Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum
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  • Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum
At least one criminal investigator with the Oregon Department of Justice began looking into Oregonians who used the hashtag #blacklivesmatter on Twitter at some point in the last year. Now, a host of civil rights, labor and civil liberty groups are calling for an independent audit of the department, and Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum claims she's "outraged" and is agreeing that the practice amounts to "profiling."

Word of the DOJ's snooping came out today, when the Urban League of Portland released a letter addressed to Rosenblum (as well as legislators and Gov. Kate Brown), and signed by groups like the AFL-CIO and ACLU of Oregon. The letter says—and Rosenblum confirms—that at least one DOJ investigator "conducted digital surveillance on Oregonians because of their use of the Black Lives Matter hashtag on social media." The practice was revealed two weeks ago, when DOJ Director for Civil Rights Erious Johnson learned from Rosenblum he was among the people who received scrutiny for his Twitter activity.

Johnson's wife, Nkenge Harmon-Johnson, was a staffer for former Gov. John Kitzhaber. She's now executive director of the Urban League and the lead signer of the letter to Rosenblum.

The scope of the Twitter surveillance—including whether investigators used search functions available to the public, or some sort of special software—isn't clear, according to ACLU of Oregon Executive Director David Rogers, who signed onto this afternoon's letter. But the prospect of state investigators singling people out at all for expressing their views on racial justice is concerning enough that Rogers and others are demanding a full audit of the practice.

"Look, the simple act of expressing concern for racial justice on social media should not be enough to trigger information gathering by the DOJ," Rogers tells the Mercury. "Surveilling people based on their ideas undercuts the fundamental freedoms on which our country was based."

Update, 6:19 pm: Rosenblum's office just released her response [pdf] to this afternoon's letter, and it's got some more details.

According to Rosenblum, an investigator in the DOJ's Criminal Justice Division "was apparently using an online search tool on a trial basis to perform a search of selected Twitter hashtags, one of which was #BlackLivesMatter. He chose to search #BlackLivesMatter in a particular geographic area."

Rosenblum says she was "appalled to hear of the incident," and readily refers to it as "profiling." She says she ordered the Criminal Justice Division to stop using the tool "or any other similar tool."

"To my knowledge, the materials generated by this inquiry were not distributed or used beyond the Oregon Department of Justice," Rosenblum writes. "But this raises many troubling questions."

The attorney general says she's called an HR investigation, and asked Carolyn Walker, a private labor attorney in Portland, to act as a special assistant attorney general and conduct a deeper investigation. One DOJ employee—presumably the one who conducted the search, though Rosenblum doesn't say—is on paid administrative leave.

"I have now seen firsthand how devastating profiling can be—written on the face of a member of my team,
she concludes.

Original post:

Rogers, of the ACLU, says it's possible the DOJ's actions broke Oregon law. He noted on his organization's website that Oregon has a one-of-a-kind law "that prohibits our state and local police from collecting information about the political, religious or social views of any individual or group unless that information directly relates to a criminal investigation."

Rogers also notes that homeland security officials investigated the Black Lives Matter movement earlier this year.

Rosenblum—who, by the way, chairs a task force on racial profiling—has known about the snooping for weeks, but didn't make a statement until the Urban League letter went live this afternoon. She says she's angry:

“I recently became aware that an employee of the Oregon DOJ Criminal Division was conducting a digital search of Twitter hashtags including #blacklivesmatter, that led him to the Twitter account of a close and trusted member of my inner circle staff, Erious Johnson Jr. I informed Mr. Johnson of this, told him that I was outraged by it, and that I had immediately ordered a stop to it. I am working to engage a Special Assistant Attorney General to conduct a complete HR investigation and audit to get to the bottom of this deeply troubling situation.”

Hit the jump for the complete text of Harmon-Johnson's letter.

November 10, 2015

Attorney General Rosenblum:

We, the undersigned, have been notified that the Oregon Department of Justice has conducted digital surveillance on Oregonians because of their use of the Black Lives Matter hashtag on social media.

As recounted by our colleague, Urban League of Portland President Nkenge Harmon Johnson, and other sources, two weeks ago, her husband, the Director of Civil Rights for Oregon Department of Justice, Erious Johnson, was called to your office. At that meeting, it was revealed that the Oregon Department of Justice Criminal Justice Division has been using software to conduct “threat assessments.” The division searched the Twitter feeds of Oregonians who have used the hashtag “Black Lives Matter.” We do not know how many Oregonians were investigated by the Department of Justice. We do know, however, that Director Johnson was one of them. Because he had posted tweets using that hashtag, he was identified under the Oregon Department of Justice’s threat assessment process.

It is improper, and potentially unlawful, for the Oregon Department of Justice to conduct surveillance and investigations on an Oregonian merely for expressing a viewpoint, or for being a part of a social movement. We are concerned that such unwarranted investigations are racially motivated, and create a chilling effect on social justice advocates, political activists and others who wish to engage in discourse about the issues of our time. Furthermore, during a time when you, as attorney general, are chairing the Law Enforcement Profiling Task Force mandated by House Bill 2002, we are particularly concerned that the Oregon Department of Justice is conducting investigations such as this.

Certainly, we do not know all of the facts and look forward to hearing from you. More information is needed about the scope, breadth and purpose of the Department of Justice’s activities related to Black Lives Matter, and other social justice movements. As a result, we call for:

•An immediate halt to digital and other surveillance of Black Lives Matter, related topics, and those individuals using that hashtag.

•An independent audit, conducted by an entity accepted by the undersigned, to determine who at the Oregon Department of Justice created and authorized this threat assessment practice; when it began; whether the investigations included email, browser history, phone, and other online and off-line activity; what were the department’s intentions; and what has been done with this information.

•Said independent audit to review whether the Criminal Justice Division was properly supervised or trained to avoid racial bias.

•An apology and disclosure to all Oregonians ensnared in this surveillance.

•Direct contact from your office to each person who was surveilled, including providing those individuals with a copy of all of the information about them that was reviewed by the Department of Justice.

•A public meeting held by you, Attorney General Rosenblum, during this month to explain the information that is currently known about the use of this software to investigate Oregonians, and your response to the situation.

•Your commitment to address digital surveillance as part of the Law Enforcement Profiling Task Force recommendations.

•Audit results to be shared with the public by December 31, 2015.

It is startling that Oregon taxpayers’ dollars were spent in this way. We are copying this correspondence to members of the executive and legislative branches in hopes that they will commit to ensuring an effective and transparent process going forward. We seek answers and accountability about the existence of a digital surveillance program in our Department of Justice that appears to target civil, racial and human rights activities in Oregon. We request your immediate response and remediation.

Sincerely,

Nkenge Harmon Johnson, Urban League of Portland

Tom Chamberlain, AFL-CIO

Joseph Santos-Lyons, Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon

Kayse Jama, Center for Intercultural Organizing

Eric Richardson, NAACP Eugene/Springfield Branch

David Rogers, ACLU of Oregon

Jo Ann Hardesty, NAACP Portland Branch

Ken Allen, Oregon AFSCME Council 75