How U.S. Universities Used Counterterror Fusion Centers to Surveil Student Protests for Palestine

From a statewide counterterrorism surveillance and intelligence-sharing hub in Ohio a warning went out to administrators at the Ohio State University At present we are aware of a demonstration that is planned to take place at Ohio State University this evening at hours Please see the attached flyers It is feasible that similar events will occur on campuses across Ohio in the coming days Founded in the wake of to facilitate information sharing between federal state and local law enforcement agencies fusion centers like Ohio s Statewide Terrorism Analysis and Crime Center or STACC have become yet another way for law enforcement agencies to surveil legally protected First Amendment pursuits The fusion centers across the U S work with the military private sector and other stakeholders to collect vast amounts of information on American citizens in a stated effort to prevent future terror attacks In Ohio it seemed that the counterterrorism surveillance hub was also keeping close tabs on campus events It wasn t just at Ohio State An investigative series by The Intercept has located that fusion centers were actively involved in monitoring pro-Palestine demonstrations on at least five campuses across the country as shown in more than pages of documents obtained via constituents records requests exposing U S universities playbooks for cracking down on pro-Palestine aspirant activism Related How California Spent Natural Tragedy Funds to Quell Attendee Protests for Palestine As the documents make clear not only did universities view the peaceful student-led demonstrations as a defense issue warranting the outside police and technological surveillance interventions detailed in the rest of this series but the arrangement of law enforcement bodies responsible for counterterror surveillance operations framed the demonstrations in the same way After the Ohio fusion center s tip-off to the upcoming demonstration bureaucrats in the Ohio State University Police Department worked promptly to assemble an operations plan and shut down the demonstration The preferred discipline of action for disorderly conduct and criminal trespass and other building violations will be arrest and removal from the event space wrote then-campus chief of police Kimberly Spears-McNatt in an email to her officers just two hours after the initial warning from Ohio s primary fusion center OSUPD and the Ohio State Highway Patrol would go on to clear the encampment that same night arresting demonstrators Fusion centers were designed to facilitate the sharing of already collected intelligence between local state and federal agencies but they have been used to target communities of color and to ever-widen the gray area of allowable surveillance The American Civil Liberties Union for example has long advocated against the country s fusion center structure on the grounds that they conducted overreaching surveillance of activists from the Black Lives Matter movement to environmental activism in Oregon Ohio State has an unwavering commitment to freedom of speech and expression We do not discuss our prevention protocols in detail a spokesperson for Ohio State disclosed in a report to The Intercept Officers at STACC didn t respond to multiple requests for comment The proliferation of fusion centers has contributed to a scope creep that allows broader and more intricate mass surveillance explained Rory Mir associate director of neighborhood organizing at the Electronic Frontier Foundation Between AI assessments of online speech the swirl of reckless records sharing from fusion centers and often opaque campus policies it s a recipe for mishap Mir stated While the Trump administration has publicized its weaponization of federal law enforcement agencies against pro-Palestine protesters with high-profile attacks including attempts to illegally deport candidate activists the documents obtained by The Intercept display its precedent under the Biden administration when surveillance and repression were coordinated behind the scenes All of that was happening under Biden disclosed Dylan Saba a staff attorney at Palestine Legal and what we ve seen with the Trump administration s implementation of Project and Project Esther is really just an acceleration of all of these tools of repression that were in place from before Not only was the groundwork for the Trump administration s descent into increasingly repressive and illegal tactics laid under Biden but the inquiry revealed that the framework for cracking down on attendee free speech was also in place before the pro-Palestine encampments Among other documentation The Intercept obtained a copy of Clemson University Police Department s Jeopardy Analysis Overview which states CUPD participates in regular information and intelligence sharing and assessment with both federal and state partners and receives briefings and updates throughout the year and for specific events incidents form sic the South Carolina Information and Intelligence Center SCIIC another fusion center The normalization of intelligence sharing between campus police departments and federal law enforcement agencies is widespread across U S universities and as pro-Palestine demonstrations escalated across the country in U S universities would lean on their relationships with outside agencies and on intelligence sharing arrangements with not only other universities but also the state and federal surveillance apparatus Read our complete coverage Chilling Dissent OSU was not the only university where fusion centers facilitated briefings intelligence sharing and in various cases directly involved federal law enforcement agencies At California State Polytechnic University Humboldt where the state tapped funds set aside for natural disasters and major emergencies to pay outside law enforcement officers to clear an occupied building the university president noted that the partnership would allow them to gather encouragement from the local Fusion Center to assist with investigative measures Cal Poly Humboldt had already made students devices a target for their surveillance as then-President Tom Jackson approved in an email The university s IT department had tracked the IP and account user information for all individuals connecting to WiFi in Siemens Hall a university building that students occupied for eight days Jackson wrote With the help of the FBI and warrants for the search and seizure of devices the university could go a step further in punishing the involved students The university s IT department had tracked the IP and account user information for all individuals connecting to WiFi in Siemens Hall In one email exchange Kyle Winn a special agent at the FBI s San Francisco Division wrote to a sergeant at the university s police department Per our conversation attached are several different warrants sworn out containing language pertaining to electronic devices Please utilize them as needed See you guys next week Cal Poly Humboldt mentioned in a message to The Intercept that it remains firmly committed to upholding the rights guaranteed under the First Amendment ensuring that all members of our region can speak assemble and express their views The pro-Palestine movement really does face a situation of repression announced Tariq Kenney-Shawa Al-Shabaka s U S agenda fellow We are up against repressive forces that have inevitably been there but have never been this advanced So it s really crucial that we don t underestimate them the repressive forces that are arrayed against us Related How Northern California s Police Intelligence Center Tracked Protests In Mir s view university administrators should have been wary about unleashing federal surveillance at their schools due to fusion centers reputation for infringing on civil rights Fusion centers have also come under fire for sharing dubious intelligence and escalating local police responses to BLM Mir mentioned referring to the Black Lives Matter protests For universities to knowingly coordinate and feed more information into these systems to target students puts them in harm s way and is a threat to their civil rights Research help provided by the nonprofit newsroom Type Investigations The post How U S Universities Used Counterterror Fusion Centers to Surveil Novice Protests for Palestine appeared first on The Intercept