The FBI and local police are treating #BlackLivesMatter protesters like a threat—while lying to Congress about it.
Dear Friend,
Nationwide, protests against police violence are being met with more police violence. Black activism is once again transforming the country for the better as we demand justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless others. But weekly reports of police turning military-grade gear against Americans bristle with revelations of the insidious high-tech surveillance tools being deployed against Black protesters: facial recognition cameras, StingRay devices that trick nearby cell phones & steal data, automated license plate readers, high-altitude spy planes and drones fitted with night vision & infrared sensors.1The list of surveillance tools deployed to identify, track, entrap and arrest protesters is staggering—and still growing. In particular, technology like facial recognition will undoubtedly lead to false arrests as known racial bias programmed into the software is inherently discriminatory against Black women, people of color, and gender non-conforming people. The rounding up and arrest of protesters is especially awful given jails and prisons continue to be hotbeds of the still-active COVID-19 pandemic. Black communities are still suffering the highest number of deaths from the virus. The situation couldn’t be more dire.
A 2017 FBI intelligence assessment report warned 18,000 local law enforcement agencies that Black activists’ resistance to racism and police violence make us an inherently dangerous and potentially lethal threat to police and labeling us “Black Identity Extremists.”2 In 2019, MediaJustice, ACLU and dozens of supporting organizations brought our concerns to the FBI and Congressional leadership. But it’s 2020, and the FBI continues to use the BIE designation to justify its racist criminalization of Black-led movements.3 They continue to lie to Congress, hiding the repression by lumping Black activists with the very white supremacists actively plotting violence and death upon Black communities under the thinly veiled “Racially Motivated Violent Extremist” designation. COINTELPRO’s 21st century successor, the program code-named Iron Fist, is also still active.
Congress has not held the FBI accountable for the extensive targeting and criminalization of our movements. Right now, the FBI is supporting and resourcing local police efforts to hunt, intimidate, and ultimately suppress protests at the local, state, and national level. The false dichotomy between peaceful and “violent” protest is a ruse to justify the snuffing of all resistance to the generations of Black death at the hands of police and white supremacist violence. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., often held up as exemplary of “peaceful” protest, was infamously targeted by relentless FBI surveillance and counter-organizing. The legacy of Black protest is a celebrated part of American history because it continuously pushes our entire society to be more equitable, truthful, and free. We look back on the FBI’s response to Black social movements of the 60’s and 70’s with scorn for good reason. The newest wave of the same movement is under attack once again. If we can acknowledge past assaults on Black movements as a shameful part of our collective history, then we are doomed to be complicit in a new, shameful era of high-tech repression if we do nothing now. History will repeat itself unless Congress chooses to do something different. Contact Representative Karen Bass and make clear that it’s time to #ProtectBlackDissent—today.
In Solidarity,
Myaisha and the rest of Team #MediaJustice
P.S. — Facial recognition technology is one of many surveillance tools that police are using against Black communities. It's inherently racist, inaccurate and dangerous, and law enforcement are actively using it to enact violence in our communities. We hope you'll check out https://www.banfacialrecognition.com/ to take further action to #ProtectBlackDissent and share this with your community.
![[Graphic] the hashtag #ProtectBlackDissent is centered in a black and white bar across a pixelated image of a Black Lives Matter protest, with crowds of advocates holding signs and a large black and yellow banner and a police cruiser in the foreground](https://mcusercontent.com/d9dc62939f7109284a2735703/images/33f236f7-df5f-4534-b8b7-83f2449afcb3.png)
