Thread by @UR_Ninja

NEW: Criminal Intel Files Show Facial Recognition, Warrantless Surveillance in Minnesota
A little-known multi-agency drug war group runs thousands of facial recognition scans and other surveillance operations
unicornriot.ninja/2022/criminal-…

We found over 37,000 requests for support, connecting at least 233 law enforcement organizations in MN and beyond. Documents obtained via a series of public records requests from the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) provide rare insight into police intelligence gathering.

Many drug and other task forces as well as more routine law enforcement operations within the region receive intelligence from investigators within the Criminal Intelligence Division (CID) and Criminal Information Sharing and Analysis (CISA) units.

Within this division is the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Investigative Support Center (HIDTA ISC). Amid these units the Real Time Analysis Center (RTAC) is a hub for tactical operations planning. unicornriot.ninja/2022/criminal-…

This surveillance deep dive covers many aspects:
The Police Web – 37,000 Requests – Facial Recognition – Berla: Data Mining Automobiles – Operations and Tactical Planning – License Plate Readers – Cell Phone Data – Cellebrite and Phone Extraction – Minimal Oversight – Resources

#HIDTA operations, like the North Central HIDTA, exist across the United States with little public scrutiny. Now, the dataset Unicorn Riot is making public shows over 1,600 facial recognition searches in 1,395 days for investigations including “property crimes,” and others.

The log of facial recognition searches spans roughly 1,300 days from January of 2019 to late October 2022. The log indicates investigators ran 1,677 facial recognition searches since Jan. 2019.
Of those searches, 921, or 54%, were not associated with any case numbers.

Another briefing document explains that “The ISC initiative is led by the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office.” Furthermore, the ISC supports investigations into violent and drug crimes and also “financial” and “other major crime investigations.”

The High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program was created by Congress in 1988 during the Reagan-era expansion &federalization of the War on Drugs. HIDTA assists “law enforcement agencies operating in areas determined to be critical drug-trafficking regions.”

In 2021 HIDTA annual budget was $290 million. “President Biden’s FY 2023 budget calls for a historic $293.5 million in funding for the HIDTA program,” according to Whitehouse.gov. Overall, the Drug Enforcement Agency’s (DEA) ever-expanding budget now exceeds $3 billion.

The DEA seize property and currency to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year via asset forfeiture.
Learn more about Homeland Security asset forfeiture via our leaked ICE-HSI manual #Icebreaker Pt. 2 (2018)
unicornriot.ninja/2018/icebreake…

In addition to federal agents, the local #HIDTA program – North Central HIDTA – employs “specially trained criminal intelligence analysts” from “Anoka, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey and Washington” counties and a “Minnesota National Guard Counter Drug analyst” according to the docs.

2020: Plane Seized As Part of Counter Drug Asset Forfeiture Mission Used to Resupply Police with Riot Munitions During George Floyd Uprising unicornriot.ninja/2020/behind-th… #GeorgeFloyd #assetforfeiture

New today: unicornriot.ninja/2022/criminal-…
37,000 support requests keep HIDTA – ISC busy
Via data practices requests, Unicorn Riot found that ISC provided support for over 37,000 requests from law enforcement partners.

Unicorn Riot obtained data detailing the names of law enforcement organizations that requested investigative support from the ISC; the dates and types of cases in which the center provided real time support through the RTAC; spreadsheets logging facial recognition searches &more.

North Central HIDTA-ISC operations run more or less around the clock, processing and poring over scraped data of all kinds. They also routinely receive information from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and other federal partners.

A Look Behind The Curtain – Facial Recognition in Minnesota
Before UR obtained these documents, an in-depth understanding of how local authorities have used #facialrecognition was not available. But now, with thousands of cases to observe, it’s possible to illustrate the extent.

“Face recognition surveillance presents an unprecedented threat to our privacy and civil liberties. It gives governments, companies, and individuals the power to spy on us wherever we go — tracking our faces at protests, political rallies, places of worship, and more.” @ACLU

@ACLU Lacking any data to verify a legitimate justification for nearly 1000 searches in ~1300 days shows a lack of transparency and accountability within these programs. It also displays a clear pattern of frequent reliance on a technology that can be both invasive and misleading.

@ACLU On Feb. 12, 2021, Minneapolis banned its police department from using facial recognition for surveillance, but that didn’t stop the law enforcement agency from using the controversial technology.

@ACLU Records show that four days after City Council passed the ban, #Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) requested a facial recognition search and listed the reason as “null.” The request’s justification being listed as “null” prevents the public from knowing any info re the search.

State law does not forbid facial recognition surveillance, and in some cases, MPD appears to have circumvented the local ban by outsourcing requests to other agencies. This could shield MPD from liability over those searches, as one city cannot regulate another city’s police.

Civil rights advocates in MN foresaw this problem. Munira Mohamed @Muniramaidenrue @ACLUMN advocated for banning facial recognition in Mpls: “If you pass a local law curtailing police abuse, how do you know they can’t skirt around that with the help of another agency?”

Some other #facialrecognition examples – Since Jan. of 2019, the Brooklyn Center Police Department requested these searches 33 times; Edina, 69 times; Champlin 7; Bloomington 42; Elk River 14; Richfield 23; St. Louis Park 30; Metro Transit Police Department 42; and Zumbrota 1.

#Facialrecognition is only one side of today's Unicorn Riot investigation (written by @MinneapoliSam). Check out the full story about HIDTA surveillance and data mining here:
unicornriot.ninja/2022/criminal-…

@MinneapoliSam To our surprise Minnesota authorities used a little known car-spying technology called #Berla 33 times since August 2021. Berla collects GPS and other revealing info like when doors were opened and closed, and connections to cell phones.

@MinneapoliSam One of the “desks” used during live operations is the RTAC (Real Time Analysis Center) which is critical to “Emergent Event Operations and Tactical Support,” as stated in a HIDTA briefing doc. RTAC is a command hub for “operational and tactical planning” unicornriot.ninja/2022/criminal-…

@MinneapoliSam The dataset reveals RTAC was used in support of 462 law enforcement operations from June 5, 2019 to Oct. 26, 2022. The primary type of operation supported by RTAC during that time frame was “narcotics,” which was cited a total of 264 times.

@MinneapoliSam HIDTA uses multiple license plate reader vendors including Vigilant and CLEAR. Vigilant sells, “a nation-wide database of license plate reader data via a secure web-based application and allow intelligence agents to analyze the movement of targeted vehicles,” per other docs.

@MinneapoliSam Call Detail Records (CDRs) reveal a large amount of information about the people using the phone being analyzed – not just who is being called, when and for how long, but also how entire networks of people operate.

One document released as part of this investigation describes establishing “patterns of life,” a common term from War on Terror-era drone assassination campaigns. Using tools and systems like CellHawk and IBM’s Analyst Notebook, agencies piece together digital breadcrumbs.

2016: Unicorn Riot Interview with Christopher Soghoian about Analyst’s Notebook
unicornriot.ninja/2016/colorado-…

Revealed: Denver Police Using NSA-Grade Surveillance Software (2016)
unicornriot.ninja/2016/revealed-…

Officers need not physically possess the #phones being #surveilled as cell carriers turn over highly detailed call logs, GPS and other data without any #warrant thanks to 28 CFR Part 23 -- at a very low bar of “reasonable suspicion.” law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/28/pa…

<Cellebrite and Phone Extraction Tools>
Tools to extract data from phones already seized by police perform functions similar to surveillance occurring “in the field” and also provide a trove of potential evidence. Cellebrite is one such forensic extraction device.

Cellebrite or another extraction device will scoop the data from phones and analysts then use other programs to visualize and otherwise make sense of the information.

A survey revealed the main tools used by Minnesota law enforcement for cells & data mining

References to the #Accurint Virtual Crime Center and #Cellhawk Hawk Toolkit also turned up. Accurint is "cutting-edge investigative technology that can expedite the identification of people and their assets, addresses, relatives and business associates"

Criminal intelligence analysts fuse information from dozens of partner agencies including Customs and Border Protection. Intelligence networks provide information and assets belonging to federal agencies are routinely deployed in furtherance of domestic policing.

Aerial surveillance has become much more common in the Twin Cities in the last several years. As recently as November and December this year, Minneapolis residents could look up and see ‘DAGGER04,’ a Wisconsin National Guard RC-26 circling parts of the city for hours at a time.

The last time a C-26 flew surveillance over the Twin Cities was during the beginning of the unrest following the murder of George Floyd. 2021 story: unicornriot.ninja/2021/aerial-su…

Wisconsin is a member of North Central HIDTA --National Guard assets from the region are available for operations. DEA, FBI, DHS/CBP, and State Patrol spy planes & helicopters are also spotted circling or revealed through Air Traffic Control transmissions. unicornriot.ninja/2021/fbi-spy-p…

In 2021 we reported on how State Patrol aviation is used to spy on protesters in St. Paul with a high-resolution video:
unicornriot.ninja/2021/exclusive…

North Central HIDTA ISC and CISA are rarely, if ever, mentioned by news reporters or elected officials. The consequences of a highly capable, intricately networked group with access to some of the most powerful surveillance tools in history is a source of fundamental concern.

Check out the full story and download records from our report here: unicornriot.ninja/2022/criminal-…
Please share on your platforms to bring awareness to these #surveillance and #datamining policies in Minnesota