Thread by @doctorow

Last month, the Distributed Denial of Secrets transparency org published a massive dump of internal police documents dubbed #Blueleaks.

The release triggered a massive backlash from @Twitter, including a removal of the DDoSecrets account.

pluralistic.net/2020/06/23/cry…

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Twitter also blocks all links to DDoSecrets' website, claiming that it violates the company's policy against publishing leaks (a policy that Twitter enforces VERY selectively) and falsely claiming that the site hosts malicious software, which is categorically untrue.

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Writing for @theintercept, @micahflee delves into the leaks' origins and contents.

The leaks all likely originate with the Houston web-hosting company Netsential, who rolled their own insecure CMS using Asp.net and Vbscript.

theintercept.com/2020/07/15/blu…

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The defects in their custom code exposed 250+ law-enforcement related sites and their data. This resulted in personal details on 700k+ police officers being leaked; in some cases, this included home addresses, hashed passwords, etc.

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But the most revealing docs come from "Fusion Centers" - these being the post-9/11 cross-agency meta-departments that aggregate data from multiple sources in a bid to prevent terror attacks.

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Despite lavish budgets, a free rein, and anemic oversight, no fusion center has ever foiled a terror attack. So what ARE they doing?

This is where Blueleaks sheds some light.

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For example when a #BLM student activist wrote to a Bay Area law firm asking if its lawyers would be willing to be included on a list of probono counsel, the attorney who received the letter forwarded it to police authorities, with a profanity-laced, all-caps covering letter.

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"PLEASE SEE THE ATTACHED SOLICITATION I RECEIVED FROM AN ANTIFA TERRORIST WANTING MY HELP TO BAIL HER AND HER FRIENDS OUT OF JAIL, IF ARRESTED FOR RIOTING...I CANNOT RISK THIS PIECE OF SHIT ANTIFA […] FILING A BAR COMPLAINT AGAINST ME..."

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"THE SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC DEFENDERS WILL VIGOROUSLY DEFEND THESE TERRORISTS....HAPPY HUNTING."

The lawyer who sent this letter to the police used the SF District Attorney's office for the return address on the envelope.

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Despite the unhinged nature of the covering letter and the innocuous nature of the request from the student activist for pro bono counsel, "An investigator in the Marin County DA’s office considered this useful intelligence."

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"She logged into the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center’s CMS and created a new Suspicious Activity Report, or SAR, under the category 'Radicalization/Extremism' and typed the student’s name as the subject."

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Get that? This kid who asked a lawyer for pro-bono counsel is now eternally branded as a "radical/extremist" in a (formerly) secret government database on the strength of the all-caps rant of the lawyer she unwisely sought assistance from.

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Fusion Centers suck millions from our public budgets and don't catch the criminals they're supposed to be catching. Instead, these boondoggles are hives of unchecked poor judgment, places where secret dossiers are filled with paranoid rants dressed up as "intel."

eof/