Documents obtained by The Intercept indicate that security staff at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota used a fake Facebook account to monitor local Black Lives Matter organizers, befriend them, and obtain their personal information and photographs without their knowledge.
Evidence of the fake Facebook account was found in a cache of files provided by the Mall of America to Bloomington officials after a large Black Lives Matter event at the mall on December 20 protesting police brutality. The files included briefs on individual organizers, with screenshots that suggest that much of the information was captured using a Facebook account for a person named “Nikki Larson.”
Metadata from some of the documents lists the software that created them as belonging to “Sam Root” at the “Mall of America.” A Facebook account for a Sam Root lists his profession as “Intelligence Analyst at Mall of America.”
(Facebook)
The fake Larson account featured a profile photo that a Google reverse image search shows is identical to a photo associated with a woman who is Facebook friends with Root.
The account, previously found at this url, was deleted soon after The Intercept contacted the Mall of America for this story.
On December 11, as news of the planned Black Lives Matter protest began to spread, the “Nikki Larson” account was updated with a banner image of an (apocryphal) Martin Luther King Jr. quote: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” At some point, the Larson account “liked” the Black Lives Matter Minneapolis Facebook group.
After the December 20 protest, the city charged 11 protesters with six different criminal misdemeanors. The city and mall are seeking over $65,000 in restitution for police and mall expenses.
“We don’t like the idea of large corporations spying on people for their political activity,” says Jordan Kushner, one of the attorneys for the activists being charged by the city. Kushner, who has represented many other protest groups in the Twin Cities region, observed that such surveillance tactics appear to be part of a “growing, disturbing trend.”
The Mall of America declined to answer any questions about the Larson Facebook page. Reached for comment, Root said he ended his employment with Mall of America on January 27. Asked about the Nikki Larson page and the Black Lives Matter protest, Root said, “I can’t answer anything about that because it’s a case.”
Information collected from Facebook was used by the Mall of America security team to build dossiers on each activist. A document on Nekima Levy-Pounds, one of the activists charged by the city, includes screen grabs of her Facebook account. Levy-Pounds, professor of law at the University of St. Thomas, told The Intercept that the Larson account befriended her in December.
Another dossier profiling activist Lena Gardner contains pictures, a timeline listing where to spot her in videos from the protest taken by protestors and by Mall of America security, as well as information scraped from her social media accounts. Similar documents were created for at least eight other activists.
The Larson account appears to have been created in 2009, and had 817 friends, many of whose pages showed they were involved in Minnesota political activism. The account also “liked” Facebook groups associated with Ferguson activists, the American Indian Movement Interpretive Center, Occupy Minneapolis, SumOfUs, the SEIU Minnesota State Council, and Communities United Against Police Brutality, among others.
Jim Lukaszewski, a crisis communications expert at Risdall Public Relations, profiled efforts by mall security to carefully track political protesters. In a case study posted on the Risdall website titled “Fulminating Flash Mobs,” Lukaszewski explains how mall security responded to a flash mob dance by Idle No More, a Native American rights group. “Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus were being aggressively monitored using Topsy, Monitor, and Kurrently,” the case study claims, noting that arrest kits were prepared in an area “hidden from public view to avoid antagonizing the crowd.”
The case study lists Root as a contact for the mall on “security related management questions,” and features a blurb from him: “If it’s a political movement, it is very important to know all of the subgroups and players involved and take everything they say very seriously.”
“I was not surprised to hear of their surveillance,” says Gardner. “We are standing up for communities of color against unnecessary harassment, over-policing, and excessive force at the hands of law enforcement. This type of invasion of privacy based on presumed criminality of people of color is the very thing we are standing up against.”
“They should be ashamed of themselves, along with the Bloomington City Attorney’s office. They are being ruthless in their attempts to quell and stifle free speech and dissent,” said Levy-Pounds.
According to a 2011 investigation by NPR and the Center for Investigative Reporting, featuring reporting from The Intercept’s Margot Williams, the Mall of America created its own private counterterrorism unit called Risk Assessment and Mitigation, or RAM. The report found that the unit had adopted aggressive procedures to pursue mall patrons, often for ordinary behavior. One Pakistani-American named Najam Qureshi was questioned by the FBI after his father had left a cellphone on a Mall of America food court table, prompting the counterterrorism unit to report the father to local authorities, who relayed the incident to the federal government, which then sent an investigator to Qureshi’s home.
The Intercept filed a request for Bloomington interactions with the Mall of America, but many of the documents concerning the Mall of America surveillence effort were uncovered by Tony Webster, a software engineer and data researcher with an interest in public records surrounding law enforcement.
“‘The place for fun in your life’ is the Mall of America’s slogan,” says Webster, “which doesn’t align with the Mall creating a fake Facebook account to stalk activists; it doesn’t align with my memories of a fun place to go as a kid. I’m sympathetic to the Mall’s everyday task of ensuring safety, but this violation of privacy went too far, as did Mall management’s pushing for harsh criminal prosecution of peaceful demonstrators.”
See also: Why Was An FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force Tracking a Black Lives Matter Protest?
__________
Photo of Mall of America employee monitoring social media sites in the back offices, Feb. 23, 2015. (Renee Jones Schneider/The Star Tribune/AP)
Correction: This article has been updated to clarify that Mall of America is not a client of Risdall Public Relations.
I think Kushner’s ability to practice law should be put into question if he’s questioning the rights of corporations. There is no law stating that a corporate entity cannot use FaceBook to gather intelligence against people. People should read FB’s agreement when creating an account. Nothing on there is private and most firms DO look over FB accounts before they decide to interview or even hire a potential candidate.
What the MoA did was well within their rights and those who are charged will suffer the consequences for their actions and disrespect.
What if a terrorist set off a bomb? Would the mall be held responsible for it? Would not the public demand answers and accountability? Why didn’t the mall monitor social media for insights? Who’s to say what protest will remain peaceful? Can peaceful protest organizers guarantee, that all involved have peaceful intentions?
As much as this is irratating, its nothing new for an American intelligence agency to spy specifically on African Americans.Even MLK’s personal photographer had been FBI, which coincidently wasnt known until his death. Forgot what the name of the gov’t agency that spied on the Black Panthers and Malcolm X, but that one. There are boat loads of FBI files on Malcolm X that anyone can attain. They knew when he ate, slept, and whatever else you can think of.
The place register your disgust about a corporation using the internet to privately police the internet is simple. Vote with your feet. Dont complain on a social media site, find another shop thats not owned by MoA to spend you $. |After all, its not like complaining to your politicians and police will do any good.
A “social media site” is the same thing as any other form of communication used to get the word out about things such as what you’re suggesting, which I assume is boycotting the offending business. So what you call “complain” is actually a form of informing. Using social media to inform and build a numbers and power behind boycotting, or whatever one is trying to build numbers behind, is not something to scoff at or dismiss as though doing that is like a young child complaining about having to eat the main course before the strawberry shortcake.
Ask those involved in the Arab Spring if “social media” matters. It most certainly does. It’s there to provoke, inspire and inform. I too would encourage boycotting, but more importantly – we need to be proactive. I think people are beginning to get it. It’s complacency that feeds the master.
‘better to die on your feet than live forever on your knees’ – Emiliano Zapata
It’s not here, blacks have to fight for their rights even in the middle of Africa! … click here to watch.
Don’t use Facebook
TIme to weed out those FB friends we don’t really know.
The Mall did what it needed to do to protect itself before it was attacked by the Black-Lies-Matter crowd. As long as they didn’t break any laws, then their behavior can be said to be “legal”–unlike those who trespassed and caused property damage.
It’s a shame that the lawyer for these thugs has not been asked why he feels that corporations have no right to protect their property, and their customers from the kinds of people who got arrested at the Mall.
Don’t feel that the Mall should be criticized, as it was simply protecting itself and its customers.
@Wayne Martin
The mall wasn’t “attacked.” There was no “property damage” caused. There were no “thugs” in the Blacklivesmatters protester group — unless you believe that holding signs and chanting is what “thugs” do. There were no “customers” needing protection (none were injured or accosted). What does your phrase, “the kinds of people” mean? Could you define what it means to be a “the kinds of people?”
I am the president of Communities United Against Police Brutality, a Twin-Cities based police accountability organization that has been in existence for 15 years. Although our organization was not part of the planning for the MOA protest, we were also spied on by the mall and Bloomington police, with them catfishing our FB account and collecting information on some of our officers. When we obtained data from the Bloomington police department, we learned that they had created a complete profile of CUAPB and of me, including a picture. They also attempted to visit our office and sent a spy into one of our meetings.
This kind of collusion between corporations and the cops that serve them has a name–fascism–also known as the police state. Anyone who isn’t outraged by this kind of spying on groups engaged in nonviolent dissent does not understand that you will be next. We’re the canaries in the mine shaft. Take heed.
Thank you for posting here, Ms. Gross. I hope you and your organization stand firm in your mission.
“Anyone who isn’t outraged by this kind of spying on groups engaged in nonviolent dissent does not understand that you will be next.” In that I absolutely agree and have been hoping to help get that idea across to people.
I hope you continue to read and post here – and keep us updated with developments.
“We’re the canaries in the mine shaft. Take heed.”
There are 100 million of us canaries in the mine shaft.. We all know whats coming and what is going on. Everyone from the politician to the guy hooking up your cable TV are sounding the alarm.
I knew Jim Lukaszewski personally many decades ago, and I am disappointed that he has changed. He used to advocate that organizations in a PR crisis honestly address the grievances being brought by the group precipitating the crisis. No more. I do not know him now. Sad.
So… shop online… life is heavily documented. Shop at a mall… life is heavily documented.
“the Mall of America created its own private counterterrorism unit called Risk Assessment and Mitigation, or RAM.”
That is the scariest sentence in this article. Since when the f+ck do malls have permission to create ‘private counterterrorism units’… and what makes one qualified? +shiver+
(FYI, I had a post thrown in the trash for saying something very similar. I futilely searched for that bit in Catch-22 where Yossarian arbitrarily censors letters to amuse himself. Had I found it I would have included it in a post.)
Although you shouldn’t be frightened by RAM.
If “Black Lives Matter” had been sponsored by a major corporation, the overzealous mall cops would have marched with them. They would have defended the privacy of the protesters.
This is the single truth of American capitalism.
Money is the only measure.
You’d think they would pay mall cops more than barely above minimum wage… Mall shooters, Black Lives Matter, counterterrorism units with intel gathering PoC’s… At least give em some gov bennies and job security like the TSA.
I wonder if the intel guy plays Santa at Christmastime.
And I am quite sure I have someone pretending to be me acting out the role of pretending to be me being Yossarian somewhere back there… I am curious how comments get vetted or not. From what I heard from someone I heard of who knows someone who knows of someone who posts here, a good bit of it isn’t trolling…
I reiterate it is often tor that gets chucked.
Corporations can spy on Americans and then pass info onto law enforcement. ChoicePoint helped the Florida Republican Party kick minority voters of the voting rolls in 2000 — changing the course of history in a very bad way. It’s not illegal if corporations track someone for any reason, but G-men are supposed to need probable cause, though I’m sure they don’t follow the letter of the law. DISGUSTING. We should all wear ski masks for a day in protest.
One day only?
No….we would need to wear full face armor from birth to accommodate the tempo at which this is advancing.
Consider this recent article: “Hello Biometrics: Windows 10 to Add Facial Recognition, Iris Scans and Fingerprint Reader”
http://www.activistpost.com/2015/03/hello-biometrics-windows-10-to-add.html#more
but…Microsoft is a friendly player right?
Wrong.
In Canada and a number of other countries masks are illegal in public under many/most circumstances. So that is a fun combination. Given the abundance of surveillance and the acuity of software facial biometrics are pretty much doom as is.
Yep. The inevitable end run around “limited government”. And a quintessential example of “negative liberty” as category error.
If you see something, say something… if we see you, we are saying something. Heh. But not funny.
This makes me angry as anything. I agree, Misty, that this is unacceptable. And security intel at a mall? Yes, I agree with all of you who say this is way over the top.
This is just one more reason I am not on facebook, and intend to keep it that way. And if ANYONE has any doubts about spying being primarily used against dissenters, this ought to answer that. When activists can be spied on and dossiers on them created simply because of their activism, activist or dissent groups so often infiltrated, it should alarm us all. We HAVE to start realizing that a threat to one in this way is a threat to us all. We need to oppose this, one and all.
“This is just one more reason I am not on facebook”
Hopefully, that is the common sense message that people reading this article will take to heart; feline16.
Facebook is the CIA in drag. Using it is like handing them information on a silver platter….sort of like becoming an informer on yourself.
It is stupid.
Hi lyra –
Yes, and my one cousin (the one in VA, not the one I always talk about here, was just telling me again ‘tonight’ I should get on facebook. Sigh.
One other point that I think we all should be sure is brought out is that there is a growing seamlessness between private entities and corporations and law enforcement and government. Heidi Boghosian wrote of it in her book, “Spying on Democracy.” What these private entities increasingly collect on us is so easily shared with the surveillance state who has now such nefarious powers.
I confess I have not read the book, but did see her on Bill Moyers and thought she was telling it straight up!
Yeah feline16….
That “seamlessness” is ingrained in the program of the 0.01% of the International Banking Cabal as the International Central banking establishment (Federal Reserve, IMF, World Bank, Bank of International Settlements) control their puppets in the government to include all three branches of the US government, therefore…all of the agencies falling under the branch of the Office of the Director of National Security to include the DHS which has infiltrated most branches of law enforcement; as well as corporate entities to include those in the military industrial complex and those within the corrupted justice system; most religious institutions; most educational institutions; and of course they control with the iron-hand of grossly inequitable economic dictatorship.
Democracy within the US started dying in 1913 and now it is the stuff of dreams. We live in a form of totalitarian dictatorship which some of us would like to change and the sooner the better. Yet…miracles happen every day.
No need to buy any books. This stuff is well documented by many authors and journalists but Dean Henderson puts the pertinent information (names) on his website.
This is just a starting for point for that data.
“The Federal Reserve Cartel: Part I: The Eight Families”
https://hendersonlefthook.wordpress.com/2014/07/18/the-federal-reserve-cartel-part-i-the-eight-families/
Hi there lyra –
I don’t think I’ve heard of Mr. Henderson before, but I have bookmarked that article. I scanned down and saw some very familiar names… will have to now go back and see what he has to say.
Yeah, I’m picky anyway about books I buy. I have to REALLY want to read a whole book about the topic before I shell out anymore. There is one I definitely will be buying and reading, though I haven’t gotten around to purchasing it yet – and that is “Tomlinson Hill” by Chris Tomlinson. Of course the connection to Ladanian (sp?)Tomlinson (one of the top running backs ever) and his family certainly caught my attention. I have watched some of the related videos and also Chris T. and Ladanian’s brother LaVar on BookTV – a most excellent show. But I think what put this in my definite list is that Chris T. says he has done a chapter in the book about causes of racism and all.
Anyway, thanks for the link and it seems there’s SO much info – no time for boredom :-)
There is an inherent problem in that they win both ways. They can monitor you a bit less… but you cannot organise against them without… being monitored… or you cannot organise period. And of course even if you bow out your friends, family, acquaintances, and fellow activists who use networking to create organised protests lead them back to you.
I don’t use fascistbook but I think it is dangerous to think you’re safe from it… or that you have any power to organise anymore without someone thinking it should be online (and try to get numbers without it).
But yup… either way they win at keeping you out of their hair… or saying you’re radicalised by practicing extreme opsec and using THAT against you. If they want to. That collection ‘just in case’ is the most stifling possibility of all maybe?
One and a half minute video of many #BlackLivesMatter oriented demonstrations, includes a cappella accompaniment. Incidentally, I think Mall of America demonstration is briefly pictured at 54 seconds.
#BlackLivesMatter song by adrienne maree brown
WHY is it always someone elses fault when someone breaks the law????? Quit complaining and saying oh I am a target and dont break the law then you wont be in trouble. Really how is this hard, instead of finding reasons to think everyones against you. The Ferguson kid robbed a store, was shot. Guess he shouldnt have robbed a store and at the very least stopped when he was told to. These guys at the mall broke the law, now they are in legal trouble. This is not profiling its finding criminals. I for one will feel safer if I go to MOA knowing they are doing all they can to keep people safe from CRIMINALS…… Bottom line is if your black, white, purple or yellow, dont break the law and you wont be in trouble, quit trying to make trouble.
Hi Frank: you are a very silly person!
Have you missed the news about police barging into the wrong house, or the service dog just shot by a police person , or that 12 year old kid shot in the park——- he was playing with a toy gun?
I think the MOA should have a spelling change to MAUL of America, because really, people are accused of crimes all over and injured or killed without any thought or lawful reason!
Frank, you don’t have to be doing anything to be shot in America anymore. In fact I think indentured servitude is what’s coming next so we can just cycle in and out of those private prisons just to keep the bed quota full!
Frank, you will be guilty of anything that anyone with any power thinks you should be guilty of. Wake up , Frank, the MAUL of America is everywhere. : (
p.s. read a book called IRONHEEL, by Jack London—–someone in power is following this plot very closely!
p.s. #2 it’s on gutenberg if you have no $
Remember all those articles about online sales killing off malls as viable retail ventures?
Almost felt sorry for them back then.
But now….
As far as tourist attractions go, the worlds second largest ball of twine has more allure for me.
I feel bad for those drawn to the MoA.
C’mon kids… let’s go visit Stasiland!
And another sidebar regarding private firms and social media: would you call this “catfishing” too? Or trawling?
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/mar/18/pearson-monitoring-students-social-media-tests
Thanks for that link. I was of course, interested as we’ve used Pearson texts in our math dep’t.
How big a concern this is, I’m not sure, but it is creepy. And what concerns me is that as online testing seems to becoming more prevalent, how big a threat to whatever privacy we have left will it be? Not a lot of comments at The Guardian, but many seem to be ok with this as it is to “fight cheating.” Lots of this “no expectation of privacy online” being bandied about.
Ah, for the good old days of cheaters just looking over someone’s shoulder, I suppose…
I see some people are standing up for a company’s rights; they always do. But we need to think about the principle here very, very carefully.
We have often heard our shopping malls and supermarkets held up as a Utopia compared to Communist countries (like, alas, Venezuela is becoming) where product availability no longer can be taken for granted. But I think we may find that they are also a Utopia compared to the experience of future generations for a different reason. It will simply be impossible for anyone but the most starry-eyed idealist to imagine that people could walk into a store and find the same price on the rack for anyone, or indeed, that people could treat it as a right that they could walk into a store at all.
These mall security people did a simple enough thing, trying to use the anonymity and not-anonymity of social media to learn who to exclude from their store to stop an imminent protest. That’s their right. Apparently it would also be their right to not do so – to let next week’s “White Lives Matter” protest go on for hours without objection. The Civil Rights Act presumably still prohibits them from putting a Whites Only sign on the door to apply to everyone, but Is it a violation of the Civil Rights Act to allow someone to go into a mall to protest something as long as they’re not protesting on behalf of black victims? Somebody ought to figure out.
But why stop at stopping an imminent protest? Why not set up a face scanner and prevent anyone from entering who ever had a shoplifting conviction anywhere? Or who ever talked about shoplifting on Usenet? Or who answered an email from a “catfish” pretending to be a kid interested about shoplifting? And indeed, why stop at shoplifting? There are people who object to fur who might be a security risk. Much worse … there might even be people looking to get into the door who make a habit of criticizing the products they buy or the stores they shop at, or worse, point out the errors of those who manage those stores. A few mall cops can’t really do all that, of course – that’s why you need artificial intelligence. I imagine if I had $10,000 and money for ongoing lawsuits I could patent the idea now and make a billion trolling it (there’s no idea too obvious to patent), but then again, maybe someone has beaten me to it. If not they will.
I imagine the time is coming, give it 20-30 years in certain areas “fortunate” enough not to have a collapse of civilization, where just failing to recite back a company’s advertising jingle to your Smart TV in order to be allowed to watch a show, or certainly if you say something disrespectful or the analyzer finds your tone disrespectful, will be enough to get you higher prices or totally banned by companies for whom keeping a good image and a loyal customer base is part of their business model.
But there is a different philosophy possible – you recognize that capitalism is not exactly competitive, except of course for workers and consumers. I don’t know, but I bet a place like Mall of America doesn’t get built without a deal that makes them tax exempt pretty much to the end of time, or some kind of sweetheart arrangement. When there is no free market, people can demand the same rights of civil society from “private” business – that’s the idea behind the Civil Rights Act and the net neutrality for “franchised” (exclusive!) cable providers.
Hahaha
In other words…
The “free” marketplace doesn’t work properly because government intervention favors the wealthy.
Get rid of government and the wealthy would lose all their advantage.
Problem solved!
Next problem: Forest fires.
Obviously the solution to forest fires is chopping down all the trees.
Problem solved!
Next problem: War.
Obvious again.
Kill the enemy. No more war.
Problem solved.
Problem: Gun violence in America.
How obvious can this get? The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
More guns!
Problem solved.
No wonder free marketeers drink so much.
It’s hard work solving all the problems in the world.
*nods*
A state enforced ‘free market’ is an oxymoron. It’s basically code for neofeudalism. To crib your phrasing, that’s the idea behind ALEC’s “Municipal Telecomunications Private Industry Safeguards Act”.
Amazingly, FCC may actually do its job and protect the commons.
https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20150313/05200530309/fcc-outlines-plan-to-crush-awful-state-protectionist-broadband-laws.shtml
Sacre Bleu!
Government doing what it’s supposed to do.
Why isn’t this the expectation rather than a bit of news from bizarro world?
Expect less, demand less, get less.
Darren Wilson’s job search is over!
Sorry, but I can’t get worked up over this. It’s a private company seeking to protect itself (and its customers and employees) from a potentially dangerous situation, using nothing but publicly available information posted voluntarily by people. They did nothing wrong.
They can write SARs on people, and seemingly have, that’s why some people got a problem with it.
Even as this sounds creepy, the company does have a legit business concern, and the dossiers were culled from a public Facebook profiles. I can imagine a biotech company getting singled out and picketed by PETA activists (some of these people are seriously misinformed, btw) or an abortion clinic harassed by religious nuts. And if I was in the management, I would want to take similar steps: at least finding who these people are, and subscribing to their mail lists. And maybe even call the police and check with the city hall, if I had an advance knowledge of their protest demonstration in front of my property – I would like to know if the demonstration was registered and what security measures are being taken by the city.
‘Volunteered’, under false pretenses for the purposes of collection. But never mind that. Given the history of corporate/state spooks and peaceful activism, it’s extremely dubious to assume the spying is limited to the ‘public information’ they catfished out of these protestors. More likely a starting point to narrow down targets for dirt.
From the article:
How can you blithely accept a business manufacturing fake identities to lure citizens into sharing their information on the basis of purportedly common first amendment activity? What exactly can they reasonably and morally do with such information?
“Potentially dangerous” is the key phrase that allows these types to conflate social justice protestors with terrorists.
It is willful ignorance to imply that other ways of approaching the matter do not exist.
Is everyone on here crazy? there is no invasion of privacy to things that you put on the internet? Really? you put something that anyone in the world can access, and if someone does, you cry invasion of privacy? really? REALLY? the internet is free game.
Secondly these “Peacefull protests” are mosly anything other than peacfull and cost malls tons of money by lost business, etc. And dont forget Malls are PRIVATE PROPERTY!!!!!!! they are open to the public but that permission can and should be revoked if the rules of that business are not followwed. This is an absolute right to any business or private property. A “Peacefull Protest” at Private property is trespassing and is agianst the law as it should be. the compnay did not pay millions of dollars to build a mall for the purpose of political gathering. Public Property is were all protests should be made. Dant get me wrong i am all for peacefull protests as long as they follow the law and dio not infringe on others rights. it is absolutely hipocrittical to protest to violation of your rights while you are violation others rights by protesting on thier property and disrupting thier businesses.
Depends on the state constitution where the mall is located. Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74 (1980). Earlier decisions said a mall was the equivalent of a public place, a business district. See also, e.g., Fashion Valley Mall LLC v. NLRB, 69 Cal.Rptr.3d 288 (2007).
And in any event, this mall protest had infiltrators, according to this article. Businesses should leave the spying to NSA.
Hi Coram –
I really feel like I missed something. I don’t doubt for one moment the protest had infiltrators, but I’ve read through the article twice, and searched, but didn’t see mention n of it… Didn’t find it in the other TI article either.
Can you or someone point me to what I’m missing (gotta keep my blood boiling, you know :-) )?
In this case, it seems to have been virtual, via social media, although their followups seem to have been aggressive, according to the article. Not quite as brazen as other cases across the country involving demonstrators.
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/wash-peace-group-sues-over-infiltration/
Thanks, Coram :-)
I do remember reading about the infiltrator Towery. Don’t these folks have anything better to do?
My understanding of the usual rules for mall protests is that the mall doesn’t want you to do anything, but you can go in and break their rules. Merely breaking their rules, rather than the law, shouldn’t be a police matter, except that they then can tell you to leave. Provided they’ve then told you that in an authoritative way, they can claim trespassing and start getting more insistent.
However, that said, first, I don’t know if that’s what happened here, because the news I’ve seen (including here) seems to blur the lines of breaking the law vs. doing something the mall doesn’t like. There are obviously some private owners who would love trespassing to give them a private authority to prosecute anyone who breaks any rule they make, but I thought the courts were resisting. Second, there’s the question of when a place has become so central to the community that it loses its private character. You can’t tell people in that town to go to some other Mall of the Americas that will allow them to do what they want. When people don’t have a good range of options, does the law have to use its power to prohibit trespassing to punish people who simply chant or something? There has been some legal precedent on this but I don’t really know much about it.
What coram nobis said.
Malls have become the “downtown sidewalk” of our era. That this space has been privatized shouldn’t be permitted to to smother public speech.
Never have an Analyst do a HUMINT job. Smh.
LOL… I take it you don’t approve of https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/06/spies-now-cia-director-announces-major-restructuring/?comments=all#comments :)
CONITELPRO for the social media age?
I wonder if they did this for the “Open Carry” Activists? Wait, they be the right color and therefore not a threat!
Another sidebar: a parallel case of agents-provocateur.
http://www.salon.com/2015/03/18/i_wish_i_could_kill_some_of_these_cops_james_okeefes_plan_to_infiltrate_anti_police_protesters/
E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy have modern equivalents, maybe?
This is unacceptable. Unnaceptable period.
Mall of America’s security director is an ex-Israeli army sgt. (of course he is!) h/t @MaxBlumenthal
and from his linkedin
Shared (colonial) values.
What a coincidence, “…At least two of the four law enforcement agencies that were deployed in Ferguson up until Thursday evening — the St. Louis County Police Department and the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department — received training from Israeli security forces in recent years…” from http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israel-trained-police-occupy-missouri-after-killing-black-youth
Yanno, if these guys want to set up fake accounts at actual “jihad” sites — the ones where recruitment for unprotected speech like conspiracy to commit felonies occurs — fine. The MoA does seem a reasonable bet for a terrorist target.
But “Black Lives Matter” and other groups exercising legal speech rights should be left strictly alone, unless and until as entities they adopt illegal, violent tactics.
In fact wasn’t it recently declared a target by one of the McQueda franchises in Yemen?
But the probability of an attack itself is not a reasonable bet. It’s extremely unlikely. That’s the fundamental delusion we’re dealing with. A perpetual state of emergency that doesn’t actually exist, ‘trickling down’ like acid to corrode whatever semblance of a civic culture we had left. In this environment, activism is breezily conflated with terrorism. This is not a healthy society. 9/11 politics imported Israel’s siege mentality wholesale, to the point that its colonial occupation is now a training lab for authorities world wide. Recall Bibi, on 9/12/01, said the attack was “very good” for American/Israeli relations. It allowed the political apparatus of Empire to drop its miserable pretense. We’re all occupiers now.
Do they evacuate the mall and perform a controlled explosion if someone leaves a handbag at the food court by mistake? I mean that IS the SOP at Ben Gurion… and most of Israel.
Why did The Intercept feel compelled to blur out the face of “Nikki Larson” here? We’re talking about a photo posted to a public place, of interest no doubt to many persons associated with the protest who might have interacted with her in another way. And we see news stories reprint Facebook profile photos of various named subjects of news stories all the time. Is there some law against reposting a profile photo if you think it might really be a mall security agent?
I don’t understand when I read comments like this on forums where one would expect an audience that values privacy. The photo of “Nikki Larson” was found via Google reverse image search to have come from a Facebook friend of Sam Root. At no point in this article is it suggested that the person in the photo was also a mall security agent. Based on the article, it is not even clear whether the woman is aware that her photo is being used in such a manner. Without any more information, I can’t see how it would be appropriate to release the photo without blurring out her face.
Put yourself in that situation: an acquaintance in “law enforcement” (I’m unsure if these are actual police officers) uses a picture of you to create a fake social media account without your consent or knowledge to conduct espionage on innocent activists organizing a social movement. Media outlets begin to circulate your picture attached to the story. Do you still think that is appropriate, especially if you are innocent of any involvement?
I will concede that this is irrelevant if the woman is actually associated with mall security or gave informed consent for the use of her image, but I think the media should err on the side of privacy and keep her identity a secret unless they had evidence of her involvement. I think The Intercept did the right thing by blurring her face.
Read the article. The pic was of a friend of the intel guy. Pretty crappy that he used it without her permission. But it’s not her fault and she doesn’t deserve to be further brought into it.
No, that’s not what the article says and it’s not what the person who had her photo used without consent said. The article said, “facebook friends with Root,” which has no relation to ‘real world’ friends with Root. As you can read in my other comment about this, she wrote, “No, I don’t know Sam Root.”
Maybe because “Nikki Larson” didn’t consent to allowing this no scruples shitbag 007 wannabe to use her photos.
Myfox9.com
I’m thinking there are some actionable claims here for her.
Same… and that by redacting and allowing the MoA to pull the page diwn before she could hire a good attorney, her ability to show cause was made somewhat more limited (given what it seems to take to have ’cause’ in the current landscape). Then again how does anyone know whether she was or she wasn’t complicit?
I can understand the importance of making it clear that there’s no indication that she was involved just because her photo was used. Nonetheless, the photo is still of interest, I assume, to anyone who was involved with this protest who chatted with “her” on some other social media The Intercept has not yet reported about. The point is, that like most of the stuff in Snowden’s fossil hoard, this information is Too Good For Scum Like Us. Maybe it is the property of a few Responsible Reporters from FOX and The Intercept, maybe it is the property of the NSA, but how much difference does it really make who is the one authorized to know the truth when it isn’t us? I feel like even “our” media just gets wrapped up as the outermost layer on the NSA’s onion, and what difference does it make how many layers it has?
Behavior Profiling Redefines Security at the Mall of America
http://www.emergencymgmt.com/safety/Behavior-Profiling-Security-Mall-of-America.html
“…Looking to Israeli security methods, [Security Director Doug] Reynolds learned about how behavioral profiling is used in the country, especially at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport. He attended training in Israel to better understand how the technique is used and how security officials there have improved it…”
[Reynolds as Director of Security, presumably was Root’s boss at MOA]
“…A former Israeli Airports Authority security agent, Michael Rozin, was brought onto the Mall of America’s security team to help adopt the country’s behavioral profiling principles to the public environment at the U.S. facility…”
So now we’re all potential Palestinian terrorists. Note that this training isn’t from Israeli cops, but a branch of the Israeli military.
And in the article’s sidebar titled “Expanding Practice,” there is this disturbing bit:
“…American Security and Investigations is in the early stages of rolling out the program in a Minnesota school district…”
Let’s hope the Mall of America and some unfortunate Minnesota school district don’t go all Israeli and start using white phosphorous and dense inert metal explosives on crowds of children suspected of being ‘potential terrorists’ based on profiling.
To further add to coram nobis’s notable point, many SAR’s also comes from our lovely Fusion Center facilities, “clandestinely” placed in major cities and counties. Now there’s a story whose lid needs to be blown right off. Fusion Centers. Hint. Hint.
Note to NSA: hold off your SWAT Team – no need to step on your balls – I met “blown off” rhetorically speaking.
What particularly disturbs me about this is that there are hundreds of thousands of these ‘Secret Squirrel-007Wannabees’, like this guy Root, all over the country now. Everyone is a ‘terrorism specialist’ and why not?
All these phony baloney pretenders have to do is to convince some Fox News watching Mall Boss that they have ‘existential threat’ experience and produce a resume’ showing two tours in Falujah. No doubt that kind of experience is worth another $1.53 per hour over what the secretarial staff receives.
Then the guy comes in, goes wild, invades privacy and in some cases destroys lives. Next thing you know, he’s making ‘ex-Sarge Mallboss’s’ coffee and now he’s the go-to guy for all sorts of problems the old Sarge never even knew he had (‘ceptin’, of course, for those uppity negroes that keep comin’ to his Mall).
Black people should boycott any businesses that currently rent retail space at Mall of America until they feel the pain. My guess is that most of those businesses might ask for Mall of America to reassess their priorities after a short while.
Also, if I were some of the people affected, I’d go after Mr. Root’s double-wide and take everything else he owns. Others might learn by the example.
“Black people should boycott any businesses that currently rent retail space at Mall of America until they feel the pain. My guess is that most of those businesses might ask for Mall of America to reassess their priorities after a short while.”
Not a bad idea, but why limit it to black people. This is where all people should organize a boycott. If we accept the premise that black lives matter then we should all be fighting for that cause no matter what color we are. TMA responds to the economics of the situation as does any business and a large enough boycott would bring pressure on TMA who/which in turn would put pressure on Bloomington.
“What particularly disturbs me about this is that there are hundreds of thousands of these ‘Secret Squirrel-007Wannabees’, like this guy Root, all over the country now. Everyone is a ‘terrorism specialist’ and why not?”
So much this.
As I wrote in a comment on the FBI sting story this past week, to paraphrase, they all want the game, so much so that they create the game. It doe NOT help that there are like hundreds of schools offering Homeland Security ‘certificates’ or degrees either… and a lot of those (esp the cyber oriented ones) are subsidised and sponsored by the US gov.
Still the tip of the iceberg, but thank you for this article and your good work, Mr. Fang.
Yes, still the tip of a very large iceberg…
There is no doubt that profiling of one kind or another is going on, all over the United states, within Police Departments, other governmental agencies, and several major corporations, all monitoring and collecting private data, building dossiers on countless numbers of innocents.
And there is little doubt in my mind, that people are waking up to this reality, and are learning they can fight back, and that there are several ways to do so, including secure drops to this news service, The Intercept.
It must be causing the NSA and their associates all kinds of angst; personally I hope Clapper busts a gut…
Was this a sleazy immature move? Sure. Did the guy with the fake account actually do anything illegal? Not sure. Facebook is public and if you click the “confirm as friend” button then you allow are allowing that person to see all your “private” information. But really, anything you put on Facebook or online at all is not private, regardless of what privacy settings you may have set. If you’re dumb enough to friend some random person then you deserve to be “stalked.” If you’re dumb enough to have an open Facebook group event with the intention of causing disruption of a private business for your own gain, honorable as it may be, you deserve to deal with the consequences.
You aren’t surprised when you actually click on the link in the “Saudi prince wants to give you share of fortune” and you get a computer virus. Why are you surprised when you friend somebody you don’t know and they end up trying to screw you just the same?
BTW, the NPR report has a hyperlink to the “Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative.” Point at the link and you see a simple dot-gov hyperlink. Click on it and you find this tag in the URL line: “AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1″. I don’t think they mean chocolate chip.
Seriously, though, TI, it’s worth following up on the Suspicious Activity Report program — to capitalize it since it’s a formal activity — since getting tagged with an SAR, even by private security at a mall like this, could haunt the person tagged. It may be no less onerous than the no-fly list of infamous memory.
https://www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-eye-fbi-documents-reveal-lack-privacy-safeguards-and-guidance-governments-0
Plenty more on SARs at the ACLU website, FYI.
Mall of America my ass, more like Mall of Pakistan!
Mall of America has nothing better to spend money on than hiring a company to spy on activists? I can think of twenty things that money could go to like paying their god damn employees real money instead of minimum wage! Who lets these idiots in these positions of management? Are they like coming in in the morning and going up to granny at the food court patting down her crotch area like where’s the pipe bomb bitch!?! Don’t sound too far off from what they have been doing.
I have great sympathy for their cause but the protesters and their lawyer seem to be dangerously naive. Their complaints are:
1. someone on the internet wasn’t who they said they were;
2. someone took the information the protesters themselves published in a very public forum and collected it for their own purposes.
This might have been surprising in 1995 but it’s a non-story today.
quote”Documents obtained by The Intercept indicate that security staff at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota used a fake Facebook account to monitor local Black Lives Matter organizers…..(snip)
A Facebook account for a Sam Root lists his profession as “Intelligence Analyst at Mall of America.” “unquote
An Intelligence Analyst…at a fucking mall??????????? That does it. This “surveillance” shit has gone completely fucking insane. I’m done. If this isn’t living proof this nation has finally become the equivalent of East Germany ..I don’t know what is. What I do know is, when private company’s are now employing “Intelligence Analysts” who actually go online to monitor private citizens…we’ve hit the bottom of the abyss. Period. As for malls, big stores, transportation hubs, and cities…I’m done. In reality..the terrorists won.
Inverted Totalitarianism mixed with a corporatocracy
Are you really done? Not just teasing us?
But which terrorists?
“The account, previously found at this url [link to URL], was deleted soon after The Intercept contacted the Mall of America for this story.”
Oh, what a shame! Since 2009 he has had this account available for disguising his identity, and now it’s gone. But deleted doesn’t mean deleted on Facebook. It means no longer visible. Facebook still has the info. Wonder if anyone will be requesting it. Wonder if Facebook is upset about the subterfuge. Think they’ll be cancelling his real account and checking for other fake accounts that he controls?
“The Mall of America declined to answer any questions about the Larson Facebook page. Reached for comment, Root said he ended his employment with Mall of America on January 27. Asked about the Nikki Larson page and the Black Lives Matter protest, Root said, ‘I can’t answer anything about that because it’s a case.'”
Well, well, well. Does this mean Root was not a long-term MoA employee, just a temp hired to deal with the immediate situation? Or did MoA dump him because of the excessive methods he was using? Or has he moved to a better-paid job with a big snooping company on the strength of his performance in the MoA case?
And I must agree with Kitt below. Nothing prevents him from talking. If the judge issues a gag order binding on all attorneys and witnesses and police office, that would prevent him from talking. “Because it’s a case” is just a logic-free excuse, something to offer as a reason, suggesting that he could explain it satisfactorily if he were free to speak but he’ll have to endure the suspicion until his actions are justified in court. After it’s over, he’ll have another logic-free excuse.
Look up Brad Kleinerman. I remember watching this very segment the article is referring to, I THINK CIR had also partnered up CBS (9/8/2011). Kleinerman was being interviewed & recounting his own personal experience at MOA (January 2008), when he noticed a few “Seal Team 6″ wannabee stalking him at the mall. Kleinerman confronted the individuals as to why they were following him. MOA called for “back up” security b/c Kleinerman wasn’t being “cooperative”. There’s a SAR (15 pages) on BK (just look up CIR & Kleinerman). I think he sued, though I’m not really sure. This is one f***** sleazy government.
I would recommend watching the link.
http://cironline.org/reports/mall-america-reports-brad-kleinerman-2943
That is creepy as hell. Undercover Mall of America ‘plain clothes’ cops put Kleinerman in their database, generated a 15 page report on him and sent it to the Bloomington Police Department because he was *looking* at them?
I’ll bet Kleinerman gets a body cavity search from TSA every time he flies now. Good thing he’s a HR director at an insurance company – he’s not going to pass a background check if he tries to get a job anywhere else.
Good job, Mall of America Stazi. Thanks for not calling out your K-9 goons, tazing him and his son and ‘applying arrest kits’ to them. I hope you got urine and DNA samples from both of them in case they return and look at you (or attempt to buy another SpongeBob watch).
But it has the words ‘of America’ in it! Surely that makes it ok? ;)
Looks like the protestors not only have a clean hands defense against the Mall available at trial, but a positive case against the Mall for fraud. All the elements are there: false statement, knowledge of falsity, intent to deceive, reliance on the statement (protesters brought the fake identity into a circle of trust), and damage based on the false statement (they’re on the hook for legal fees whether they win or lose).
Damages? What damages? What monetary damages did the groups incur as a result of the mall infiltrating their facebook pages?
This should really come as no surprise to anyone at this point. We know (thanks to Snowden and GG) that the spy agencies are destroying the lives of innocents when it disapproves of their politics, their whistle-blowing, or their exposing corruption. We know that the government works not for the people but rather for the large corporations and other “connected” insiders. Is it therefore much of a stretch to learn that the corporations themselves are taking on some of the dirty work usually performed by government??
It appears no one can hide from government surveillance, not even our children. Last week, Bob Braun broke a story about Pearson monitoring the social media of students in cooperation with the NJ State Dept of Education. What was disturbing about this is Pearson wanted the child disciplined and contacted NJDoEd to enforce penalties on the child when it wasn’t certain that the child had done anything wrong.
Leonie Haimson of NYCity Public School Parents suggest parents opt their children out of the state mandated online tests to protect children from Pearson’s massive data collection of all kinds of personal information.
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2015/03/surveillance-free-speech-student.html
http://www.bobbraunsledger.com/breaking-pearson-nj-spying-on-social-media-of-students-taking-parcc-tests/
http://hackeducation.com/2015/03/17/pearson-spy/
Is there any connection between this and the so-called terrorist threat supposedly made later against the MoA I wonder? Excuse to continue to surveil anyone who’s not white enough? I agree with Kitt. I hope there’s a huge boycott occurring.
Sure you can. No one is stopping you from answering to all of this, except your cowardly, sneaky, dishonest self. I will add to that, incompetent self also, since your fake account and your despicable spying has been exposed.
I would think that through boycotts and really bad Public Relations, Mall of America stands to lose a lot more than $65,000 dollars if they don’t come clean, apologize for their spying and all of their other ugly behavior, such as filing these bogus charges and continuing their so called “case.”