Civil Rights Groups Move to Expose Government Spying on Black Lives Matter

“Nobody is monitoring what the government is doing.”

A recent protest.Derek Stiltner

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Against a backdrop of surveillance of the Black Lives Matters movement ahead of the Republican National Convention, two civil rights organizations are aiming to further expose government tracking of the movement’s members. On Tuesday, New York City-based groups Color of Change and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a joint Freedom of Information Act request with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security seeking documents, video and audio recordings, and other information on policies and protocols related to the surveillance of Black Lives Matter activists.

The request covers surveillance conducted in 11 cities that have seen large-scale protests over the police shooting or in-custody deaths of black people, including Baltimore, Chicago, New York City, Oakland, Cleveland, and St. Louis, where protests erupted in Ferguson after the killing of black teenager Michael Brown in August 2014. (The request cites Mother Jones‘ reports on the Department of Homeland Security tracking protesters at a Freddie Gray-related rally, and the monitoring of social media activity by prominent Black Lives Matter activists Deray McKesson and Johnetta Elzie by a private cyber security firm.)

The groups filed the request because they believe surveillance of Black Lives Matter is more systematic than is currently understood and jeopardizes the activists’ First Amendment rights, says Rashad Robinson, the director of Color of Change. “The government has done a real coordinated effort about what’s happening among activists, but nobody is monitoring what the government is doing,” Robinson says. “The more information we have, the better we can go about the kind of pushback and systemic change necessary to stop it.”

You can read the full FOIA request here.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate