Eco-Roundup: Atlanta Police are monitoring picnics, study groups, and canvassing events
Every month, I assemble a round-up of stories I’m following and issues I’m covering, with palate cleansers at the end.
The Atlanta Police Department’s Homeland Security Unit has routinely monitored organizing events held by an array of environmental and racial justice groups across Atlanta, according to public records obtained by the Brennan Center for Justice.
An analyst for the unit watched social media, and whenever they saw a protest, demonstration or event of interest, sent out an email to a list that at times included local law enforcement, the Georgia Convention Center, half a dozen colleges and universities (which tend to have their own police or security forces), the FBI and the federal department of Homeland Security.
A large proportion of the events involved protests or rallies, but homeland security analysts also distributed information about discussion groups, canvassing events, and picnics. The documents show how the police’s penchant for monitoring protests has bled into other kinds of political activity.
The intel reports also provide a new window into the escalating criminalization of the movement to stop Atlanta Police Training Center known as Cop City. Two-thirds of the events described in the documents, which dated between September 2021 and January 2023, had to do with the effort to stop the project, according to an analysis by the Brennan Center’s Spencer Reynolds and José Guillermo Gutiérrez. In 2022, local law enforcement began charging some of those they arrested in the woods with domestic terrorism, and in early 2023 a state trooper shot and killed a forest defender known as Tortuguita. Later that year, the state filed a RICO suit against Cop City opponents. You can read some of my previous reporting on this here, here, and here — or listen, here.
I’ve looked at documents like this before that show how police monitor protest actions using social media. It’s something that became particularly prominent in the wake of 9/11 when state fusion centers were created as information-sharing hubs between local, national, and even private law enforcement and security agencies. Some protests use disruption intentionally, to assure that their cause is seen and heard. Police tend to justify monitoring such actions by saying they need to keep everyone on both sides safe. Civil liberties groups, however, have repeatedly raised questions about whether police or homeland security agencies should be intervening so routinely and at times aggressively in First-Amendment protected activities.
In short, I wasn’t all that surprised to see that Atlanta police were surveilling planned protests. I was surprised, however, to see that they were monitoring so many other kinds of political activities that seemed even further from law-breaking than a rally.
The intel reports repeatedly noted Stop Cop City canvassing events, where volunteers spoke to community members about the training center. Canvasing is a foundational organizing activity for anyone from political candidates to grassroots environmental activists. You stand at a community hub like a park and talk to passers-by, or you pass out flyers, or you knock on doors, or you make calls. It’s not illegal, and it’s not a protest. When politicians say that disruptive activists should have used the legal process to pursue their goals, rather than disruptive protests, canvassing is one of those traditional, legal means to build political support.
Listed in the intel reports were Cop City canvassing events held by the Democratic Socialists of America, the nonprofit Community Movement Builders, and a decentralized movement known as Defend the Atlanta Forest. They also alerted area police about canvassing being carried out by a group that wanted to establish the Rayshard Brooks Peace Center, in honor of a man killed by an Atlanta Police Department officer in 2020.
This gets to another theme in the documents: the Atlanta Police Homeland Security Unit seemed especially interested in groups that were organizing against police brutality or that focused on issues impacting Black communities in Atlanta.
For example, in February 2022, they noted a block party and mural painting in remembrance of Le’Den Boykins, a 12-year-old boy who was killed by police. They described a pizza party and balloon release held by Women on the Rise, which was described as being led by people impacted by the criminal legal system. And they shared a description of an open discussion about whether a culture of punishing people who snitch to cops has hurt the community.
The intelligence reports focus extensively on Defend the Atlanta Forest, which sought to protect the forest where the training center would be built. Some forest defenders have participated in property destruction or used tree-sits to prevent construction in the forest, and local law enforcement eventually began to charge movement members as terrorists. The intel reports describe not only protests promoted by Defend the Atlanta Forest social media pages, but also an acorn-harvesting workshop, a community picnic, and a reading group.
The intel analysts noted how many people had "liked" posts and provided background details about the organizers. At times it appeared that simply dissenting against Cop City was enough to land organizers in the Homeland Security unit’s email dispatches. For example, when Community Movement Builders held a community conversation with residents of the Pittsburgh neighborhood, it ended up in the distribution list. The analyst noted that the organization had previously hosted Stop Cop City events, though it also noted that they were “peaceful.”
This is another example of how the framework of terrorism and homeland security has been used to justify surveillance of those politically opposed to government actions. I asked the Atlanta Police Department yesterday what a community reading group has to do with homeland security. I’ll be happy to add their response, if they get back to me.
Here's a quick rundown of some of the listings I found most surprising, and you can find the full set of docs here. (Note that I didn’t fact-check the Atlanta PD’s framing of these events, or spelling.)
Cop City events:
Stop Cop City canvassing events, including by the Democratic Socialists of America and the nonprofit Community Movement Builders
Defend the Atlanta Forest actions
--weekly supply drives
--weekly dinners in the park
--an acorn harvesting workshop
--a community potluck
--a reading group
--a citizen scientist event
A teach-in picnic held by the nonprofit Community Movement Builders
A timber framing workshop held by Survival Resistance, formerly known as Extinction Rebellion Atlanta
Non Cop City events:
A study group on the mass movement that won Roe abortion rights in 1973
A study and discussion group held by the Party for Socialism and Liberation to talk about how to prevent mass shootings
A discussion group on Roe v. Wade, held by the “Black-led” Feminist Women’s Health Center
An open discussion about how practices punishing people who snitch to cops has hurt the community
A vigil for Jamarion Robinson, who was shot and killed by police
A pizza party and balloon release held by Women on the Rise, which is led by people impacted by the criminal legal system
“Pinky’s 18th Bday Bash,” held in honor of a woman shot and killed in 2020 — organizers promised to have a smoothie truck on standby and invited parents to bring swimsuits for kids
A Sierra Club hosted Earth Day rally
A bike ride with a city council candidate
A canvassing event to bring the Rayshard Brooks Peace Center to Atlanta
In case you missed it:
In El Salvador a decades-old murder has been repurposed to attack anti-mining activists. It’s a tactic familiar to land defenders internationally: In nations where impunity rules, an unsolved crime can easily be repurposed to eliminate opponents of polluting industrial projects. Reporter Sebastian Escalon found that the roots of El Salvador’s anti-mining movement — and its criminalization — lie in the aftermath of the country’s civil war in the 1980s. The anti-mining movement has been hugely successful, managing to pass a ban on mining country-wide. But with Nayib Bukele entering his second term, land defenders see the arrest of five activists for an old homicide as a signal that Bukele may yet overturn the ban. This audio piece for Drilled, narrated by the great Yessenia Funes, is one of the first I’ve ever commissioned as an editor, and I think it’s a vital addition to our series on criminalization of land defenders. (Also Yessenia’s newsletter Possibilities is well worth your time and subscription.)
Other Stories I'm Following:
“The Philippine military was designed by the U.S. from the beginning, from colonization.”
Reporter Alessandra Bergamin put out a must-read investigation for In These Times this month about how U.S. support has fueled the killings of environmental defenders internationally. She does an excellent job of capturing the muddy amalgam of forces that kill land defenders – and tracing those killings back to US security funding. She focused especially on the Philippines, which has received extensive funding from the U.S., and the attempted killing of a U.S. citizen who lived there and participated in environmental defense movements. But she also zooms out, identifying 10 hot-spot countries that are particularly dangerous for land defenders. This is a serious and ambitious accountability reporting endeavor that provides foundational information about how so many environmental activists end up dead.
“Justice is dead in Cambodia.”
Ten environmental defenders in Cambodia were sentenced to 6- to 8-year prison terms in early July for insulting the king and plotting against the government. The activists worked with the group Mother Nature Cambodia, which has fought numerous polluting projects in the country, including the Stung Cheay Areng hydropower dam, a marine sand-dredging project, and logging on the island of Koh Kong Krao. The group won the Right Livelihood award in 2023, known as the alternative Nobel prize.
A UK court just handed out what appear to be the longest prison sentences ever for non-violent environmental activism in the country, using a newly passed law designed to crack down on protest. Five protesters with the group Just Stop Oil were convicted of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance, for planning a protest that would block traffic, and sentenced to four or five years in prison. At the heart of the case was a reporter for the British tabloid The Sun, Scarlet Howes, who infiltrated a Zoom planning meeting, and delivered her recordings to law enforcement. This is an unusually clear example of how the media fuels criminalization of environmental activism. With Drilled I’ve worked on several reports discussing the new UK laws — see here, here and here.
"We place people so they can bump into folks at the airport terminal or at the Costco cooler"
The Narwhal has a blockbuster investigative series out by Matt Simmons and Mike DeSouza, based on recordings of a TC Energy "lunch and learn" session. The first story examined lobbying efforts by TC Energy. This quote says it all: “A really interesting thing about government is that you’ve got a lot of people, public servants, who are overworked and underpaid and sometimes they just want the job done for them,” said former TC Energy executive Liam Iliffe. “We’ve had instances where we’ve been given opportunities to write entire briefing notes for ministers and premiers and prime ministers and it gets stuck on government letterhead and put into an envelope and into a briefing package that goes to that elected figure. There’s nothing more powerful than that.”
He adds, "You’d be surprised how much work I actually get done in the cooler at Costco because I bump into a significant minister or bureaucrat that I really want to spend some time with and I can do that next to the strawberries or the romaine lettuce.” He also took credit for swaying the climate policies of British Columbia Premiere David Eby. The story was so embarrassing for the company that Iliffe resigned.
Another story in the series includes fascinating details about how the pipeline company TC Energy works with intelligence agencies in Canada. The recordings suggest TC Energy met with the director for the Canadian Security Intelligence Services and supplied a memo about potential legislation that could allow CSIS to share more information with the fossil fuel company. The story also does a great job of tracing how several former U.S. military and White House officials have landed jobs at the same company that seeks to build the controversial Keystone XL pipeline and has rammed forward the Coastal GasLink pipeline in Canada.
In another story in the series, TC Energy's director of public policy takes credit for a Wall Street Journal editorial criticizing Biden's pause on LNG exports, titled, “Biden’s LNG ‘Gift’ to Vladimir Putin.” The TC Energy propagandists read through Russian media in order to supply the claim that the Russians were celebrating Biden's move.
The recordings also revealed how TC Energy views Indigenous supporters of their projects as "validators" crucial to assuring projects go through. During periods where Indigenous people were holding protests to defend land, TC Energy targeted ads to devices located in nearby geographic areas. TC Energy claims that many of the assertions in the recordings are inaccurate.
“We implore the Danish government to release Captain Watson.”
Greenland police arrested veteran environmental activist Paul Watson on an international arrest warrant from Japan. The 73-year used to lead the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which used direct action tactics to attempt to stop whaling ships, and he continues to participate in such actions to this day.
“A crucial test of this new law”
Greenpeace International became the first organization to use a newly passed European Union directive meant to prevent abusive lawsuits known as Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation. Greenpeace has spent around seven years fighting a massive suit from the pipeline company Energy Transfer, which has claimed that the environmental organization was behind anti-Dakota Access pipeline protests at Standing Rock that cost the company millions of dollars. Now, Greenpeace has notified Energy Transfer that they intend to file a lawsuit in Dutch court to recover damages related to the suit, unless Energy Transfer drops it.
Palate Cleansers
I cover topics that are heavy and distressing to take in, so I'm ending these posts with things that make me feel grounded: food, nature, community.
Something Delicious:
It’s beach season, and one of the top considerations when choosing which New York beach to visit is snacks. Brighton Beach is my favorite snacks beach, and while there are many delightful Eastern European beach snack options, I have two favorites.
Brighton Tandir Bakery: Don’t worry about the name of this place. I find it by exiting the Brighton Beach Q stop and looking for the guy behind the little window on the beachward side of Brighton Beach Avenue. They sell puffy loaves of bread that I’ve never purchased, and, more importantly Samsa — warm Uzbek pastries stuffed with either lamb or pumpkin.
Berikoni Georgian Bakery: They sell all kinds of delicious-looking things here, but my priority is the crusty bread and whatever that eggplant dip is with the peppers in it.
Garden Update:
Well, the green beans in my window box have given up after producing a few tiny pods. It was always a possibility — I knew I’d planted them too late. They’re dead and brown, and one of them is being strangled by the morning glory that volunteered from last year’s crop and that I’ve failed to guide onto my window bars, instead of the wannabe beanstock. My solace is the chili peppers. Although I’ve neglected them, too, and they’re falling over, they’re showing some tiny little peppers.
Bulletin Board:
A dear out-of-work journalism friend is looking for cash to tide her through the tough times, and loves kids. If you know anyone in Brooklyn who could use a sitter I'd be happy to connect you or them to her. I can also share more details if you reach out to me directly at alleen.brown56@gmail.com
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