Is the FBI Setting the Stage for Increased Surveillance of Black Activists?
A recently FBI 鈥溾�� contains troubling signs that the FBI is scrutinizing and possibly surveilling Black activists in its search for potential 鈥渆xtremists.鈥�
The report, which the FBI鈥檚 Counterterrorism Division prepared, identifies what it calls 鈥淏lack Identity Extremists鈥� as security threats. Their 鈥減erceptions of police brutality against African Americans 鈥� will very likely serve as justification鈥� for violence against law enforcement officers, the report claims. Today, the 老澳门开奖结果 filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Center for Media Justice seeking other records regarding the FBI鈥檚 surveillance of Black people on the basis of a supposed shared ideology, including records using the term 鈥淏lack Identity Extremists.鈥�
The report is disturbing on several levels, starting with the label 鈥淏lack Identity Extremist.鈥� Its definition of the term is so confusing as to be unintelligible:
鈥淭he FBI defines black identity extremists as individuals who seek, wholly or in part, through unlawful acts of force or violence, in response to perceived racism and injustice in American society and some do so in furtherance of establishing a separate black homeland or autonomous black social institutions, communities, or governing organizations within the United States.鈥�
What seems to be a raises concerns that the FBI created the designation to enhance government scrutiny of Black activists, including people involved in Black Lives Matter, which some wrongly and label a . By focusing on ideology and viewpoint in defining what constitutes a so-called 鈥淏lack Identity Extremist,鈥� the FBI is spending valuable resources to target those who object to racism and injustice in America.
The report is also flawed in its conclusions and methodology. Any violence against law enforcement officers is unacceptable, but the FBI鈥檚 focus on supposed 鈥淏lack Identity Extremists鈥� appears misplaced. Studies show that attacks against police officers are and that carry out the overwhelming majority of those attacks.
In addition to missing that context, the report offers no evidence to support its assessment that 鈥淏lack Identity Extremists鈥� are a threat because they supposedly share a violent ideology. Instead, the FBI鈥檚 conclusion is premised on a description of six separate violent incidents and the 鈥渒ey assumption鈥� that those incidents were ideologically motivated. In other words, the report appears to assume its own core conclusion. The report even contradicts itself by acknowledging that the six incidents appear to have been 鈥渋nfluenced by more than one ideological perspective.鈥�
The report is yet another indication that the FBI thinks it can identify security threats by scrutinizing people鈥檚 beliefs and speech. In making its assessment, the FBI relied on individuals鈥� use of social media, including who they associated with, what search terms they used, and what content they liked. But there鈥檚 nothing wrong with having radical or 鈥渆xtreme鈥� ideas, and that the overwhelming majority of people who hold radical beliefs do not engage in or support violence.
The danger, of course, is that Black activists now have even more reason to be concerned that the law enforcement will surveil and take action against them for engaging in constitutionally protected speech. In an interview with the , one BLM activist said the 鈥淏lack Identity Extremist鈥� classification would 鈥渃riminalize anyone who is already in the movement.鈥� This is a concern that even an international human rights expert from the U.N. when reporting on the chilling effects of police practices against protesters. Such targeting of Black activists also throws open the door to racial profiling.
The FBI鈥檚 history gives Black activists plenty of cause for concern. In the 1960s, the FBI conducted of those it deemed 鈥淏lack Extremists鈥� and 鈥淏lack Nationalists鈥� under the covert program. The FBI has been 鈥�mapping鈥� racial and ethnic communities in the United States, including the Black population in Georgia, based on crude and false stereotypes about particular communities' propensity to commit certain crimes. That mapping included scrutiny of protests against police killings.
And FBI domestic terrorism training presentations conflate examples of armed resistance, or armed self-defense, by older organizations like the Black Panthers and the Black Liberation Army with beliefs expressed by various modern groups to suggest, without evidence, that these latter-day groups pose a similar threat. More recently, Department of Homeland Security records from 2014 and 2015 show that government officials trolled social media accounts to map and collect information on Black Lives Matter protests and supposedly related events.
The FBI鈥檚 recent 鈥淚ntelligence Assessment鈥� is yet another example of using 鈥渄omestic terror鈥� and 鈥渆xtremism鈥� as a smokescreen for silencing constitutionally protected speech and unfairly targeting civil rights activists through surveillance. By conjuring this category of 鈥淏lack Identity Extremists,鈥� the FBI dangerously equates domestic extremist movements that are actually on the rise, like , with one that looks near nonexistent.
The public needs to know more about the FBI鈥檚 activities related to what it calls 鈥淏lack Identity Extremism.鈥� Obtaining the agency鈥檚 records on these activities is one step toward protecting the free speech and privacy rights of Black activists.
