The Brennan Center’s years-long inquiry into the Boston Police Department’s social media practices has revealed that the department engages in broad monitoring of social media without specific policies or documentation requirements in place to prevent bias in enforcement or improper surveillance of First Amendment–protected activities. The results are questionable practices and a lack of accountability and oversight.
We first filed a public records request in January 2020 to shed light on the department’s surveillance practices. On Wednesday, we released more than 1,000 pages of internal police documents, the department’s written responses to our questions, and information obtained from multiple conversations with a BPD attorney.
The BPD runs the Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC), which is a federally funded “fusion center” that coordinates information sharing and collaboration among local, state, federal, and regional law enforcement and public safety agencies. The BRIC has a history of monitoring protests and other First Amendment–protected activity with no clear link to terrorism or emergencies. For example, it was previously exposed for using the social media monitoring tool Geofeedia to target Black Lives Matter activists and Muslims and for writing reports labeling antiwar protesters as domestic extremists.
Despite criticism for the BRIC’s past practices, our investigation revealed that it does not have a policy that specifically addresses analysts’ targeting of individuals on social media. We learned, however, that analysts might review an individual’s social media more regularly if that person is promoting a public event online. Analysts are also given wide latitude to monitor public events, conducting broad searches for events such as demonstrations with an ostensible connection to Boston in order to detect threats and evaluate potential public safety implications, though that connection is sometimes thin or nonexistent.
The BRIC monitors social media by utilizing software from private vendors like Chorus Intelligence Suite and by using online aliases. During our conversations with a BPD attorney, we learned that these fictitious accounts are employed primarily to monitor online content without directly engaging with individuals, but analysts may also use them to “friend” or message with individuals without revealing their law enforcement affiliation.
Our discussions with the BPD revealed that, despite the broad scope of these tactics, the BRIC does not require analysts to formally document their ongoing use of an online alias. As a result, there appears to be little oversight of analysts’ social media monitoring and scant opportunity for accountability, with the BRIC collecting little information to ensure that monitoring is being conducted in accordance with department policies or best practices to safeguard civil liberties.
The BRIC’s practices for keeping track of information sharing with other law enforcement and public safety agencies are inadequate as well. Documents the BRIC produced related to monitoring threats surrounding the November 2024 general election begin with a disclaimer that the BRIC had “no information or intelligence to indicate a specific, credible threat” related to the election. Yet reports produced by the BRIC show it collecting and broadly circulating information of questionable relevance, such as a Tennessee report of an individual’s attempt to fly an armed drone into an energy facility. Much of the material seems to have little connection to Boston, no public safety significance for Bostonians, and no indication of broader trends that would require law enforcement attention. The risks of these practices are magnified by the fact that the BRIC does not maintain a centralized audit trail of its activities.
The BPD also engages in broad social media monitoring of minors through its Youth Violence Strike Force, which monitors the web for information about gang activity or gun violence and other violent crimes. The strike force has used social media to corroborate group affiliations through “gang identifiers,” such as clothing indicating allegiance to a particular gang. But these types of gang identifiers have been criticized for punishing youth of color over commonly worn items. The BPD’s gang database, which has prompted concerns over racial bias, contains individuals added simply for clothes like Chicago Bulls apparel or certain sneaker brands, in the absence of any other indication of suspicious activity.
The strike force has since expanded its social media surveillance to collect a broad swath of information unrelated to criminal activity. Officers are instructed to monitor the accounts of family members or “associates” of gang members, even though those individuals are not suspected of wrongdoing or gang-related activity. This focus can extend online surveillance to anyone with social, familial, or online contact with a suspected gang member.