cut it with many protesters, but Bottoms vetoed the bill on technical grounds, saying that it would not pass constitutional muster in its current form. The city already bans chokeholds as a policy and has adopted most of the measures, she noted.
“It takes an enormous amount of discipline not to buy into the noise,” Bottoms said. “It doesn’t mean that the noise is right or wrong, but you have to know that what’s before you might not be reflective of the whole. Even when you begin to get emails, you have to know your community and the areas you represent.”
The city has taken some tentative steps since the votes failed. It increased funding for the city’s prearrest diversion program. The city council resubmitted the “8 Can’t Wait” proposal as a resolution. The city formed an advisory council in the days after the Brooks shooting to recommend changes on the Atlanta police’s use of force. The council returned 10 recommendations last week, which include overhauling the police use of force continuum to emphasize deescalation, mandating immediate drug testing for officers involved in an incident in which serious injury or death occurs, and conducting more exhaustive background checks and additional screenings — including mental health and implicit bias assessments and looking at social media history — for police applicants.
Now begins the tedium of governance: hours of city council meetings and committee meetings and community meetings that lead to policy change. The burning of the Wendy’s provided spectacle. But the complexity of the law, and the complexity of the politics, are the enemy of instant solutions.


theintercept--2020-08-17--How Northern California's Police Intelligence Center Tracked Protests

Almost two weeks after a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd while he was handcuffed face down in the street , a hacker began exfiltrating 19 gigabytes of documents from the poorly secured Northern California Regional Intelligence Center website .
The NCRIC ( pronounced “ nick-rick ” ) fusion center shares information between federal agencies , local police departments across northern California , and private industry partners , including Silicon Valley companies .
It also provides local cops with analytical and technical support services such as monitoring social media or helping break into locked smartphones , and it hosts events @ @ @ @ @ @ @ data from NCRIC , provided to transparency collective DDoSecrets by a source identifying with the hacktivist collective Anonymous , was part of a larger breach of 251 police websites across the country known as BlueLeaks .
German authorities , acting on behalf of the U.S. government , seized the server DDoSecrets was using to distribute the BlueLeaks data , though the data itself is still publicly available on the internet using the peer-to-peer file sharing technology BitTorrent .
( Note : I ’ m a member of the DDoSecrets advisory board . )
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ period between George Floyd ’ s killing on May 25 and the evening of June 6 , when the latest information was exfiltrated ( judging from time stamps found in the leaked material ) , provide an unprecedented window into the internal workings and priorities of Northern California ’ s police intelligence agency during the recent waves of anti-police brutality protests .
One way that NCRIC shares information is by sending bulk emails to its partners .
Since the protests began , these have included vague , fear-inducing memos from the Department of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ threat of violent civil unrest , as well as more specific information , including emails sent at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. every day to more than 14,000 police officers across Northern California with updated lists of Black Lives Matter protests .
During the 13-day period covered in the hacked files , over half of the bulk emails NCRIC sent were related to monitoring and policing the largely peaceful protests .
Local police and other partners send information back to NCRIC by submitting “ Suspicious Activity Reports.
” Of the 21 civil unrest-related @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , most were local police posting information about upcoming protests , screenshots of tweets and Instagram posts about looting and rioting , as well as two instances of people threatening to shoot and kill Black Lives Matter protesters .
Another way local police interface with NCRIC is by requesting support .
Of the 20 civil unrest-related support requests during this period , most were providing information about upcoming protests to be added to the daily protest emails as well as requesting help monitoring social networks for information about the protests .
Two of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against white female teenagers who were facing doxxing or harassment after making racist statements and using anti-Black racial slurs .
Notably , a substantial portion of the intelligence on Black Lives Matter protests flowed through NCRIC ’ s Terrorism Liaison Officer program , whose purpose is to keep the intelligence center ’ s members “ engaged & knowledgeable about current terrorist tactics , techniques & trends , regional crime trends & threats , and Officer safety information.
” The terror-info program became a clearinghouse for information on upcoming demonstrations .
The weekend after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lives Matter protests were erupting throughout the country , NCRIC ’ s TLO sent an email to its 14,406 subscribers — mostly local police officers across Northern California — with a PDF containing a list of upcoming protests , their times , locations , and sometimes links to more information .
“ We will be providing a list of local protests twice daily at 1000 and 1800 , until further notice , ” the email said .
“ This information is for Situational Awareness only .
Agencies may use this information for planning/staffing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” adding , “ Some of these events involve criminal activities such as planned looting , vandalism and threats of violence.
” Between May 31 and June 6 , NCRIC sent these emails out every morning , and again with an updated list every evening .
June 5 ’ s evening email listed 46 protest events scheduled for June 6 in San Francisco , San Jose , Palo Alto , Berkeley , Oakland , and other Bay Area cities , as well as 36 other events scheduled for the following days .
For @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Violence Protest With Social Distancing ” was scheduled for June 6 at 11 a.m. , and the “ SF Kids Peace March ” was scheduled for June 7 at 2 p.m .
While the vast majority of the events were Black Lives Matter protests , some had different topics , such as a “ 6 Feet and Grieving COVID 19 remembrance ” event in Oakland .
“ The fact that fusion centers are sending out lists of protests and other activities that are protected by the First Amendment is constitutionally suspect , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California , told The Intercept .
“ They may try to justify it by attaching text alluding to the potentiality of certain criminal activity , but it ’ s clear from the documents that you showed me that there is no reasonable suspicions attached to any of these events.
” She added , “ Really what we have here is overbroad collection and dissemination of people ’ s protected First Amendment activity , and it ’ s untethered to any basis in the law.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ director , told The Intercept that the fusion center no longer distributes daily lists of protests .
“ During that period of time we had just had an attack on the Ronald Dellums Federal Building , ” he said , referring to the May 29 killing of Dave Patrick Underwood , a private security officer guarding the federal building in Oakland .
Steven Carrillo , a far-right extremist and member of the so-called Boogaloo movement , who “ came to Oakland to kill cops ” according to the FBI , was charged on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
When asked at what point NCRIC stopped distributing lists of protests , Sena said , “ I believe it was after the suspects were taken into custody , from that attack .
At least the known suspects were taken into custody .
We don ’ t have that going on anymore.
” Sena also claimed that NCRIC was keeping track of Black Lives Matters protests in order to make sure that they remained safe .
“ We weren ’ t keeping track of the protests themselves , but we were identifying where @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people , ” he said .
“ That ’ s our concern is , we want to make sure the events are safe .
And if there are any threats that come up that may be associated with any of those events that we ’ re able to get that threat data to whatever agency may have protection responsibilities.
” Talla disagreed .
“ At the end of the day what you have is federal agencies , not only DHS but the FBI , monitoring people ’ s constitutionally protected activities without any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Even though the agencies may include in some of these documents a disclaimer that they are not targeting First Amendment activities as such , if you actually look at what they ’ re doing , it ’ s clear that there is no criminal activity that they can point to to justify the overbroad collection and monitoring of protests .
They have no basis to do that.
” Beginning with the second protest list that was emailed out , the footer of each PDF says : “ This document is not subject @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contains information that may be exempt from public release under exemptions provided by the California Public Records Act , ” and “ This information is not to be released to the public , the media , or other personnel who do not have a valid ‘ right and need-to-know ’ without approval of the NCRIC.
” Sena claimed that the reason these documents were exempt from public records requests , and were not supposed to be released to the public or the media , is because they could be used as a target @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the protesters .
“ Simply attaching a tagline to a document saying ‘ This is exempt from the California Public Records Act ’ does not make it exempt from the California Public Records Act in and of itself , ” Talla said .
“ The document you sent me can ’ t be characterized as criminal intelligence because there ’ s no articulation of any criminal activity associated with these activities , these protests , marches , demonstrations .
Really , what is confidential about this document ?
There ’ s nothing.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the FBI ’ s Los Angeles division noticed a tweet from the Long Beach Anarchist Collective that read , “ see a blue lives matter flag , destroy a blue lives matter flag challenge ” : NCRIC got a copy of this document and forwarded it to its more than 14,000 subscribers .
This is far from the only fearmongering memo from the federal government that NCRIC forwarded to thousands of local cops ; DHS and FBI consistently fed local cops a diet of scary-protester anecdotes and internet rumors , potentially frightening @ @ @ @ @ @ @ danger during protests and thus helping feed the often brutal and violent response to peaceful protests .
Another document from the multi-agency National Explosives Task Force that NCRIC distributed claimed “ a variety of incendiary and explosive devices were used against civilian and law enforcement targets in civil unrest demonstrations ” with photos of Molotov cocktails and fireworks .
NCRIC also distributed an FBI Situation Report which described cherry-picked messages posted by unnamed social media users , including an Instagram user who allegedly posted about a “ purge ” planned for June 6 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ police should follow the only rule , to kill law enforcement first , then continue destroying property.
” Without any context , there ’ s no way of knowing how many followers this account had , or if it was run by an internet troll .
NCRIC also forwarded a series of “ Intelligence Notes ” from the Department of Homeland Security to its members : • One document from May 29 claimed that the ongoing unrest related to the killings of Floyd and Breanna Taylor — a 26-year-old emergency medical technician who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kentucky , police officers as they were breaking into her apartment late at night without announcing themselves — “ could motivate some domestic terrorist actors to engage in violence against law enforcement and others protesting lawfully.
” • Another document from May 30 stated , “ We anticipate armed individuals will continue to infiltrate the protest movement .
We assess with high confidence during the period of darkness from 30 to 31 May the violent protest movements will grow and [ domestic violent extremists ] and others will seek to take over government @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A document from May 31 described protesters monitoring and disrupting law enforcement communications .
Police in Portland “ reported that they assessed that well-coordinated groups had potentially compromised law enforcement radio communications , ” and police in Minneapolis “ were forced to switch to cell phones for tactical communications after learning their communications were being monitored by individuals using publicly available police scanner apps.
” Police scanner apps , which allow anyone to listen in on police radio communications , have seen record downloads since Floyd ’ s killing .
The document also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Chicago area saturated police radio channels with music .
• Another May 31 document states , “ We have also noted several incidents of potential violent opportunists traveling to protests with milk or other liquids in anticipation of mitigating the effects of pepper spray or other crowd control agents.
” • A document from June 1 states , “ As the protests persist , we assess that organized violent opportunists—including suspected anarchist extremists—could increasingly perpetrate nationwide targeting of law enforcement and critical infrastructure.
” It went on to say that an NYPD @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anarchist groups had planned to incite violence at protests , including by using encrypted communications.
” Using encrypted communications is not only perfectly legal , but an important measure that individuals can take to protect their personal cybersecurity .
The document also warns of “ Foreign Influence Activity , ” stating , “ Russian state media outlets particularly emphasized themes alleging excessive police brutality , police attacks against journalists , and claims of systematic racism.
” NCRIC ’ s tracking of BLM protests sometimes interfered with work targeting actual criminal suspects .
Shortly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an FBI analyst submitted a support request to the NCRIC website .
“ FBI San Francisco is concern [ sic ] about possible criminal activity ; including mass causality attacks , vandalism and destruction of property , violence towards law enforcement and participants , and ideologically motivated attacks ; near or about constitutionally protected activities in Oakland in response to the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis , ” he wrote .
He requested NCRIC provide [ Real-Time and Open Source Analysis ] “ and appropriate analytic resources.
” On June 1 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of protests , NCRIC sent a bulk email to its subscribers saying that it was “ actively monitoring potential planned criminal acts , acts of violence , and civil unrest ” and asking for help .
“ Please submit upcoming events or concerns related to planned events by logging into ncric.org , clicking on the ‘ Request Support ’ tab , and submitting a ‘ Request for Investigative or Equipment Support.
’ ” The following day , NCRIC sent another bulk email announcing that an upcoming class would need to be postponed .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the protests in our [ area of responsibility ] , the Chasing Phones class scheduled for June 3-4 , 2020 has been rescheduled for June 17-18 , 2020.
” According to a flyer , the Chasing Phones class “ will explore the methods of exploiting a suspect ’ s cellular phone , phone company records , and third-party data sources records ” and “ will increase law enforcement officers ’ awareness and appreciation of the evidence and intelligence located in a mobile device and provides students with the tools and training to prepare @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” At the time the NCRIC data was exfiltrated , the class was scheduled to happen over Zoom , and 356 people had registered for it .
But this training would have to wait ; monitoring protests was higher priority .
Local police connected to NCRIC used the intelligence hub to repeatedly flag BLM-related protests , vigils , and cultural events as suspicious .
On May 31 , a sergeant in the San Mateo County Sheriff ’ s Office posted a Suspicious Activity Report , or SAR , requesting “ intel if any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the county of San Mateo , specifically the cities of Redwood City , San Mateo and East Palo Alto , ” adding , “ It is believed that protests will occur this coming week in these cities – want intel as to # ’ s of participants and any illegal activities being transpired.
” Later that same day , another officer from San Mateo Sheriff ’ s Office posted another SAR about a local protest .
“ Peninsula Progressive Action Group holding a vigil/protest for George Floyd , ” he wrote , referring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ group .
“ Requesting NCRIC intelligence gathering/monitoring of social media , etc .
Although the event is promoted as peaceful , similar events in the region devolved into violence .
Unknown attendance at this point .
Agitators are known to promote suburban targets next.
” The next day , PPAG posted to its website that the planned vigil in San Carlos was postponed over to safety concerns , citing “ right-wing extremists groups that are using events , particularly evening events , as an excuse to instigate violence and cause damage.
” Even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about 100 people ” showed up anyway with masks and signs , according to a follow-up post .
On the night of June 2 , 20-year-old San Jose hip-hop artist Simon Vertugo tweeted about an upcoming event called “ The Black American Experience , ” a “ discussion on the Black experience and how we can take steps to prevent future civil injustice , police brutality and reform our judicial system , ” to be held in a few days at the Olympic Black Power statue at San Jose State University .
After @ @ @ @ @ @ @ saw this tweet , he logged into NCRIC ’ s website and posted a SAR under the category “ Radicalization/Extremism ” with the event image from the tweet .
“ Possible meeting spot for protest activity at SJSU , ” he wrote .
“ Has been seen on Twitter under the name @ simonvertugo .
Date is 6/6/20 at 1300 hours .
Has been retweeted about 300 times .
No data on possible attendance.
” Vertugo felt this was an example of police overreach .
“ Truthfully I think the university cops were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on a college campus , ” Vertugo told The Intercept .
“ Nobody was inciting any riots , no plans of breaking windows , destroying property .
It was just a speech held by some Black kid and his peers .
I think it ’ s a huge joke what they choose to focus on.
” Nearly 300 people showed up at the speaking event .
Officers from San Benito County Sheriff ’ s Office and Novato Police Department also posted SARs of local protests they heard about .
Local cops from across @ @ @ @ @ @ @ support related to upcoming protests in their cities , sometimes asking for social media monitoring .
These police departments all posted support requests about Black Lives Matter protests to NCRIC : A sergeant with the Oakland Police Department posted a support request asking for “ analysts to monitor open source media to track crimes that are about to occur or have just occurred during the protest.
” And an officer with the San Francisco Police Department posted an equipment request to NCRIC asking for surveillance cameras in “ high volume locations.
” “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s this week and these cameras would greatly enhance our situational awareness and public safety during these incidents , ” she wrote .
Police were also paying close attention to any social media posts that mention looting , rioting , or violence against law enforcement .
One SAR describes a Twitter user who tweeted , “ Are we having a protest in Napa I low key wan na layout a cop.
” Another describes a Twitter thread mentioning looting Target stores in Walnut Creek , Emeryville , and Bayfair .
Another describes receiving @ @ @ @ @ @ @ threatening to loot stores at Sun Valley Mall in Concord .
And another included a photograph of a phone displaying instructions for a “ San Mateo County Looting Night ” with a “ hit list ” of corporate chains .
On May 31 , a paramedic at a gas station that rents U-Hauls in Napa said he “ observed an estimated two dozen people dressed in black ( hoodies , masks , shirts pants ) in their twenties most white as far as he could tell , several of which were wearing masks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people wearing the same clothing ” in the store , and he overheard them asking if they could rent vans for one day and leave them in San Francisco .
He considered this suspicious behavior , so he called his off-duty friend in the fire department and said “ they looked like a ‘ ANTIF [ A ] or Black Bloc ’ group.
” His friend called the department ’ s Homeland Security operations officer , who posted this secondhand information as a SAR to NCRIC ’ s website .
And on June @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Novato Police Department to report that a woman “ purchased all their helmets , hard hats , hammers , bolt cutters and goggles , ” and that she mentioned the goggles were for tear gas .
The Navato police officer posted this as a SAR , with a description of the woman and her vehicle .
The large majority of civil unrest-related suspicious activity reports during this period were about Black Lives Matter protests , but a few were about people who believe that Black lives don ’ t matter .
A @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Affairs employee on June 2 and described his plans to shoot and kill protesters , according to a June 3 SAR posted by an officer with the California Highway Patrol .
“ The subject said he will shoot and kill protesters he perceives as a threat , ” the employee described .
“ He believes all protesters are thugs , and says this has nothing to do with race .
The subject said he has multiple firearms , including an AK 47 and he has no problem blowing off their heads if they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fire , or begin looting in his city .
He said he will take actions into his own hands because politicians are not doing anything about it .
He added that all his friends and neighbors have guns and are not afraid to use them .
The subject made it very clear that protesters are not welcomed in his neighborhood and threatened to kill protesters.
” In another instance , the FBI ’ s threat operations center found a tweet that said , “ Everyone please be careful out there !
I don @ @ @ @ @ @ @ genuine or fucking with me but I ’ d rather be safe than sorry !
Apparently his businesses were looted and he is now threatening to shoot protesters.
” It included a screenshot of a direct message conversation in which the alleged San Francisco business owner wrote , “ I will start shootings tomorrow , ” and “ Anyone from this bullshit [ enters ] my store I ’ m gon na [ shoot ] them.
” On June 3 , an officer at West Valley-Mission Community College Police Department posted a SAR @ @ @ @ @ @ @ writing , “ Subject has been reported as to have made a video of himself on [ Snapchat ] wearing a KKK style hood and [ making ] a white power hand gesture with the slogan ‘ Burn crosses not buildings ’ likely in response to the ongoing riots related to the George Floyd protests.
” “ For ‘ Black out Tuesday ’ , a 16 year old female changed her social media profile picture to all blue , in support of law enforcement , instead of all black , in support of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the Walnut Creek Police Department typed into a Cyber Security Assessment request to NCRIC on June 4 .
“ The family has been receiving death threats/property threats on social media , by phone and text.
” He requested that they “ search/review social media to obtain potential threats to family , as well as the identities of persons making such threats.
” The attached documents — a Microsoft Word document and a series of emails between Walnut Creek police officers — show much more than changing her avatar to blue to support @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the teenager ’ s TikTok videos where she wrote messages like , “ Tbh the kkk should come back .
Oh and I wan na move to Georgia bc they have segregated proms , ” and “ I don ’ t talk to niggers.
” On June 6 , a lieutenant with the Moraga Police Department posted a similar request to NCRIC .
“ The Moraga Police Department became aware of a video clip circulating on social media that depicts 3 Campolindo High School female teenagers using racist and offensive language , including @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ We are requesting open source internet checks and overall social media monitoring analysis for the presence of threats , especially threats of violence or retaliation to occur in the Town of Moraga.
” When asked if it ’ s their policy to provide proactive protection to racists , the Walnut Creek and Moraga Police Departments did not respond to a request for comment .
“ Any time there ’ s a potential threat where they ’ ll harm somebody , or someone ’ s indicating that they ’ ll harm somebody , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ types of requests , ” Sena , NCRIC ’ s executive director , said .
“ And we can ’ t base our support based on what the person says , or their ideologies .
We have to treat everyone in the public the same , and our goal is to protect lives.
” In addition to sending bulk emails to thousands of local police , NCRIC sometimes sends bulk emails to its list of over 3,700 industry partners .
One June 2 mailing included a prescient warning from the FBI ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ civil unrest , hacktivist groups are actively threatening and endorsing cyber attacks against law enforcement and state government networks , ” the FBI wrote .
“ Groups such as ‘ Anonymous ’ are actively leveraging societal and political unrest to encourage global cyber action against law enforcement and government computer networks , outward facing web pages , and social media accounts.
” Four days after NCRIC sent this email , the BlueLeaks hacktivist — who identified with Anonymous — began exfiltrating data from NCRIC ’ s server .

Almost two weeks after a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd while he was handcuffed face down in the street, a hacker began exfiltrating 19 gigabytes of documents from the poorly secured Northern California Regional Intelligence Center website. The NCRIC (pronounced “nick-rick”) fusion center shares information between federal agencies, local police departments across northern California, and private industry partners, including Silicon Valley companies. It also provides local cops with analytical and technical support services such as monitoring social media or helping break into locked smartphones, and it hosts events and law enforcement-related courses.
The hacked data from NCRIC, provided to transparency collective DDoSecrets by a source identifying with the hacktivist collective Anonymous, was part of a larger breach of 251 police websites across the country known as BlueLeaks. German authorities, acting on behalf of the U.S. government, seized the server DDoSecrets was using to distribute the BlueLeaks data, though the data itself is still publicly available on the internet using the peer-to-peer file sharing technology BitTorrent. (Note: I’m a member of the DDoSecrets advisory board.)
The NCRIC documents, from a 13-day period between George Floyd’s killing on May 25 and the evening of June 6, when the latest information was exfiltrated (judging from time stamps found in the leaked material), provide an unprecedented window into the internal workings and priorities of Northern California’s police intelligence agency during the recent waves of anti-police brutality protests.
One way that NCRIC shares information is by sending bulk emails to its partners. Since the protests began, these have included vague, fear-inducing memos from the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI about the threat of violent civil unrest, as well as more specific information, including emails sent at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. every day to more than 14,000 police officers across Northern California with updated lists of Black Lives Matter protests. During the 13-day period covered in the hacked files, over half of the bulk emails NCRIC sent were related to monitoring and policing the largely peaceful protests.
Local police and other partners send information back to NCRIC by submitting “Suspicious Activity Reports.” Of the 21 civil unrest-related “suspicious activities” during this period, most were local police posting information about upcoming protests, screenshots of tweets and Instagram posts about looting and rioting, as well as two instances of people threatening to shoot and kill Black Lives Matter protesters.
Another way local police interface with NCRIC is by requesting support. Of the 20 civil unrest-related support requests during this period, most were providing information about upcoming protests to be added to the daily protest emails as well as requesting help monitoring social networks for information about the protests. Two of the requests asked for help identifying threats against white female teenagers who were facing doxxing or harassment after making racist statements and using anti-Black racial slurs.
Daily Lists of Black Lives Matter Protests
Notably, a substantial portion of the intelligence on Black Lives Matter protests flowed through NCRIC’s Terrorism Liaison Officer program, whose purpose is to keep the intelligence center’s members “engaged & knowledgeable about current terrorist tactics, techniques & trends, regional crime trends & threats, and Officer safety information.” The terror-info program became a clearinghouse for information on upcoming demonstrations.
The weekend after Floyd’s killing, when Black Lives Matter protests were erupting throughout the country, NCRIC’s TLO sent an email to its 14,406 subscribers — mostly local police officers across Northern California — with a PDF containing a list of upcoming protests, their times, locations, and sometimes links to more information. “We will be providing a list of local protests twice daily at 1000 and 1800, until further notice,” the email said. “This information is for Situational Awareness only. Agencies may use this information for planning/staffing purposes or as they see fit,” adding, “Some of these events involve criminal activities such as planned looting, vandalism and threats of violence.”
Between May 31 and June 6, NCRIC sent these emails out every morning, and again with an updated list every evening.
June 5’s evening email listed 46 protest events scheduled for June 6 in San Francisco, San Jose, Palo Alto, Berkeley, Oakland, and other Bay Area cities, as well as 36 other events scheduled for the following days. For example, the “Noe Valley Police Violence Protest With Social Distancing” was scheduled for June 6 at 11 a.m., and the “SF Kids Peace March” was scheduled for June 7 at 2 p.m. While the vast majority of the events were Black Lives Matter protests, some had different topics, such as a “6 Feet and Grieving COVID 19 remembrance” event in Oakland.
“The fact that fusion centers are sending out lists of protests and other activities that are protected by the First Amendment is constitutionally suspect,” Vasudha Talla, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, told The Intercept. “They may try to justify it by attaching text alluding to the potentiality of certain criminal activity, but it’s clear from the documents that you showed me that there is no reasonable suspicions attached to any of these events.” She added, “Really what we have here is overbroad collection and dissemination of people’s protected First Amendment activity, and it’s untethered to any basis in the law.”
“Sending out lists of protests and other activities protected by the First Amendment is constitutionally suspect.”
Mike Sena, NCRIC’s executive director, told The Intercept that the fusion center no longer distributes daily lists of protests. “During that period of time we had just had an attack on the Ronald Dellums Federal Building,” he said, referring to the May 29 killing of Dave Patrick Underwood, a private security officer guarding the federal building in Oakland. Steven Carrillo, a far-right extremist and member of the so-called Boogaloo movement, who “came to Oakland to kill cops” according to the FBI, was charged on June 11 in the murder of Underwood. When asked at what point NCRIC stopped distributing lists of protests, Sena said, “I believe it was after the suspects were taken into custody, from that attack. At least the known suspects were taken into custody. We don’t have that going on anymore.”
Sena also claimed that NCRIC was keeping track of Black Lives Matters protests in order to make sure that they remained safe. “We weren’t keeping track of the protests themselves, but we were identifying where we were gonna have gatherings of people,” he said. “That’s our concern is, we want to make sure the events are safe. And if there are any threats that come up that may be associated with any of those events that we’re able to get that threat data to whatever agency may have protection responsibilities.”
Talla disagreed. “At the end of the day what you have is federal agencies, not only DHS but the FBI, monitoring people’s constitutionally protected activities without any reasonable suspicion,” she said. “Even though the agencies may include in some of these documents a disclaimer that they are not targeting First Amendment activities as such, if you actually look at what they’re doing, it’s clear that there is no criminal activity that they can point to to justify the overbroad collection and monitoring of protests. They have no basis to do that.”
Read Our Complete Coverage BlueLeaks
Beginning with the second protest list that was emailed out, the footer of each PDF says: “This document is not subject to the California Information Practices Act and contains information that may be exempt from public release under exemptions provided by the California Public Records Act,” and “This information is not to be released to the public, the media, or other personnel who do not have a valid ‘right and need-to-know’ without approval of the NCRIC.”
Sena claimed that the reason these documents were exempt from public records requests, and were not supposed to be released to the public or the media, is because they could be used as a target list by someone who wanted to attack the protesters.
“Simply attaching a tagline to a document saying ‘This is exempt from the California Public Records Act’ does not make it exempt from the California Public Records Act in and of itself,” Talla said. “The document you sent me can’t be characterized as criminal intelligence because there’s no articulation of any criminal activity associated with these activities, these protests, marches, demonstrations. Really, what is confidential about this document? There’s nothing.”
Federal Fearmongering
Days after the Floyd killing, someone in the FBI’s Los Angeles division noticed a tweet from the Long Beach Anarchist Collective that read, “see a blue lives matter flag, destroy a blue lives matter flag challenge”:
see a blue lives matter flag, destroy a blue lives matter flag challenge https://t.co/1IgudD82lK — Long Beach Anarchist Collective (@AnarchistLB) May 27, 2020
At the time, this tweet had four retweets and 26 likes. In response, the FBI analyst typed up a Situational Information Report describing the tweet, as well as the other tweet that it referenced, with the title, “Civil Unrest in Response to Death of George Floyd Threatens Law Enforcement Supporters’ Safety, as of May 2020.”
NCRIC got a copy of this document and forwarded it to its more than 14,000 subscribers. This is far from the only fearmongering memo from the federal government that NCRIC forwarded to thousands of local cops; DHS and FBI consistently fed local cops a diet of scary-protester anecdotes and internet rumors, potentially frightening them into believing their lives were in danger during protests and thus helping feed the often brutal and violent response to peaceful protests.
Another document from the multi-agency National Explosives Task Force that NCRIC distributed claimed “a variety of incendiary and explosive devices were used against civilian and law enforcement targets in civil unrest demonstrations” with photos of Molotov cocktails and fireworks. NCRIC also distributed an FBI Situation Report which described cherry-picked messages posted by unnamed social media users, including an Instagram user who allegedly posted about a “purge” planned for June 6, saying that “anyone stopped by police should follow the only rule, to kill law enforcement first, then continue destroying property.” Without any context, there’s no way of knowing how many followers this account had, or if it was run by an internet troll.
Screenshot: The Intercept
NCRIC also forwarded a series of “Intelligence Notes” from the Department of Homeland Security to its members:
One document from May 29 claimed that the ongoing unrest related to the killings of Floyd and Breonna Taylor — a 26-year-old emergency medical technician who was shot eight times by Louisville, Kentucky, police officers as they were breaking into her apartment late at night without announcing themselves — “could motivate some domestic terrorist actors to engage in violence against law enforcement and others protesting lawfully.”
Another document from May 30 stated, “We anticipate armed individuals will continue to infiltrate the protest movement. We assess with high confidence during the period of darkness from 30 to 31 May the violent protest movements will grow and [domestic violent extremists] and others will seek to take over government facilities and attack law enforcement.”
A document from May 31 described protesters monitoring and disrupting law enforcement communications. Police in Portland “reported that they assessed that well-coordinated groups had potentially compromised law enforcement radio communications,” and police in Minneapolis “were forced to switch to cell phones for tactical communications after learning their communications were being monitored by individuals using publicly available police scanner apps.” Police scanner apps, which allow anyone to listen in on police radio communications, have seen record downloads since Floyd’s killing. The document also states that “unidentified individuals” in the Chicago area saturated police radio channels with music.
Another May 31 document states, “We have also noted several incidents of potential violent opportunists traveling to protests with milk or other liquids in anticipation of mitigating the effects of pepper spray or other crowd control agents.”
A document from June 1 states, “As the protests persist, we assess that organized violent opportunists—including suspected anarchist extremists—could increasingly perpetrate nationwide targeting of law enforcement and critical infrastructure.” It went on to say that an NYPD official “had strong evidence that suspected anarchist groups had planned to incite violence at protests, including by using encrypted communications.” Using encrypted communications is not only perfectly legal, but an important measure that individuals can take to protect their personal cybersecurity. The document also warns of “Foreign Influence Activity,” stating, “Russian state media outlets particularly emphasized themes alleging excessive police brutality, police attacks against journalists, and claims of systematic racism.”
Prioritizing Spying on Protests
NCRIC’s tracking of BLM protests sometimes interfered with work targeting actual criminal suspects. Shortly after 5 p.m. on May 29, an FBI analyst submitted a support request to the NCRIC website. “FBI San Francisco is concern [sic] about possible criminal activity; including mass causality attacks, vandalism and destruction of property, violence towards law enforcement and participants, and ideologically motivated attacks; near or about constitutionally protected activities in Oakland in response to the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis,” he wrote. He requested NCRIC provide [Real-Time and Open Source Analysis] “and appropriate analytic resources.”
On June 1, the day after NCRIC began distributing lists of protests, NCRIC sent a bulk email to its subscribers saying that it was “actively monitoring potential planned criminal acts, acts of violence, and civil unrest” and asking for help. “Please submit upcoming events or concerns related to planned events by logging into ncric.org, clicking on the ‘Request Support’ tab, and submitting a ‘Request for Investigative or Equipment Support.’”
The following day, NCRIC sent another bulk email announcing that an upcoming class would need to be postponed. “Due to operational needs necessitated by the protests in our [area of responsibility], the Chasing Phones class scheduled for June 3-4, 2020 has been rescheduled for June 17-18, 2020.”
According to a flyer, the Chasing Phones class “will explore the methods of exploiting a suspect’s cellular phone, phone company records, and third-party data sources records” and “will increase law enforcement officers’ awareness and appreciation of the evidence and intelligence located in a mobile device and provides students with the tools and training to prepare search warrants to legally obtain that evidence.” At the time the NCRIC data was exfiltrated, the class was scheduled to happen over Zoom, and 356 people had registered for it. But this training would have to wait; monitoring protests was higher priority.
Black Lives Matter Protests as “Suspicious Activity”
Local police connected to NCRIC used the intelligence hub to repeatedly flag BLM-related protests, vigils, and cultural events as suspicious. On May 31, a sergeant in the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office posted a Suspicious Activity Report, or SAR, requesting “intel if any is observed regarding violent civil/criminal unrest in the county of San Mateo, specifically the cities of Redwood City, San Mateo and East Palo Alto,” adding, “It is believed that protests will occur this coming week in these cities – want intel as to #’s of participants and any illegal activities being transpired.”
Later that same day, another officer from San Mateo Sheriff’s Office posted another SAR about a local protest. “Peninsula Progressive Action Group holding a vigil/protest for George Floyd,” he wrote, referring to a local Bay Area progressive citizens group. “Requesting NCRIC intelligence gathering/monitoring of social media, etc. Although the event is promoted as peaceful, similar events in the region devolved into violence. Unknown attendance at this point. Agitators are known to promote suburban targets next.”
The next day, PPAG posted to its website that the planned vigil in San Carlos was postponed over to safety concerns, citing “right-wing extremists groups that are using events, particularly evening events, as an excuse to instigate violence and cause damage.” Even though the vigil was canceled, “about 100 people” showed up anyway with masks and signs, according to a follow-up post.
On the night of June 2, 20-year-old San Jose hip-hop artist Simon Vertugo tweeted about an upcoming event called “The Black American Experience,” a “discussion on the Black experience and how we can take steps to prevent future civil injustice, police brutality and reform our judicial system,” to be held in a few days at the Olympic Black Power statue at San Jose State University.
SAN JOSE. PLEASE JOIN US THIS SATURDAY JUNE 6TH AT SJSU WELCOME TO…“THE BLACK AMERICAN EXPERIENCE” pic.twitter.com/1YihcmXNgl — jaydin donte geer (@jaydingeer) June 3, 2020
After an officer with the university police department saw this tweet, he logged into NCRIC’s website and posted a SAR under the category “Radicalization/Extremism” with the event image from the tweet. “Possible meeting spot for protest activity at SJSU,” he wrote. “Has been seen on Twitter under the name @simonvertugo. Date is 6/6/20 at 1300 hours. Has been retweeted about 300 times. No data on possible attendance.”
Vertugo felt this was an example of police overreach. “Truthfully I think the university cops were completely overreacting to a speech being held on a college campus,” Vertugo told The Intercept. “Nobody was inciting any riots, no plans of breaking windows, destroying property. It was just a speech held by some Black kid and his peers. I think it’s a huge joke what they choose to focus on.” Nearly 300 people showed up at the speaking event.
Officers from San Benito County Sheriff’s Office and Novato Police Department also posted SARs of local protests they heard about. Local cops from across the region logged into NCRIC to request support related to upcoming protests in their cities, sometimes asking for social media monitoring. These police departments all posted support requests about Black Lives Matter protests to NCRIC:
Walnut Creek Police Department
Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety
Antioch Police Department
Fremont Police Department
Napa Police Department
Healdsburg Police Department
Palo Alto Police Department
Golden Gate Bridge Patrol
Contra Costa College District
A sergeant with the Oakland Police Department posted a support request asking for “analysts to monitor open source media to track crimes that are about to occur or have just occurred during the protest.” And an officer with the San Francisco Police Department posted an equipment request to NCRIC asking for surveillance cameras in “high volume locations.” “We have several more planned demo’s this week and these cameras would greatly enhance our situational awareness and public safety during these incidents,” she wrote.
Police were also paying close attention to any social media posts that mention looting, rioting, or violence against law enforcement. One SAR describes a Twitter user who tweeted, “Are we having a protest in Napa I low key wanna layout a cop.” Another describes a Twitter thread mentioning looting Target stores in Walnut Creek, Emeryville, and Bayfair. Another describes receiving a “threat via social media” threatening to loot stores at Sun Valley Mall in Concord. And another included a photograph of a phone displaying instructions for a “San Mateo County Looting Night” with a “hit list” of corporate chains.
On May 31, a paramedic at a gas station that rents U-Hauls in Napa said he “observed an estimated two dozen people dressed in black (hoodies, masks, shirts pants) in their twenties most white as far as he could tell, several of which were wearing masks,” with “another half dozen people wearing the same clothing” in the store, and he overheard them asking if they could rent vans for one day and leave them in San Francisco. He considered this suspicious behavior, so he called his off-duty friend in the fire department and said “they looked like a ‘ANTIF[A] or Black Bloc’ group.” His friend called the department’s Homeland Security operations officer, who posted this secondhand information as a SAR to NCRIC’s website.
And on June 2, a hardware store employee called the Novato Police Department to report that a woman “purchased all their helmets, hard hats, hammers, bolt cutters and goggles,” and that she mentioned the goggles were for tear gas. The Navato police officer posted this as a SAR, with a description of the woman and her vehicle.
Threats Against Protesters’ Lives
The large majority of civil unrest-related suspicious activity reports during this period were about Black Lives Matter protests, but a few were about people who believe that Black lives don’t matter.
A middle-aged white man called a California Constituent Affairs employee on June 2 and described his plans to shoot and kill protesters, according to a June 3 SAR posted by an officer with the California Highway Patrol. “The subject said he will shoot and kill protesters he perceives as a threat,” the employee described. “He believes all protesters are thugs, and says this has nothing to do with race. The subject said he has multiple firearms, including an AK 47 and he has no problem blowing off their heads if they get near his house, start a fire, or begin looting in his city. He said he will take actions into his own hands because politicians are not doing anything about it. He added that all his friends and neighbors have guns and are not afraid to use them. The subject made it very clear that protesters are not welcomed in his neighborhood and threatened to kill protesters.”
In another instance, the FBI’s threat operations center found a tweet that said, “Everyone please be careful out there! I don’t know if this person is genuine or fucking with me but I’d rather be safe than sorry! Apparently his businesses were looted and he is now threatening to shoot protesters.” It included a screenshot of a direct message conversation in which the alleged San Francisco business owner wrote, “I will start shootings tomorrow,” and “Anyone from this bullshit [enters] my store I’m gonna [shoot] them.”
Screenshot: The Intercept
On June 3, an officer at West Valley-Mission Community College Police Department posted a SAR that included a video from Snapchat, writing, “Subject has been reported as to have made a video of himself on [Snapchat] wearing a KKK style hood and [making] a white power hand gesture with the slogan ‘Burn crosses not buildings’ likely in response to the ongoing riots related to the George Floyd protests.”
Protecting Racist Teenagers From Online Harassment
“For ‘Black out Tuesday’, a 16 year old female changed her social media profile picture to all blue, in support of law enforcement, instead of all black, in support of Black Lives Matter,” a detective with the Walnut Creek Police Department typed into a Cyber Security Assessment request to NCRIC on June 4. “The family has been receiving death threats/property threats on social media, by phone and text.” He requested that they “search/review social media to obtain potential threats to family, as well as the identities of persons making such threats.”
The attached documents — a Microsoft Word document and a series of emails between Walnut Creek police officers — show much more than changing her avatar to blue to support law enforcement. They include screenshots of the teenager’s TikTok videos where she wrote messages like, “Tbh the kkk should come back. Oh and I wanna move to Georgia bc they have segregated proms,” and “I don’t talk to niggers.”
On June 6, a lieutenant with the Moraga Police Department posted a similar request to NCRIC. “The Moraga Police Department became aware of a video clip circulating on social media that depicts 3 Campolindo High School female teenagers using racist and offensive language, including the N-word,” he wrote. “We are requesting open source internet checks and overall social media monitoring analysis for the presence of threats, especially threats of violence or retaliation to occur in the Town of Moraga.”
When asked if it’s their policy to provide proactive protection to racists, the Walnut Creek and Moraga Police Departments did not respond to a request for comment.
“Any time there’s a potential threat where they’ll harm somebody, or someone’s indicating that they’ll harm somebody, we do support local agencies with those types of requests,” Sena, NCRIC’s executive director, said. “And we can’t base our support based on what the person says, or their ideologies. We have to treat everyone in the public the same, and our goal is to protect lives.”
Cyber Attacks Against Law Enforcement
In addition to sending bulk emails to thousands of local police, NCRIC sometimes sends bulk emails to its list of over 3,700 industry partners.
One June 2 mailing included a prescient warning from the FBI’s Cyber Division: “Due to ongoing civil unrest, hacktivist groups are actively threatening and endorsing cyber attacks against law enforcement and state government networks,” the FBI wrote. “Groups such as ‘Anonymous’ are actively leveraging societal and political unrest to encourage global cyber action against law enforcement and government computer networks, outward facing web pages, and social media accounts.”
Four days after NCRIC sent this email, the BlueLeaks hacktivist — who identified with Anonymous — began exfiltrating data from NCRIC’s server.


theintercept--2020-08-18--Pressed on Corporate PAC Funding, Richie Neal Cites His Generosity to Black and Brown Candidates

Neal is one of the top recipients of corporate cash in Congress , raking in huge sums from private equity and Big Pharma , which his leftwing challenger Alex Morse frequently highlights .
In asking about Neal ’ s corporate funding , the debate moderator pointed to a recent ad by the progressive dark-money group Fight Corporate Monopolies , which accused Neal of working to maintain President Donald Trump ’ s corporate tax cuts .
“ Corporate power is corrupting democracy , ” the ad says .
“ And Richie Neal is part of the problem.
” “ I will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ raised $ 13 million for Democratic candidates , ” Neal said .
“ I contributed to every single member of the Black Caucus , every single member of the Hispanic Caucus , every member of the Equality Caucus , and I have recruited candidates for Speaker [ Nancy ] Pelosi , helped them with message discipline and helped to fund their campaigns.
” During a congressional debate in Massachusetts ’ 1st District on Monday night , Rep. Richard Neal defended his acceptance of corporate PAC money by pointing to the money he has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and LGBTQ+ members of Congress .
Neal ’ s response lays bare the argument presented by incumbent Democrats who are reliant on corporate dollars : Our corruption is necessary because it raises lots of money and we use that to elect Black , brown , and queer people and to beat Republicans , who are worse .
It ’ s an honest argument , which is rarely stated so clearly .
For voters , the race is between whether that ’ s good enough for you , or whether you want more .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ for 30 years , is the chair of the powerful House Ways and Means committee , which writes the tax code .
Morse , the 31-year-old mayor of Holyoke , is running on a platform that includes Medicare for All , a Green New Deal , and defunding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement .
The race is tightening as the September 1 primary nears , according to an internal poll conducted for Morse ’ s campaign over the weekend that found that he ’ s trailing Neal by only 5 percentage points .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ issue ” involving Morse and the College Democrats of Massachusetts and UMass Amherst — a reference to accusations of sexual impropriety levied against Morse by the student groups , which had accused him of matching with students on dating apps and making them feel uncomfortable ; 85 percent of the voters surveyed had heard about it , with 55 percent saying it doesn ’ t affect their vote .
For those whom it mattered , they were slightly more likely to say it made them inclined to support Morse .
In the first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cut out in the livestream for anyone watching online , an issue that persisted throughout the evening — Morse was asked about the recent misconduct allegations , and whether he had evidence to prove these allegations were a set up to try to smear his campaign .
As The Intercept recently revealed , the accusations were part of a nearly year-old scheme by some members of the College Democrats of Massachusetts and the organization ’ s UMass Amherst chapter to sink Morse ’ s campaign .
Leaders of the College Democrats explicitly discussed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ profiles and then lead him into saying something incriminating that they could leak to media outlets , according to message logs .
Some senior members of the Massachusetts Democratic Party had also coordinated with the CDMA , coaching the students ahead of the release of the letter and connecting them with an attorney , the powerful state party figure and attorney Jim Roosevelt .
“ You ’ re now claiming you were the victim of a political hit job that began a week and a half ago when allegations came to light about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ college students , ” the moderator told Morse , who has said he believes Neal ’ s campaign was involved , a charge the congressman has denied .
“ As a human I would never want to make someone feel uncomfortable , and I need to honor that truth , ” said Morse , who has admitted to having consensual relationships with students in the area , but never with anyone he himself taught at UMass Amherst , where he used to teach a class .
“ But then I come to find @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was a backroom coordinated political smear against our campaign by folks that support this congressman ’ s campaign.
” “ This is exactly what turns people away from politics , ” Morse continued .
“ It ’ s why people don ’ t participate .
It ’ s why people have given up on the process — that three weeks before a primary election , I was put in a position to talk about my personal life , not talk about health care and climate change and our economy and the small businesses @ @ @

During a congressional debate in Massachusetts’s 1st District on Monday night, Rep. Richard Neal defended his acceptance of corporate PAC money by pointing to the money he has spent to support Black, Hispanic, and LGBTQ+ members of Congress.
“I will not apologize for the idea that I raised $13 million for Democratic candidates,” Neal said. “I contributed to every single member of the Black Caucus, every single member of the Hispanic Caucus, every member of the Equality Caucus, and I have recruited candidates for Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi, helped them with message discipline, and helped to fund their campaigns.”
Neal is one of the top recipients of corporate cash in Congress, raking in huge sums from private equity and Big Pharma, which his left-wing challenger Alex Morse frequently highlights. In asking about Neal’s corporate funding, the debate moderator pointed to a recent ad by the progressive dark-money group Fight Corporate Monopolies, which accused Neal of working to maintain President Donald Trump’s corporate tax cuts. “Corporate power is corrupting democracy,” the ad says. “And Richie Neal is part of the problem.”
Neal’s response lays bare the argument presented by incumbent Democrats who are reliant on corporate dollars: Our corruption is necessary because it raises lots of money and we use that to elect Black, brown, and queer people and to beat Republicans, who are worse. It’s an honest argument, which is rarely stated so clearly. For voters, the race is between whether that’s good enough for you or whether you want more.
Neal, who has been in Congress for 30 years, is the chair of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, which writes the tax code. Morse, the 31-year-old mayor of Holyoke, is running on a platform that includes Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and defunding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The race is tightening as the September 1 primary nears, according to an internal poll conducted for Morse’s campaign over the weekend that found that he’s trailing Neal by only 5 percentage points. The pollsters also asked about “an issue” involving Morse and the College Democrats of Massachusetts and UMass Amherst — a reference to accusations of sexual impropriety levied against Morse by the student groups, which had accused him of matching with students on dating apps and making them feel uncomfortable; 85 percent of the voters surveyed had heard about it, with 55 percent saying it doesn’t affect their vote. For those whom it mattered, they were slightly more likely to say it made them inclined to support Morse.
In the first exchange of the debate — which was cut out in the livestream for anyone watching online, an issue that persisted throughout the evening — Morse was asked about the recent misconduct allegations, and whether he had evidence to prove these allegations were a setup to try to smear his campaign. As The Intercept recently revealed, the accusations were part of a nearly year-old scheme by some members of the College Democrats of Massachusetts and the organization’s UMass Amherst chapter to sink Morse’s campaign. Leaders of the College Democrats explicitly discussed plans to find Morse’s dating profiles and then lead him into saying something incriminating that they could leak to media outlets, according to message logs. Some senior members of the Massachusetts Democratic Party had also coordinated with the CDMA, coaching the students ahead of the release of the letter and connecting them with an attorney: the powerful state party figure Jim Roosevelt.
“You’re now claiming you were the victim of a political hit job that began a week and a half ago when allegations came to light about the relationship you’ve had with college students,” the moderator told Morse, who has said he believes Neal’s campaign was involved, a charge the congressman has denied.
“As a human, I would never want to make someone feel uncomfortable, and I need to honor that truth,” said Morse, who has admitted to having consensual relationships with students in the area but never with anyone he himself taught at UMass Amherst, where he used to teach a class. “But then I come to find out over the last week that this was a backroom coordinated political smear against our campaign by folks that support this congressman’s campaign.”
“This is exactly what turns people away from politics,” Morse continued. “It’s why people don’t participate. It’s why people have given up on the process: that three weeks before a primary election, I was put in a position to talk about my personal life — not talk about health care and climate change and our economy and the small businesses shuttering.”
Related College Democrat Chats Reveal Year-Old Plan to Engineer and Leak Alex Morse Accusations
Morse added that the timing of the allegations is no coincidence, saying they “go all the way to the heights of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, the chair of that party that took me to lunch over a year ago to discourage me against running against this congressman right here.”
Neal denied that his campaign had anything to do with the allegations, condemned homophobia, and said that the students stepped forward independently. “I don’t even know the names of the students that have stepped forward,” Neal said. He also expressed support for UMass Amherst’s investigation into Morse. The university’s policy prohibits professors from having romantic relationships with their own students, which Morse has not been accused of doing.
The incumbent, meanwhile, repeatedly hit Morse on his Holyoke School Committee meeting attendance, saying that the mayor had missed 28 of 62 meetings.
“These are recycled attacks from former mayoral opponents of mine,” Morse replied, adding that Neal has not held a town hall in the district for the past three years.
Monday night’s debate, which was hosted by New England media outlets, also covered heath care policy and criminal justice reform. At one point, Neal attacked Morse for saying he would have voted against the CARES Act, Congress’s massive coronavirus relief bill, saying that only five members of the House opposed it. Morse fired back, arguing that a one-time payment of $1,200 wasn’t enough to help working families or justify a “$500 billion slush fund for corporations.”