As the world watches Flint, Michigan, to monitor the progress of the city’s continuing water crisis, newly released emails reveal that state police have been interested as well. Official correspondence made available earlier this month by Gov. Rick Snyder’s office confirms that the Michigan State Police have been conducting social media surveillance, specifically with regards to discussions surrounding Flint’s ongoing water dilemma.
Evidence of the online surveillance was confirmed in correspondence included in the more than 127,000 pages of state departmental emails released by the Republican governor’s office on April 15 and reviewed by Michigan Live ahead of an article published by the news site on Monday morning.
Specifically, one exchange reveals that authorities attempted to initiate criminal proceedings against a Copper City, Michigan, man after he landed on law enforcement’s radar for remarks he made on Facebook regarding the water crisis.
“It’s time for civil unrest. Burn down the Governor mansion, elimionate (sic) the capitol where the legislators RE-INSTATED the emergency dictator law after the PEOPLE voted it down, and tell the Mich (sic) State Police if they use military force, we will return with same,” the unidentified man allegedly wrote on Facebook, according to a state police email released earlier this month.
Michigan Live said the Facebook post was seen by a senior intelligence analyst with the State Police who then forwarded it to the agency’s intelligence commander and an Upper Peninsula post commander. The analyst states in the email that she has been monitoring Facebook and Twitter on behalf of the MSP Intelligence Operations Center specifically for comments concerning the Flint water crisis, the newspaper reported.
“In the interest of protecting our residents, the MSP monitors any incidents that have the potential to result in criminal activity and/or violence,” Michigan State Police spokesperson Shanon Banner told MLive-The Flint Journal ahead of Monday’s article.
“Threats against individuals and organizations are shared with the individual/organization so they have situational awareness,” she added.
While Michigan Live states that the amount of money being spent by the state on social media monitoring wasn’t immediately known, other publicly available documents offer insight with regards to the scope of the surveillance. The Michigan State Police wrote in a March 15 invitation to bid that it was accepting solicitations from contractors who could provide the agency with a full year of “geographic social media monitoring software” capable of searching platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Flickr in real-time.
The MSP currently has an existing service in place to conduct social media surveillance and 26 employees who have experience with the software, the agency revealed in an addendum. As of last month, however, the agency was looking for a new service that would allow upwards of 50 analysts to scour social media for posts relevant to state police.
When asked by potential contractors to provide specific examples of use, the MSP produced situations that indicate the agency wants to monitor constitutionally protected gatherings with the software.
“In cases where a large number of people will gather … analysts will monitor social media for mentions of the event and threats or criminal activity,” MSP explained.
The Copper City man who was investigated for his Facebook post was ultimately never charged, the newspaper noted.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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