Private company helped DHS spy on “family separation” demonstrators

Share
Occupy ICE Tampa
First day of the Occupy ICE Tampa encampment. By Justin Garcia / WMNF (19 July 2018).

In the summer of 2018 there was a widespread protest movement of people upset at the Trump administration’s “family separation” policy of separating migrant kids from their parents at the border.

According to a report in The Intercept, a private company compiled a list of these protests happening across the U.S. It then gave that database to the Department of Homeland Security, which then distributed the information to its field officers.

The author, Ryan Deveraux of The Intercept was on WMNF’s MidPoint.

“A private intelligence firm known as Looking Glass Solutions gathered information on those protests. A total of more than 600 protests, according to internal emails.

“They sent that information to a network of state-level Fusion Centers, which, sort of, exist to disseminate information to other law enforcement entities across the country. The information made its way to the Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence office where it was further disseminated to DHS staff and eventually to ICE agents in the field.

“What the story shows is a sort of sweeping collection of information on demonstrations against one of the Trump administration’s most controversial immigration policies.”

Listen to the show here.

“DHS told us that this information was unsolicited.”

“If a private intelligence company is gathering information on First Amendment free-speech-protected activity and is sending it — even without a contract — to DHS. And DHS believes that it has to disseminate that information, that could lead us into some troubling areas.”

Also on the show we heard from a Treasure Island resident who is the spokesperson for a group that’s upset the Pinellas County beach city wants to turn green space in a park into a dog park. Glenn Mc Kiel is with Citizens Against Rosselli Dog-Park (CARD-P) in Treasure Island.

We also heard an interview from WFSU with the American Civil Liberties Union about a bill that passed the Florida Legislature setting

Leave a Reply

  • (will not be published)

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

You may also like

student meal
Next school year Hillsborough public schools are offering free meals

Hillsborough Public Schools are offering students free meals for the...

Correspondence Through Poetry. A Mind-Numbing Week.

Father Verses Sons: A Correspondence in Poems by Herbert Gold...

The sound of change: Music’s influence on anti-war and human rights movements

Throughout history, music has served as a powerful catalyst for...

a man in a tye dye shirt talking on a radio microphone
Recreational pot for Florida is on the ballot this fall—let’s talk about it

In four months, Florida voters have the opportunity to vote...

Ways to listen

WMNF is listener-supported. That means we don't advertise like a commercial station, and we're not part of a university.

Ways to support

WMNF volunteers have fun providing a variety of needed services to keep your community radio station alive and kickin'.

Follow us on Instagram

The Skinny
Player position: