By H. Nelson Goodson
September 2, 2014
Racine, WI - On Wednesday, the Racine City Common Council is scheduled to approve the August 25, recommendation from the City Finance and Personnel Committee to grant a waiver from formal bidding requirements and instruct the Purchasing Agent to buy for the Racine Police Department a social network monitoring software to spy on city residents. The Common Council will meet at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday. The cost for the SnapTrends software is $4,200 and will be financed from the federal asset forfeiture funds, according to its September 3rd meeting agenda.
The software is made by SnapTrends of Austin, Texas. The software will be able to spy on Racine residents while using social media that includes Twitter and Facebook postings, even if they are not friends with users.
Today, the Racine Police Department or any law enforcement agency while using its Twitter or Facebook (FB) accounts can just target an individual with either social network account and can monitor their FB or Twitter postings without actually purchasing the SnapTrends. Purchasing the SnapTrends is just a waste of an expenditure.
Police departments around the country began using portable antennas that fool cellphones into connecting to it and police can spy on those they monitor. Now, police departments began using SnapTrends to also monitor all social media activity in their jurisdiction. The NSA is already spying and collecting mega data from domestic cellphone and e-mail users.
It's illegal to spy on residents without proper warrants, but many police departments using such software are deemed corrupt and in violation of the Constitutional rights of it citizens, according to Civil Rights activists and organizations monitoring police illegal activity.
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