It recently came to my attention that someone in the Oregon Department of Justice was racially profiling Black Lives Matter activists, making them targets for investigation by several law enforcement agencies. I was appalled and almost blasted Oregon DOJ. But I decided to wait and see how the Kate Brown administration dealt with the news. I’m glad I did.
An Oregon Department of Justice investigator used a search tool to racially profile Twitter users who used the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag, the state’s attorney general said in a letter to a civil rights organization Tuesday in which she said she was “appalled” by the practice and has suspended the investigator.
Attorney General Ellen F. Rosenblum, responding to complaints form the Portland chapter of the Urban League, wrote Tuesday that she has ordered her department to stop using the online search tool and launched an investigation, saying the practice “raises many troubling questions” about law enforcement profiling throughout the state.
One Twitter account targeted by the probe belonged to Erious Johnson, director of civil rights for the state justice department and husband to Nkenge Harmon Johnson, the Urban League’s president.
“On a personal note, I have now seen firsthand how devastating profiling can be — written on the face of a member of my team,” Rosenblum wrote in the letter. “It must not continue.”
Rosenblum said she did not learn about the incident until she received a letter from the local chapter of the Urban League. That letter alerted her that it is “improper, and potentially unlawful, for the Oregon Department of Justice to conduct surveillance and investigations on an Oregonian merely for expressing a viewpoint, or for being a part of a social movement.”
“We are concerned that such unwarranted investigations are racially motivated, and create a chilling effect on social justice advocates, political activists and others who wish to engage in discourse about the issues of our time,” continued the letter, which was also signed by the local affiliates of the NAACP, American Civil Liberties Union, and the AFL-CIO… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Think Progress>
I’m please to report that, here in Oregon, Black Lives DO matter. I called AG Ellen Rosenblum’s office and requested that the perpetrator, who was suspended, be terminated.
16 Responses to “In Oregon, Black Lives DO Matter”
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I am so glad that public officials in OR quickly acted for justice.
Cross posted to Care2 at:
http://www.care2.com/news/member/663679641/3926804
Thanks for the Care2 link.
I am glad he was suspended, now Erious needs to be put out to pasture!
I think Erious was a victim not a perp Mitch
You are correct.
I am very glad to get this take on it. I am distressed by how many people on Daily Kos are saying this is not surveillance because tweets are voluntarily published to a public website. Well, when you leave your home ou also go voluntarily into public space, but would you really want to be followed around while you do so? (I suppose those are the same people who don't care about NSA spying unless they pick up dick pics.)
I agree with you. Too often I hear people say " I don't care if they spy on me, I am doing nothing wrong". How do they know what will be considered "wrong"?
Me three!
Wow. You have an excellent AG in Oregon. I figure it would take a little more than a letter to get that done in Oklahoma.
The perp DOES need to be terminated with that kind of person is in control of that kind of info!
I think that in OK, the perp would get a promotion.
Good for Oregon! Maybe I will move there instead of Canada when I have suffered enough with Matt Bevins as Ky. governor.
Too bad you're married. I'd move you in.
Excellent, AG Ellen Rosenblum was quick to cut this short and not let it fester. Immediate action makes it clear to the world that behavior is intolerable and will not be condoned. If she had waited longer it would have looked like a cover-up.
Some bureaucrat deciding for himself what is good or bad in Oregon reminds me of Kafka's The Trial. Rosenblum should make it more therefor clear that racial profiling and instigating surveillance or investigation of people who feel some association with Black Lives Matter – which is NOT a terrorist or criminal movement, even though the Republicans are doing their best to get them labeled as such – is terrible for everyone, for all black lives, not just her team members or "social justice advocates, political activists and others:. Racial profiling is wrong, no matter whom it concerns, no matter what status is society the victim has. Rosenblum can follow up on the excellent start she's made by suspending the investigator and starting an investigation to make clear who introduced the tool he used and who else has been using it to what purpose.
Your reference to Kafka is most lucid!!
Thanks All!! Oregon leads the way!!