Mall of America Security Catfished Black Lives Matter Activists, Documents Show

[MrScorpio]

By Lee Fang @lhfang



Documents obtained by The Intercept indicate that security staff at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota used a fake Facebook account to monitor local Black Lives Matter organizers, befriend them, and obtain their personal information and photographs without their knowledge.

Evidence of the fake Facebook account was found in a cache of files provided by the Mall of America to Bloomington officials after a large Black Lives Matter event at the mall on December 20 protesting police brutality. The files included briefs on individual organizers, with screenshots that suggest that much of the information was captured using a Facebook account for a person named “Nikki Larson.”

Metadata from some of the documents lists the software that created them as belonging to “Sam Root” at the “Mall of America.” A Facebook account for a Sam Root lists his profession as “Intelligence Analyst at Mall of America.”



The fake Larson account featured a profile photo that a Google reverse image search shows is identical to a photo associated with a woman who is Facebook friends with Root.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/18/mall-americas-intelligence-analyst-catfished-black-lives-matter-activists-collect-information/

[Downwinder]

1. Can they be submitted to the same scrutiny?

Last edited Sat Apr 11, 2015, 11:14 PM - Edit history (1)

On edit:

Or would that be considered stalking or harassment?

[Cal Carpenter]

2. They have a counter-terrorism force. It is so fucked up.

I remember a story I heard on NPR. Here are links to some stories and research NPR did about it a few years back:

http://www.npr.org/2011/09/07/140234451/under-suspicion-at-the-mall-of-america

http://www.npr.org/2011/09/08/140262005/mall-counterterrorism-files-id-mostly-minorities

http://www.npr.org/2011/08/18/139756444/database-mall-of-america-suspicious-activity-reports

This ain't overzealous rent-a-cops at work. It's nuts.