NAACP sues Minneapolis over police spying allegations

Minneapolis' NAACP chapter is suing the city over allegations that police officers used phony social media accounts to spy on the civil rights organization without a public safety purpose and didn't similarly surveil white groups.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court Wednesday, says the Minneapolis Police Department discriminated against the NAACP and violated its members' constitutional rights when it singled out the organization for surveillance "on the basis of race."

"These are accounts that are supposed to be used for official investigations. There were none," said Liliana Zaragoza, director of the University of Minnesota's Racial Justice Law Clinic and attorney for the NAACP.

The city has not yet been served with the lawsuit, said spokeswoman Sarah McKenzie, but Minneapolis officials have denied the allegation since it first appeared in a state human rights charge of racially biased policing in Minneapolis a year ago. "In response to [Minnesota Department of Human Rights] findings, the City has previously stated it does not agree that MPD was using covert social media accounts (or 'undercover social media accounts') to spy on Black people, Black organizations or elected officials."

City and state leaders have declined to release the underlying evidence regarding the claim, citing data privacy laws.

In the months after Human Rights Commissioner Rebecca Lucero's charge, city officials said they couldn't find evidence to support the social media allegations. The dispute temporarily derailed the closed-door negotiations with state officials. The final agreement contained one paragraph related to social media use. It says "the parties recognize the value" of police using covert accounts in a "lawful, nondiscriminatory manner."

Zaragoza said the NAACP requested underlying data from the state's charge to learn more about the alleged spying, but the city ignored the request — leaving Black community members to only guess as to how deep the surveillance has gone. "We don't how sinister this is," she said.

The NAACP's civil suit asks for a declaratory judgment showing the surveillance "was unconstitutional and a violation of federal and Minnesota law." It also seeks compensatory damages for the injuries caused by the Police Department's "unlawful conduct" and punitive damages "to deter such intentional or reckless deviations from well settled constitutional law."

A year ago, Lucero announced that an investigation had found that Minnesota's largest police agency stops, searches, arrests, uses force against and kills people of color — especially Black people — at starkly higher rates than white people.

The city and Lucero's department signed a court-enforceable settlement last month that plots a series of reforms for the Minneapolis Police Department. The 144-page settlement — which creates new rules for stops, searches and an officer's duty to intervene when a colleague engages in misconduct — notably lacked details related to social media surveillance.

The original charge described how from January 2010 through December 2020, Minneapolis police officers "used covert, or fake, social media accounts to surveil and engage Black individuals, Black organizations, and elected officials unrelated to criminal activity, without a public safety objective. In contrast, MPD officers did not similarly track and surveil white people unrelated to criminal activity using MPD covert social media accounts. In fact, as of December 2020, MPD did not operate its own covert social media accounts to track white supremacist or white nationalist groups."

The police specifically targeted Black-led organizations like the NAACP and Minneapolis Urban League, according to the charge. "In social media posts and messages, Minneapolis officers used language to further racial stereotypes associated with Black people, especially Black women."

Department policy requires that a supervisor approve the creation of such accounts, as well as that each one be registered with the commander of MPD's Strategic Information Center. However, MPD failed to inventory at least two dozen accounts created and operated by its employees, according to the charge.

Though they came to a settlement over the charge, City Attorney Kristyn Anderson said "the city does not agree with those findings" at a news conference announcing the agreement.

Lucero stood by her department's investigation. "Our findings are correct," she said at the same news conference. "MPD uses covert social media to target Black leaders, Black organizations and elected officials without a public safety objective. That remains true."

In a statement Wednesday, McKenzie pointed to the Human Rights Department's website, which contains a section clarifying that surveillance did not mean "hacking."

"The FAQ also acknowledges that, 'It is common practice for law enforcement agencies to 'follow' and 'engage with' individuals and groups through their social media accounts to establish a credible undercover social media profile,'" she said.

The lawsuit describes a betrayal of trust by the Police Department.

The NAACP invited police to participate in its meetings, and some Black officers have been members of the civil rights organization. "Notwithstanding the Minneapolis NAACP's efforts to work with the MPD to address racialized policing, unbeknownst to the NAACP, MPD police officers simultaneously used covert social media accounts to surveil the organization," the lawsuit says.

Zaragoza said the human rights charge gives "glimmers" of wrongdoing, but it does not provide a path to recoup damages for victims. The NAACP hopes to learn the full extent of the surveillance through court discovery, including names of the officers and whether the social media spying translated to any real-life action.

"It's the not knowing that in of itself causes that paranoia," she said.