A Michigan State Police contract obtained by The Intercept, sheds new light on the growing use of little-known surveillance software that helps law enforcement agencies and corporations watch people's social media and other website activity.
The software, put out by a Wyoming company called ShadowDragon, allows police to suck in data from social media and other internet sources, including Amazon, dating apps, and the dark web, so they can identify persons of interest and map out their networks during investigations.
Michigan police acquired the software through a contract with another obscure online policing company named Kaseware for an "MSP Enterprise Criminal Intelligence System."
Michigan officials appear to be keeping their contract and the identities of ShadowDragon and Microsoft from the public.
Gov website does not make the contract available; it instead offers an email address at which to request the document "Due to the sensitive nature of this contract." And the contract it eventually provides has been heavily redacted: The copy given to David Goldberg, a professor at Wayne State University in Detroit had all mentions of ShadowDragon software and Microsoft Azure blacked out.
Last year, The Intercept published several articles detailing how a social media analytics firm called Dataminr relayed tweets about the George Floyd and Black Lives Matter protests to police.
This new revelation about the Michigan contract raises questions about what digital surveillance capabilities other police departments and law enforcement agencies in the U.S. might be quietly acquiring.
https://www.technocracy.news/shadowdragon-deep-social-media-dragnet-for-total-surveillance/
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