Report suspicious activity with app?

Some worry tech will lead to more racial profiling

Recognizing the importance of tips in fighting domestic terrorism, law enforcement has made reporting suspicious activity as easy as pushing a button.

The National Sheriff’s Association announced updates to their BlackBox Digital Reporting app in Orlando at the National CounterTerrorism Conference hosted by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office last week. The app allows users to share audio, video and GPS locations with local, state and federal law enforcement.

“[Users can] provide information to law enforcement so that we can mine the data and make a determination of whether or not it’s useful, and we can turn it into something actionable,” Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said.

The Sheriff’s Association teamed up with the Department of Homeland Security and the National Fusion Center Association to develop the app. These agencies often use tips from the public to identify signs of terrorist activity, such as radicalization, Demings said.

“What they should be looking for is individuals who indicate that they’ve been self radicalized by the way they communicate with others either through social media, emails or other communications [and] by their behaviors sometime in their neighborhoods [and] statements that they make,” Demings said.

The public should report suspicious activity on the app and directly to law enforcement, officials said. The app is not a substitute for calling 911 during emergencies, but NSA Executive Director and CEO Jonathan Thompson said it’s an added tool to help users collect and send digital evidence to law enforcement.

“Combating the current threat of domestic terrorism from homegrown extremists … requires [that] we work with our citizens and provide them with new tools to help in the fight against crime and to protect their families and schools,” Thompson said.

But some, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, say promoting such tools can lead to racial discrimination and privacy invasion.

“Arab and Muslim or brownskinned people [are] called into the police,” ACLU Senior Policy Analyst Jay Stanley said. “That’s a pattern that we’ve seen since 9/11, when report-your-neighbor programs were pushed by national authorities.”

Wilfredo Ruiz, spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations in Florida, said the tool is “welcome,” but he worries police will be flooded with tips on harmless Islamic activities, such as Muslims praying in public.

“It’s the same concern we have with any report that could be stereotyped, it comes with any reporting tool,” Ruiz said.

But he said law enforcement will likely be able to determine if investigation is warranted.

While Stanley said it’s not bad to report serious suspicions, he

thinks extra programs — such as the BlackBox app — simply aren’t necessary.

“Obviously nobody objects to any citizens reporting something truly suspicious to authorities — but they always have. They don’t need an app or a ‘See Something, Say Something’ campaign,” Stanley said. “At their worst, these can resemble programs in authoritarian countries, where resident are encouraged to tattle on their neighbors.”

The NSA first developed the app in 2013 for Neighborhood Watch programs, but after the mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., the National Sheriff ’s Association wanted to adapt the technology to help citizens report terrorism-related suspicions, NSA spokesman Patrick Royall said.

The previous version of the app allowed for the capturing of audio, video and locations, but did not have the option to immediately share the information with local, state and federal investigators, Royall said.

The original version of the app can be downloaded on smartphones by searching for ICE BlackBox in Google Play and the Apple Store. The new updates to the app should be available this week when users can search for BlackBox Digital Witness, Royall said.