By Matt Cagle

The ACLU of California has obtained records showing that Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram provided user data access to Geofeedia, a developer of a social media monitoring product that we have seen marketed to law enforcement as a tool to monitor activists and protesters.

We are pleased that after we reported our findings to the companies, Instagram cut off Geofeedia’s access to public user posts, and Facebook has cut its access to a topic-based feed of public user posts. Twitter has also taken some recent steps to rein in Geofeedia though it has not ended the data relationship.

Further steps are required if these companies are to live up to their principles and policies by protecting users of all backgrounds engaging in political and social discourse. So today the ACLU of California, the Center for Media Justice, and Color of Change are calling on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to commit to concrete changes to better protect users going forward. Read our letters here and here.

We first learned about these agreements with Geofeedia from responses to public records requests to 63 California law enforcement agencies. These records revealed the fast expansion of social media surveillance with little-to-no debate or oversight.

But as we continued to comb through thousands of pages of documents, we saw emails from Geofeedia representatives telling law enforcement about its special access to Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram user data.

In one message, a Geofeedia representative tells police that the company has arrangements with Twitter and Instagram for user data. Right after that, the representative promotes a product feature that “covered Ferguson/Mike Brown nationally with great success.”

In another email from May 2016, a Geofeedia representative touts a “confidential legally binding agreement with Facebook.”

We now know the following about these agreements:

• Instagram had provided Geofeedia access to the Instagram API, a stream of public Instagram user posts. This data feed included any location data associated with the posts by users. Instagram terminated this access on September 19, 2016.
• Facebook had provided Geofeedia with access to a data feed called the Topic Feed API, which is supposed to be a tool for media companies and brand purposes, and which allowed Geofeedia to obtain a ranked feed of public posts from Facebook that mention a specific topic, including hashtags, events, or specific places. Facebook terminated this access on September 19, 2016.
• Twitter did not provide access to its “Firehose,” but has an agreement, via a subsidiary, to provide Geofeedia with searchable access to its database of public tweets. In February, Twitter added additional contract terms to try to further safeguard against surveillance. But our records show that as recently as July 11th, Geofeedia was still touting its product as a tool to monitor protests. After learning of this, Twitter sent Geofeedia a cease and desist letter.

Because Geofeedia obtained this access to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram as a developer, it could access a flow of data that would otherwise require an individual to “scrape” user data off of the services in an automated fashion that is prohibited by the terms of service (here and here). With this special access, Geofeedia could quickly access public user content and make it available to the 500 law enforcement and public safety clients claimed by the company.

Social media monitoring is spreading fast and is a powerful example of surveillance technology that can disproportionately impact communities of color. Using Geofeedia’s analytics and search capabilities and following the recommendations in their marketing materials, law enforcement in places like Oakland, Denver, and Seattle could easily target neighborhoods where people of color live, monitor hashtags used by activists and allies, or target activist groups as “overt threats.” We know for a fact that in in Oakland and Baltimore, law enforcement has used Geofeedia to monitor protests. Social media companies and their executives have expressed support for activists, movements, and free speech. Mark Zuckerberg endorsed Black Lives Matter and expressed sympathy after Philando Castile’s killing, which was broadcast on Facebook Live. Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey went to Ferguson. Above all, the companies articulate their role as a home for free speech about important social or political issues.

Yet there is a severe disconnect between these positions and the data access they have provided.

Beyond the agreements with Geofeedia, we are concerned about a lack of robust or properly enforced anti-surveillance policies. Neither Facebook nor Instagram has a public policy specifically prohibiting developers from exploiting user data for surveillance purposes. Twitter does have a “longstanding rule” prohibiting the sale of user data for surveillance as well as a Developer Policy that bans the use of Twitter data “to investigate, track or surveil Twitter users.” Publicly available policies like these need to exist and be robustly enforced.

Here is what we’re asking of the social networks:

• No Data Access for Developers of Surveillance Tools:Social media companies should not provide data access to developers who have law enforcement clients and allow their product to be used for surveillance, including the monitoring of information about the political, religious, social views, racial background, locations, associations or activities of any individual or group of individuals.
• Clear, Public & Transparent Policies: Social media companies should adopt clear, public, and transparent policies to prohibit developers from exploiting user data for surveillance purposes. The companies should publicly explain these policies, how they will be enforced, and the consequences of such violations. These policies should also appear prominently in specific materials and agreements with developers.
• Oversight of Developers:Social media companies should institute both human and technical auditing mechanisms designed to effectively identify potential violations of this policy, both by the developers and end users, and take swift action for violations.

The government should not have preferred access to social media speech for surveillance purposes. We are confident the companies agree. Facebook and Instagram have already cut off access to Geofeedia and Twitter should do the same. It’s also time for all three of the companies to live up to their words by taking the additional concrete steps outlined in our letters.

Note: The CEO of Geofeedia has asked to meet with us. We will see what he has to say for himself.

Matt Cagle is technology & civil liberties Policy attorney at the ACLU of Northern California.

The following was first published in the Voice of OC. 

Orange County has long been a national symbol of affluence.

Its median income ranks among the top 3 percent of all counties nationwide. It boasts a county budget topping $3 billion. Its economy is larger than more than half of all U.S. states.

It is also plagued by a grinding and deadly homelessness crisis that gets worse by the day. With all of the resources at its disposal, why, then, can’t the county find an effective way to help thousands of its most vulnerable residents?

A new report (Download .pdf) by the ACLU of Southern California asks that and many other questions —and astoundingly, elected officials in this rich and resourceful county cry poverty. “It’s not for lack of sympathy and understanding that our hands are tied,” Board Supervisor Shawn Nelson argued during a recent budget hearing, “Orange County does not have the ability to do what other counties have done.”

To its credit, the county hasn’t ignored the issue. In 2010, the Board of Supervisors approved a Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness, which called for creating more permanent affordable housing—a strategy that studies show is the most effective way to end homelessness. But the ACLU SoCal report finds that today, more than six years later, the county is failing to follow its own blueprint.

County officials originally drew up the Ten-Year Plan to qualify for homelessness services from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. But stagnant or shrinking state and federal funds don’t come close to meeting the need. The ACLU SoCal report estimates that Orange County could effectively end homelessness by spending about $55 million per year above what it receives from federal and state sources. That represents only 1.7 percent of the county’s $3.2 billion budget.

As county officials steadfastly refuse to step up investments in local resources that are key to the Ten-Year Plan’s success, thousands of people literally have nowhere to live. The number of people experiencing homelessness per year increased by 20 percent from 2013 to 2015, local encampments are exploding, and according to Orange County Sheriff-Coroner data, the number of homeless deaths per year doubled from 2009 to 2015.

As noted in the ACLU SoCal report, affordable housing waitlists drag on for years, and the development of permanent supportive housing doesn’t come close to meeting the demand. Given the county’s sky-high rents, market-rate housing is simply out of reach for people experiencing homelessness.

The county’s refusal to spend money on real solutions to these problems will end up costing the taxpayers even more. Permanent affordable housing is ultimately cheaper than the expense of jail time, emergency room treatment and other harsh measures faced by individuals who are chronically homeless. Given that only 0.14 percent of the Orange County’s population is homeless—lower than the national average of 0.18 percent—the overall cost of housing them is minimal.

Orange County would do well to follow the example of cities, counties, and states that have successfully reduced homelessness by creating dedicated sources of funding to support housing-first strategies. Housing trust funds are one example—they are designed to bring in dedicated sources of funding for affordable housing, such as fees or loan repayments. The county, cities, corporations, and philanthropic organizations could contribute to the fund to support a coordinated, regional solution to homelessness.

Housing is critical to ending homelessness, but it is only part of the picture. Orange County must reverse course on policies that criminalize homelessness. The county and 33 out of its 34 cities have passed  misguided laws that ban innocent behaviors that homeless individuals cannot avoid, such as sleeping and camping in public.

These laws don’t fulfill their intended purpose, namely, to rid cities of homeless people. Because almost all Orange County cities have ordinances on the books that criminalize, there are few options for relocation and many people decide to stay in place and put up with police harassment.

Such policies only exacerbate the homelessness crisis by ensnaring people in the criminal justice system. People may find it more difficult to escape homelessness when they are burdened with hefty court fees and fines for violating nuisance ordinances and traumatized by police harassment. To get a little relief, some end up in isolated places such as dry riverbeds, foothills, and remote industrial areas, where they are both socially and geographically marginalized. Pushed into the margins, many lack basic necessities, such as food, restroom facilities, and even fresh drinking water.

The report urges the county to take a leadership role in ending these harmful policies.  It should follow the federal government’s lead in condemning criminalization, repeal ordinances that criminalize homelessness, and in allocating federal, state, and local funds, give priority to cities that do not criminalize homelessness.

The fact is, there is nothing preventing Orange County from scaling up their housing-first strategy and ending homelessness for good, except the political will to do so.

Eve Garrow is homelessness policy analyst and advocate at the ACLU of Southern California.

A version of the following blog appeared in the Voice of OC

On the morning of Aug. 1, two Santa Ana police officers stopped a homeless man named Richard Gene Swihart for riding his bicycle in the Civic Center plaza.

A few minutes later, Richard was rushed to a hospital — the officers had shot him multiple times. On Aug. 14, Richard died of his wounds.

The aftermath of the fatal police shooting was captured on video and posted on YouTube, but the circumstances that led to the initial confrontation remain murky.

Police officials did not discuss the shooting at all until receiving press inquiries, then would only say that Richard was hostile and tried to grab a gun from one of the officers. The Santa Ana Police Department did not publicly disclose that Richard had died until Aug. 31 – 17 days after his death – and it still has not, more than five weeks after the shooting, identified the officers involved.

While the details of the shooting remain shrouded in mystery, the underlying cause is clear – Richard might still be alive if it were not for an ongoing campaign to criminalize homelessness in Orange County.

Every day, police harass homeless individuals in Santa Ana and other Orange County cities for violating nuisance ordinances that criminalize everything from riding a bike to simply trying to find a place to sleep. These ordinances are designed not to ensure safety, but to sweep a vulnerable population out of public view.

Now, the situation is poised to become worse.

On the evening of Sept. 6, the Santa Ana City Council passed a resolution calling for stepped-up enforcement of code violations around the Civic Center, where an estimated 450 people are living in tents.

In the resolution, the Santa Ana City Council declared a “public health and safety crisis” at the Civic Center and called for stricter enforcement to provide a safe environment for government employees and members of the public in and around the complex.

There is indeed a crisis – but the crisis is the result of failed government policies.

Public health concerns in the Civic Center, for example, stem from the city’s refusal to provide basic services like storage space, showers, and adequate public restroom facilities for people who have no other place. Hours before the Santa Ana City Council meeting, the Orange County Board of Supervisors addressed some of those concerns by voting to fast-track the conversion of a nearby defunct transit center into a hub for temporary shelter and services.

But the larger issue of the aggressive law enforcement approach to homelessness remains. If Santa Ana is serious about enhancing the safety of people living outdoors, it must cease punishing people for being homeless.

The city must also be held accountable for Richard's death, and the Santa Ana Police Department must be completely transparent about the circumstances leading up to his death, starting with the release of the names of the officers involved.

SAPD has not indicated if the two officers involved are still serving on the Civic Center Patrol Unit and interacting with the same people who were present during Richard’s shooting.

Santa Ana Police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna told the Orange County Register that the two officers involved received special training on how to interact with people experiencing homelessness and mental illness. Richard's death calls into question SAPD’s policies and training. Left unanswered is whether SAPD employed de-escalation tactics before using lethal force.

The community deserves answers to these questions. Without full information about what happened in the shooting, the public cannot determine if SAPD is operating appropriately, or hold it accountable if it is not.

According to his best friend, Richard was an upbeat man who liked to crack jokes. One resident of the Civic Center recalled his love of chess. He was only 32 when he died. To honor his life, community groups are hosting a vigil on Wednesday, Sept. 14 at 9 a.m., near the Plaza of the Flags in the Civic Center Plaza.

Eve Garrow is homelessness policy analyst and advocate and Jennifer Rojas is community engagement and policy advocate at the ACLU of Southern California.