///// UPDATE 2:30AM Jan 9: Diggings lead to a truly under-appreciated and basically new police strategic intelligence outfit in Fridley complete with documentation about why they ought to be tracing protesters on state-of-the-art gear - WCCO stated this place is "secret"! LOTS MOAR: MPD Tracking OccupyMN Facebook BBQs: Minneapolis "secret" Strategic Information Center / Emergency Operations and Training Facility 25 37th Ave NE in Fridley /////
After some months, the Minneapolis Police Department released dozens of pages about Occupy Minnesota / Occupy Minneapolis and several high-profile operations, particularly the eviction of protesters from 4044 Cedar Ave. This data was released from the Department late yesterday afternoon.
Interestingly the suppression of the civil disobedience at 4044 Cedar fell under the rubric of the MPD Special Operations Division / Homeland Security Unit. Further data requests to this unit could be interesting, including federal grants applied for similar suppression activities in the name of "Homeland Security."
This email related to the "Emerging Issues" PDF from Nevada below (see the attachments field).
One interesting feature: the coordination between the MPD and the Downtown Improvement District (DiD) which is aligned & serves the purposes of the downtown property owners (as opposed to homeless, indigent people downtown etc). DiD, while seen as a semi-public entity, is privately directed and is not an openly participatory structure. DiD has a central office that coordinates over a digital radio system with the downtown First Precinct and corporate building security officers including during protests.
The other major item of wider interest is a sketchy Nevada operation partially merged with the Los Vegas Police Department. It was use as "a lot going on" from Darrel Stephens@carolina.rr.com whoever that is...
"Emerging Issues in the Occupy Movement" from the Major Cities Intelligence Commanders Group (MCC ICG Sub-Committee)and the Southern Nevada Counterterrorism Center (SNCTC) is really a classic chestnut. The email addresses to LVMPD.com seem to be an official domain of Las Vegas law enforcement, not a private organization. I don't recall seeing this Occupy-related writing from this organization circulate elsewhere. If so, we have a new taxpayer-supported 'node' generating more hype in the "counterterror" national political activist monitoring network.
Fortunately the "LAW ENFORCEMENT ONLY - DO NOT DISSEMINATE" pseudo-classification does not really have much if any actionable meaning under the Minnesota Data Practices Act, though we can surely expect proposals to create tons of secret data piles under loosey-goosey unnecessary pseudo-secrecy at the Minnesota Legislature this session. Follow @richneumeister for sharp updates on that whole front for sure!
I want to also point out a couple other good recent releases posted on Scribd about Minneapolis. The ALPR reader system ongoing story - see Dec 2012: Mordor Mayor Rybak makes moves to hide Minneapolis panopticon: Total Minneapolis Awareness Automatic License Plate Reader records form 'retroactive surveillance' empire | HongPong.com&& also Nov 30 2012: EXCLUSIVE MnDOT info cake: 2.97gb emails/docs on the Mileage Based User Fee (MBUF)- Minnesota's GPS vehicle taxing regime in the works. The City of Minneapolis itself neatly ties both these stories together in the next link by arguing that these surveillance data programs are both dangerous! Thanks!
City of Minneapolis Application to IPAD requesting classification of all ALPR data as not public. It's worth an entirely separate post, but basically here the City of Mpls argues that the ALPR license plate reader should be classified by the State of Minnesota Dept of Administration's "IPAD" division as confidential, because IPAD classified data from an entirely different tracking project, the MnDOT IntelliDrive / Mileage Based User Fee (MBUF) system, is also dangerously specific data which easily indicates when homes are vacant due to daily traffic patterns, etc. So the argument from the city is that the data is dangerous: ALPR is dangerous, MBUF is dangerous, therefore should be classified -- but still collected of course!
Page 7 of this one: http://www.scribd.com/doc/117555926/Metro-Transit-Police-Report-on-Chalk-and-Silly-String talks about using Trespass notices specifically because of OccupyMN. For more docs like these see SmileyRevolt& twitter.com/smilyus.
There does not seem to be very much other personal data of regular people, besides one page of mugshots of arrestees with their birthdays. However I do not have the time to parse more carefully & if this acts as an intrusion to anyone in the public I apologize in advance. IN theory, what the state defines as private personal data should not be released on this kind of material. Lacking a handy secure redaction tool for PDFs, I deleted page 99 from part 1 in this release..
Here is the Data Practices Act official response email which accompanied this. If the requestor wishes to have their name added back onto this I will do that, just took it off by default.
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: "Meyers, Linda"<Linda.Meyers@minneapolismn.gov>
To: [....]
Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2013 19:43:48
Subject: DP 1229 - Occupy MN data
Mr. [....],
We received your check today and I’ve attached the data you requested regarding Occupy MN. There are 259 pages. Again, we apologize for the delay in getting this to you.
Linda Meyers
Police Support Technician I
MPD Records Information Unit
350 S. 5th St.
Minneapolis, MN 55415
612-673-2961
linda.meyers@minneapolismn.gov
Non-public and/or Privileged and/or Confidential and/or Private Information:
This electronic message may contain investigative data which is non-public pursuant to Minnesota Statutes section 13.82 subdivision 7, or personnel data which is non-public pursuant to Minnesota Statutes section 13.43 subdivision 4. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail: (1) do not read the content of the message; (2) immediately notify the sender that you incorrectly received the message; and (3) do not disseminate, distribute, or copy this e-mail.
//////////
134 pages (135 before the removed page) - Part1 originally 4242Kb. With the edit, the md5 sum is aef289624969402680255a15dea1aec3 MPD_OccupyMN_Data_part1b.pdf - Posted also at http://www.scribd.com/doc/119531853/MPD-OccupyMN-Data-Part1b
Direct download: MPD_OccupyMN_Data_part1b.pdf 6.7MB
Part2 3183Kb.
1d58ba5700273ede7b3dd5ad0595fa5c MPD_OccupyMN_Data_part2.pdf - Posted also at
http://www.scribd.com/doc/119527079
Direct download 3.3MB MPD_OccupyMN_Data_part2.pdf