How commercial surveillance tools reached D.C. police
Switchboard examines D.C. government records about private companies selling monitoring and research tools to public agencies. The records show how the tools were demonstrated, tested and purchased, then reveal the alert emails one service sent to Metropolitan Police Department staff.
The names in this story
Some names are companies and products. Others are D.C. agencies or intelligence offices. These five definitions are enough to understand the reporting that follows.
- MPD
- Police agency
- The Metropolitan Police Department, Washington, D.C.'s city police department. MPD produced most of the records in this archive.
- Dataminr
- Company and service
- A private real-time alert service that packages public posts, news and scanner reports into short alerts for paying clients. This archive contains alerts emailed to MPD recipients.
- Babel X
- Commercial software
- A search and analysis platform made by Babel Street. The records describe fusion-center analysts using it to research social media and public records and to maintain filters for threat terms.
- HSEMA and the fusion center
- D.C. government
- HSEMA is D.C.'s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency. A fusion center is a government intelligence office where agencies share and analyze threat information. The Babel X orders paid for operations named WRTAC or NTIC in the records.
- Procurement
- Buying process
- The steps a public agency uses to evaluate and buy a product. Here the paper trail includes sales emails, demonstrations, free trials, quotes, invoices, contracts and purchase orders.
The vendors and money, then the information delivered
One investigation follows sales emails, trials, contracts and purchase orders. The other examines the alerts that Dataminr later delivered to MPD recipients.
How vendors introduced and sold surveillance tools
Procurement is the process an agency uses to evaluate and buy something. These files show six vendors moving through demos, trials, proposals, contracts or purchase orders, including recurring Babel X orders.
What Dataminr sent to D.C. police
Dataminr is a commercial real-time alert service. The archive shows public posts, news and scanner traffic packaged into emails with headlines, source labels and estimated locations for MPD recipients.
Read beyond the findings
Search and annotate source records
Read indexed document text, pin a document set into a shareable link and keep private notes in local browser storage.
Search the archiveAudit the reporting
Inspect page-level procurement citations or review the Dataminr counting, classification and source-validation methods.