Chicago-based Geofeedia, a "location-based intelligence platform" that analyzes social media posts to deliver them as surveillance information to 500 law enforcement agencies, is often used to target protesters such as Black Lives Matter activists according to the ACLU. Geofeedia has even marketed its services as such, with a company rep writing to San Jose Police in 2014 that the product can be used "for the Ferguson Situation." Today the ACLU of California publicly revealed that Geofeedia has been reliant on data access from formal relationships with Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. To the credit of these companies, the ACLU privately reported its findings to them, and all three have curtailed data access relationships with Geofeedia.

Public record requests by the ACLU to 63 law enforcement agencies in the state turned up responses that lead to knowledge of the agreements between Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Geofeedia. Those agreements, according to the ACLU, were these:

Instagram had provided Geofeedia access to the Instagram API, a stream of public Instagram user posts. This data feed included any location data associated with the posts by users. Instagram terminated this access on September 19, 2016.

Facebook had provided Geofeedia with access to a data feed called the Topic Feed API, which is supposed to be a tool for media companies and brand purposes, and which allowed Geofeedia to obtain a ranked feed of public posts from Facebook that mention a specific topic, including hashtags, events, or specific places. Facebook terminated this access on September 19, 2016.

Twitter did not provide access to its “Firehose,” but has an agreement, via a subsidiary, to provide Geofeedia with searchable access to its database of public tweets. In February, Twitter added additional contract terms to try to further safeguard against surveillance. But our records show that as recently as July 11th, Geofeedia was still touting its product as a tool to monitor protests. After learning of this, Twitter sent Geofeedia a cease and desist letter.

According to a tweet from Twitter's Policy account, the company has gone one step further today after news of the ACLU's findings broke publicly.

"Social media monitoring is spreading fast and is a powerful example of surveillance technology that can disproportionately impact communities of color," Matt Cagle, the ACLU's Technology & Civil Liberties Policy Attorney writes. The Oakland Police Department, for one, has been using the tool Geofeedia since 2014, the East Bay Express uncovered this April.

Cagle also draws a stark contrast between the stated goals of social media companies, especially their leaders, and their relationships with Geofeedia. "Social media companies and their executives have expressed support for activists, movements, and free speech," Cagle writes. "Mark Zuckerberg endorsed Black Lives Matter and expressed sympathy after Philando Castile’s killing, which was broadcast on Facebook Live. Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey went to Ferguson. Above all, the companies articulate their role as a home for free speech about important social or political issues. Yet there is a severe disconnect between these positions and the data access they have provided."

Related: Facebook Marketplace Already A Silk Road-Style S**tshow, Shortly After Launch

Jack Dorsey is so many things. He's Twitter's CEO. He's Square's CEO. He's a Missourian. And now he's making a name for himself as philanthropist.

To recap: When this guy isn't, for example, laying off 8% of one of his company's workforce while filing to take his other company public, he's investing in community and progress. Specifically, he's giving more than half of his Square equity to a new foundation he's founded. That foundation, in turn, will be funding artists, musicians, and small businesses. So far they have just one taget city: Ferguson, Missouri.

Venturebeat reports that over the past two years at Square, Dorsey has given 15 million shares, which is 20 percent of his equity, back to the company. He's also committed 40 million more shares, about 10 percent of the company in its entirety, toward his cause. Of course, he does have over 71 million shares, almost a 25 percent stake of the company. So, by Venturebeat's calculations, Square's CEO is "essentially giving up more than half of his control towards underserved businesses and merchants."

Hey Snapchat team: Is Evan Spiegel taking notes on this?

Twitter Laying Off 8% Of Workforce, CEO Says 'This Isn't Easy. But It Is Right.' [Updated]
With His Other Hand, Jack Dorsey Files For Square IPO

The Friday news release is long-known as "a transparent attempt to evade fallout by burying bad news ahead of the weekend," as Slate put it over a decade ago. Perhaps that's why, after a Judge's decree on Monday, December 29 that the San Francisco Police Department must release the names of the officers who shot and killed Bernal Heights man Alex Nieto, SFPD finally sent out those names late in the day on Friday, January 2.

28-year-old City College student Alejandro Nieto was shot and killed by SFPD officers in Bernal Heights Park on Friday, March 21. Police were called to the park after receiving reports of a man with a gun, approached Nieto, and shot him after a brief confrontation. During the confrontation, Nieto was armed with and possibly brandishing a Taser he used in his job as a security guard at the El Toro nightclub on San Bruno Avenue.

Some say Nieto was suffering from mental illness that had caused him to behave violently and erratically at the time of his death, and the San Francisco Medical Examiner said in their autopsy report that Nieto had "a history of aggressive and bizarre behavior, auditory hallucinations," and noncompliance to prescriptions for two atypical anti-psychotic drugs. They reported that there were traces of cannabinoids in Nieto's system at his time of death, but they did not detect any anti-psychotic medications.

Nieto suffered as many as 15 gunshot wounds from as few as ten bullets, the ME reported. According to SFPD Chief Greg Suhr, the SFPD officers "fired in defense of their own lives," a statement disputed by Nieto's friends and family, who argue that police are mischaracterizing the circumstances around his death. They also cry foul at the release of details around Nieto's mental health, describing such details as "smear tactics" on the Justice for Alex Nieto website.

Months following the shooting, SFPD still hadn't released the names of the officers who shot Nieto, arguing that threats from an unnamed person put the officers at risk. Finally, attorney Adante D. Pointer took SF to court over the disclosure.

According to court documents, the SF City Attorney argued that "credible threats" made over the phone by a known individual who currently resides outside the US was the reason to keep these officers' names under wraps. Last Monday, however, Judge Nathaneal Cousins ruled that those threats weren't actually that credible, and that SFPD was required to release the names.

Five days later, at 4:38 p.m. Friday, San Francisco Police Department spokesperson Officer Albie Esparza sent the following email:

The following members were involved in the Bernal Heights Officer Involved shooting in March 21, 2014.

Sgt. Jason Sawyer
Officer Roger Morse
Officer Richard Schiff
Officer Nathan Chew

The most remarkable name on the list is Sawyer who, as the Chron reports, was involved in another controversial fatal shooting:

Lt. Sawyer, now of Park Station, was a sergeant at the time of the shooting and a longtime veteran of the department. In 1998, he was involved in the fatal shooting of ad executive John Smart after Smart allegedly used his Mercedes-Benz to pin Officer Ian Furminger to a parking meter.

Both officers were awarded the gold medal of valor for their involvement in the 1998 shooting, though an internal investigation and Office of Citizens Complaints probe had not been completed. Furminger was convicted last month of taking and dividing up thousands of dollars found during searches of drug dealers and their homes, and depriving suspects of their rights.

Though three investigations into Nieto's death are ongoing — a District Attorney's office investigation, one by the SFPD's internal affairs department, and a third by the Office of Citizen Complaints — all four of the officers have returned to active duty.

According to Adriana Camarena, a member of the Justice for Alex Nieto Committee who spoke with the Chron, Elvira and Refugio Nieto (Nieto’s mother and father) were "extremely happy" that the offiver's names had been released.

“In the words of Elvira," she said, "'One more step forward has been taken towards knowing what happened on the Hill that day.’”

Previously: Judge Rules That Names Of Officers Who Shot Alex Nieto Must Be Revealed
Two SF Cops Convicted In Corruption Trial Involving Stolen Drugs And Cash

All coverage of Alex Nieto on SFist.

Protestors who chained themselves to BART trains on Black Friday are now facing a hefty fee from the transit agency in addition to criminal charges. One of the organizers of the protest is calling it a "ransom" and has vowed to fight the sum.

The fourteen arrested in the #BlackLivesMatter protest shut down the West Oakland BART station on Black Friday back in November, grinding the transit system to a halt for hours. "The BART board is pressuring the district attorney to press charges, whereas you see a lot of other protesters are being released and just told to go home but this all black organized action, we are being charged and they want restitution," Cat Brooks, co-chair of the ONYX Organizing Committee and one of the arrested protestors, told KCBS. Brooks.

"You will get not one dime from any of us. You will have send my black behind to jail," Brooks added.

Brooks vowed to fight the charges, and an online petition has started to pressure the BART board of directors to reconsider the financial penalty.