Denver’s Spy Files Past Raises Serious Concerns about “Geofeedia” Acquisition

DENVER – Citing concerns that the Denver Police Department may once again be monitoring the free speech activities of individuals and groups that are not suspected of criminal activity, a practice Denver publicly agreed to stop in 2003, the ACLU of Colorado filed a records request this morning seeking information related to the Department’s acquisition and use of Geofeedia and other social media surveillance software.

“In 2002, the ACLU revealed that the Denver Police intelligence unit was routinely monitoring the First Amendment activities of peaceful protesters and maintaining ‘Spy Files’ on the expressive activities of law-abiding advocacy organizations,” said Mark Silverstein, ACLU of Colorado Legal Director.  “After more than a year of litigation, Denver agreed to new policies and pledged to stop collecting information on how Denver residents exercise their First Amendment rights.”

“The Denver police recently purchased access to Geofeedia, which is marketed to police as a powerful tool for monitoring and collecting information on free speech activities.  We have serious questions about what the intelligence unit is doing with its new spying tool.  Have the police resumed the ‘Spy Files’ practices that they publicly agreed to abandon in 2003?”

Last month, the Daily Dot reported that the Denver Police Department used $30,000 in seized funds to purchase Geofeedia, surveillance software that allows officers to conduct location-based searches across at least a dozen social media platforms simultaneously.  In a promotional video, the surveillance software is marketed to law enforcement as a means to target public gatherings, using the example of a “Peace in Israel” rally in Chicago.

Lt. William Mitchell of the DPD Intelligence Bureau described Geofeedia in a funding request as an “intelligence and investigative platform” and listed the Martin Luther King Marade and the 420 Rally as examples of gatherings that police could monitor using the software.

An investigation by ACLU of Northern California into the Fresno Police Department’s use of similar software found that officers frequently searched for and monitored hashtags such as #BlackLivesMatter, #DontShoot, #ImUnarmed, #PoliceBrutality, and #ItsTimeforChange.  The Associated Press recently reported on hundreds of cases where officers misused intelligence tools and databases for personal reasons that were not connected to daily police work.

In 2003, the ACLU of Colorado filed a class action challenging DPD's practice of spying on peaceful protesters, maintaining "Spy Files" on activists who had done nothing more than attend rallies, meetings, and conferences, and disseminating information from the files to third parties.

As part of a settlement agreement with the ACLU, the City of Denver adopted a Criminal Intelligence Information policy that states, “The Department shall not collect or maintain information about the political, religious, social views, associations or activities of any individual or any group, association, corporation, business, partnership, or other organization, unless such information directly relates to criminal conduct or activity and there is a reasonable suspicion that the subject of the information is or may be involved in that criminal conduct or activity.”

The ACLU records request, which was delivered by email this morning, seeks the department’s current intelligence policy as well as any additional policies and training materials regarding social media surveillance.  The ACLU also requested a full list of search terms used by officers accessing Geofeedia.

"If the Denver Police Department has a policy to protect the public from a return to suspicion-less spying on free speech activities and from officers conducting surveillance for their own personal gain, then we invite the Department to produce it,” said Silverstein.  “Otherwise, the Department should suspend use of Geofeedia and any other social media surveillance immediately."

Geofeedia was purchased by the Denver Police Department using funds seized from criminal suspects through civil asset forfeiture. The purchase was not disclosed to the public before it was made, and it was not subjected to any formal approval process by the Denver City Council.

Resources:
Police Use of Social Media Surveillance Software Is Escalating, and Activists Are in the Digital Crosshairs: https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/police-use-social-media-surveillance-software-escalating-and-activists-are-digital
Full Chronology of the Spy Files Controversy: https://aclu-co.org/spyfiles/chronology/
ACLU Records Request: https://aclu-co.org/sites/default/files/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/2016-10-06-Dulacki-Silverstein.pdf
Denver Criminal Intelligence Information Policy: /sites/default/files/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/SettleAgreementExh1.pdf
 

DENVER – The ACLU of Colorado is pleased to announce that John Parvensky, Sen. Jessie Ulibarri, and Gail Johnson will receive our 2016 Civil Rights Awards, which will be presented at the Bill of Rights Dinner on Thursday, October 13th at the Four Seasons Hotel in Denver.
John Parvensky will receive the Carle Whitehead Memorial Award in recognition of his lifetime of accomplishments working as an advocate for the rights and needs of people experiencing homelessness. Parvensky has served as President of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless since 1986, directing programs that deliver supportive housing together with integrated healthcare, mental healthcare, and substance treatment services to 15,000 homeless, men, women, and children each year. He spearheaded the production of 16 integrated housing developments that combine high-quality housing for homeless individuals and families with affordable units for community residents with lower incomes, resulting in homes for 2,300 households. He serves as President of the Board of Directors of the National Coalition for the Homeless and as a member of Denver’s Commission to End Homelessness.
“One of the toughest challenges facing Colorado is meeting the basic needs of the most vulnerable among us and ensuring that they are connected to housing and services, not funneled into courts and jails,” said ACLU of Colorado Executive Director Nathan Woodliff-Stanley.  “John Parvensky has been working tirelessly for more than 30 years to find innovative, collaborative solutions to that challenge, and we are thrilled to recognize his many successes and accomplishments.”
Senator Jessie Ulibarri will receive the Ralph Carr Award recognizing his leadership and dedication as a community organizer and a legislator advocating for social justice, voting rights, LGBT rights, and racial equality. As a state senator, he has successfully authored and passed into law 39 pieces of legislation, including protecting the rights of workers, expanding access to affordable housing, safeguarding civil liberties, and ensuring full access to the ballot box. He will be leaving the state legislature after this term. Prior to joining the State Senate, Ulibarri spent a decade leading community organizing and public policy efforts, including as the Public Policy Director at the ACLU of Colorado and State Director at Mi Familia Vota.
“Senator Ulibarri is one of the strongest, most passionate civil libertarians in the Colorado legislature,” said ACLU of Colorado Public Policy Director Denise Maes. “His voice and presence will be missed at the Capitol, but we proudly recognize his substantial impact and know that he will continue fighting on for the rights of all Coloradans.”
Gail Johnson will receive the Edward Sherman Award in recognition of her work on behalf of prisoners’ rights and justice for people who are wrongly accused and incarcerated. Johnson is the managing partner of Johnson, Brennan & Klein in Boulder. She has two decades of experience representing clients in criminal and civil cases in state and federal courts. In three actual-innocence cases, she obtained orders for new trials for clients based on constitutional violations and newly discovered evidence. She is a member of the Criminal Justice Act panels for the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
“Gail Johnson’s distinguished career is marked by numerous victories in the courtroom for defendants who are wrongly accused, prisoners who are unjustly convicted, and inmates who are abused and mistreated,” said ACLU of Colorado Legal Director Mark Silverstein. “We are proud to honor her significant contributions to the pursuit of a more just and fair criminal justice system in Colorado.”
The Bill of Rights Dinner will feature a keynote presentation from Dale Ho, Director of the ACLU Voting Rights Project.  The ACLU of Colorado would also like to recognize and thank our Circle of Liberty Sponsors Killmer, Lane & Newman, LLP.
For more information about the event, purchasing tickets, or becoming a sponsor, please contact Rachel Pryor-Lease at 720-402-3105 or [email protected].

(This column was published in the Colorado Springs Gazette on 9/28/16)
In a recent Gazette article, it was reported that Spring Creek Correctional Facility is again erupting with assaults and riots, leaving youths and staff frightfully unsafe. After more than two years of hearing these kinds of reports from Spring Creek, it has become increasingly clear that the facility is plagued by an unforgiving and punitive culture that breeds violence and chaos. Staff now attribute the source of the violence to restrictions on their use of solitary confinement and other punitive measures. That should send off alarm bells. When staff charged with rehabilitating at-risk youths lament that they can't do their job unless they can lock children in torturous and widely discredited solitary confinement, we know there is a serious culture problem at the facility.
Psychological and rehabilitative experts from around the country are unanimous in their finding that solitary confinement hurts children and is wholly counterproductive to rehabilitation. What's more, it has been proved that evidence-based, nationally accepted best practices - which rely on building one-on-one relationships rather than isolation and restraint - work to reduce recidivism while keeping children and staff safe from violence.
Look to Missouri, which has adopted an approach to youth corrections that is founded on the idea that children are a work in progress and that all youths are redeemable and changeable. After shutting down its large and notoriously violent juvenile detention facility in Boonville in 1983, Missouri began to build small group homes and adopted a rehabilitative model where staff are strongly discouraged from using seclusion and restraint to manage even violent youths. Youths are instead immersed in an intensive, therapeutic treatment program led by development specialists rather than correctional guards and are provided a wide range of vocational and academic opportunities. Facility staff keep children safe primarily through relationship building and compassionate de-escalation, rather than through solitary confinement and restraint. The results are astounding. Compared with youth correctional staff in other states, Missouri staff are 14 times less likely to be assaulted. Compared with their peers in other states, Missouri in-custody youths are 4.5 times less likely to be assaulted, 17 times less likely to be placed in mechanical restraints and 228 times less likely to be placed in isolation. Recidivism rates are some of the lowest in the country, and high school graduation rates are on par with Missouri children who are out of custody.
These results show unequivocally that when children are treated with compassion, while given individualized attention and opportunities for meaningful growth, detention facilities become safer. Pleas from the Spring Creek staff to return to punitive measures, like increased solitary confinement and more restraints, demonstrate with clarity that the facility is on the wrong path. And it is no wonder. While leadership within the Division of Youth Corrections has long said it is committed to implementing nationally accepted best practices and curbing solitary confinement and restraint, it has seen four directors in the past two years - the most recent of whom departed in the wake of the latest Spring Creek scandal. Spring Creek has also seen at least three different facility directors during that same time period. Without consistent, committed leadership at the top, we cannot expect to see meaningful cultural change among line staff.
Finally, although you would not know it from staff accounts, the source of limitations on Spring Creek staff's ability to use solitary confinement is state law that has been in place since 1999. That law prohibits solitary confinement of youths except during an ongoing emergency. In 2014, our child advocacy coalition discovered that staff were placing children in isolation for days, weeks and even months at a time to punish them, in direct violation of the law. This was occurring at precisely the same time Spring Creek staff were complaining of rampant violence in the facility. Clearly, then, it is not the use or nonuse of solitary confinement that is driving the violence.
After more than two years of complaints and assaults, we must acknowledge the true root cause - a persistent punitive culture that must change.
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Rebecca T. Wallace is ACLU of Colorado staff attorney and policy counsel, and Elizabeth Logemann is Colorado Juvenile Defender Center (CJDC) supervising attorney.