More than 2,300 pages of internal intelligence reports and emails show how widely the Atlanta Police Department has been monitoring residents engaged in common activities used by political groups of all stripes. Atlanta law enforcement’s social media monitoring targeted opponents of the construction of a police training facility activists are calling “Cop City.” The Brennan Center obtained the documents, available herethrough a request for a public record document.

Construction of the facility is currently underway, although it faces legal and political hurdles challenges. Atlanta’s government and its backers say the facility is necessary to modernize police, fire and healthcare training in the region. Criticism say that the construction will destroy important forest land and that the facility will be used to further militarise police.

In August 2023, Atlanta accused 61 people charged with extortion related to years of opposition to the project. Protests have involved marches, civil disobedience, occupation of public land and sometimes property damage and conflict with the police, including the January 2023 police killing of a protester during the dispute circumstances.

But observers have around criticized the prosecution to target the activists’ ideology and nonviolent political strategies. Operations in the department’s intelligence files include processing and signature collection, hand out flyers, host town hall, and so on. Targeting such activities protected by the First Amendment can chill free speech. And in this case, it supported dubious, politicized criminal cases.

Seventy six intelligence reports compiled by the department’s Homeland Security Unit compiles events between September 2021 and January 2023. The reports detail 155 events, over two-thirds of them organized by participants in the Stop Cop City movement. The reports contain information about likes and comments on posts, as well as material about other events organized by the organizers. Atlanta police have also closely monitored Defend the Atlanta Forest, a key player in the movement, monitoring 94 of their events during the period. Of the 45 groups that organized monitored events, police noted that previous events by only two organizers involved civil disobedience or arrest.

While it’s true that social media monitoring can help police assign officers to maintain public safety, Atlanta police’s monitoring far exceeds any such need in many cases, serving instead to keep tabs on citizens the department sees as political opponents. For example, a supervised group host a “community conversation” about education, neighborhood safety, health and the Stop Cop City movement. An intelligence report on the evening noted that the group had hosted previous efforts and other peaceful events. Another monitored event — a pizza night at a local business — was held by the group Women on the Rise and involved “a moment of reflection” on community safety. Previous events organized by the group were similarly peaceful. Past events of host for a study group discussing abortion policy—also the subject of an intelligence report—was also logged as peaceful.

These gatherings are unlikely to create a public security crisis, and the police do not provide security for study groups. Additionally, throughout its intelligence reporting, the department acknowledges that public engagement with online posts does not necessarily equate to the likely size of an incident, suggesting that this monitoring is hardly useful for resource allocation. Public engagement in the posts flagged by the police was often quite low to begin with. Pizza night’s post is pretty typical, only getting 28 likes.

The risks of this surveillance aren’t theoretical: Some Atlantans have it waived from participating in political activities for fear of further surveillance and other repercussions. Additionally, the collection of political speech and association reflected in these social media reports appears designed to lay the groundwork for painting protesters as an organized criminal gang. Similar activities are prominent in the racketeering indictment, which alleges that the Stop Cop City movement uses social media to “promote its extremist political agenda, legitimize its behavior and recruit new members.” But for the most part, the posts simply reflect political activity that Georgia authorities disapprove of.

These surveillance reports are likely to affect policing outside of Georgia. Atlanta police have circulated them to all sorts of local officials, Georgia counterterrorism agencies, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security and universities. One federal agency in this ecosystem, the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis, has provided Georgia authorities with politicized information characterizing protesters as domestically violent extremists driven by “anti-law enforcement sentiments,” a theme cited by Georgia in its allegations of extortion. Together, the agencies form an echo chamber of dubious intelligence that frames dissent on and offline as terrorism.

The Atlanta police’s abuse is not surprising in light of the fact that the authority’s policy for officers’ use of social media, among other things. no protections for constitutional rights, invite fishing expeditions of the kind these documents prove.

The department must take stronger measures, including a ban on surveillance of First Amendment-protected activities unless there are specific, credible, documented facts demonstrating a public safety concern. Officers should never base decisions on the constitutionally protected activities of individuals or groups, nor on past incidents of violence as a result of policing. These common sense safeguards, along with restrictions on the Preservation and Dissemination of Information, will prevent violations of Atlantans’ constitutional rights through officers’ online surveillance.