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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been issuing threat bulletins to law enforcement agencies, urging them to treat a wide range of protest activities as potential signs of violent intent. This approach has been widely criticized by civil liberties groups for its potential to infringe on citizens' rights and justify aggressive policing tactics.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been issuing threat bulletins to law enforcement agencies, warning them to treat protest activities as potential signs of violent intent.Civil liberties groups have criticized the DHS's approach, arguing that it is based on unverifiable claims and vague language, and potentially creates a surveillance state.The use of fusion centers, which bring together intelligence from various sources, has been criticized for producing fragmentary and unverified information that can justify aggressive policing tactics.The DHS's risk-based approach reflects a broader shift in US law enforcement prioritizing perceived intent over demonstrable wrongdoing and using behavior cues to justify early intervention and expanded surveillance.Protesters labeled "transgressive" may be monitored, detained without charges, or met with force, according to the DHS's intelligence forecasting tactics.The use of dossiers, or "baseball cards," to compile protesters' personal data, including social media posts and affiliations, has been criticized as an infringement on citizens' rights.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been issuing threat bulletins to law enforcement agencies, urging them to treat a wide range of protest activities as potential signs of violent intent. These bulletins have been issued in recent months, with the latest one warning that protesters at the "No Kings" protests were likely to be armed and pose a threat to police officers.
The DHS's approach to monitoring and responding to protests has been widely criticized by civil liberties groups, who argue that it is based on unverifiable claims and vague language. The agency's use of fusion centers, which are intelligence gathering hubs that bring together information from various sources, has also been criticized for its potential to create a surveillance state.
Fusion centers like the Joint Regional Intelligence Center (JRIC) play a central role in how police understand protest movements. They produce intelligence reports based on open-source data and disseminate them widely among law enforcement agencies. However, these reports often contain fragmentary and unverified information, which can be used to justify aggressive policing tactics.
The DHS's risk-based approach reflects a broader shift in US law enforcement shaped by post-9/11 security priorities. It elevates perceived intent over demonstrable wrongdoing and uses behavior cues, affiliations, and other potentially predictive indicators to justify early intervention and expanded surveillance.
In recent years, the DHS has been increasingly relying on intelligence forecasting to identify groups seen as ideologically subversive or tactically unpredictable. Demonstrators labeled "transgressive" may be monitored, detained without charges, or met with force.
Social movement scholars widely recognize the introduction of preemptive protest policing as a departure from late-20th century approaches that prioritized de-escalation, communication, and facilitation. Instead, authorities have increasingly emphasized control of demonstrations through early intervention, surveillance, and disruption.
Surveillance of protesters has included the construction of dossiers, known as "baseball cards," which use high-tech tools to compile subjects' social media posts, affiliations, personal networks, and public statements critical of government policy. Obtained exclusively by WIRED, a DHS dossier on Mahmoud Khalil, the former Columbia graduate student and anti-war activist, shows analysts drew information from Canary Mission, a shadowy blacklist that anonymously profiles critics of Israeli military action and supporters of Palestinian rights.
Threat bulletins can also prime officers to anticipate conflict, shaping their posture and decisions on the ground. In the wake of violent 2020 protests, the San Jose Police Department cited the "numerous intelligence bulletins" it received from its local regional fusion center, DHS, as central to understanding "the mindset of the officers in the days leading up to and throughout the civil unrest."
The use of surveillance and intelligence gathering by law enforcement agencies has been criticized for its potential to infringe on citizens' rights. The DHS's approach to monitoring protesters has been particularly contentious, with many arguing that it is based on unverifiable claims and vague language.
In a statement, Vera Eidelman, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said, "Exercising those rights shouldn't be justification for adverse action or suspicion by the government. Labeling something as harmless as skateboarding at a protest as a violent threat is disturbing and dangerous, and could easily lead to excessive force against people who are simply exercising their First Amendment rights."
Ryan Shapiro, executive director of Property of the People, added, "The DHS report repeatedly conflates basic protest, organizing, and journalism with terroristic violence, thereby justifying ever more authoritarian measures by law enforcement. It should be sobering, if unsurprising, that the Trump regime's response to mass criticism of its police state tactics is to escalate those tactics."
Related Information:
https://www.ethicalhackingnews.com/articles/The-Surveillance-State-How-Law-Enforcement-is-Monitoring-Protesters-and-Citizens-ehn.shtml
https://www.wired.com/story/dhs-tells-police-that-common-protest-activities-are-violent-tactics/
Published: Thu Jul 10 17:09:20 2025 by llama3.2 3B Q4_K_M
