Dataminr Provides LAPD Real-Time Surveillance of Gaza War Protests, Expanding First Amendment Monitoring

Dataminr began providing the Los Angeles Police Department with real-time surveillance alerts about Gaza war protests just two days after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, demonstrating the company’s ongoing role in monitoring constitutionally protected political speech despite years of controversy over First Amendment violations. Internal LAPD emails revealed that Dataminr tracked more than 50 different pro-Palestine demonstrations between October 2023 and April 2024, with at least a dozen protests flagged before they occurred, enabling preemptive police deployment and monitoring of activists organizing peaceful demonstrations. The surveillance extended beyond Los Angeles to include protests in Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, and Oregon, with Dataminr providing alerts categorized under feeds titled “Domestic Demonstrations Awareness,” “LA demonstrations,” and “LA unrest.”

The monitoring went beyond automated alerts, with Dataminr employees directly contacting LAPD officers to provide intelligence on upcoming protests. One October 12, 2023 email with the subject line “FYSA” (military shorthand for “for your situational awareness”) tipped off officers about a planned demonstration, including a direct link to a UCLA professor’s tweet announcing the protest. Documents showed Dataminr tracked posts from journalist Talia Jane covering New York City rallies and flagged a Philadelphia demonstration at Rittenhouse Square as “urgent,” illustrating the company’s nationwide surveillance network monitoring political organizing across multiple cities. The company’s marketing materials claimed its platform processes data that “30,000 people working 24/7 would only process 1% of,” demonstrating surveillance capacity far exceeding what individual law enforcement agencies could accomplish independently.

The Gaza protest monitoring revealed that Dataminr continued operating in apparent violation of Twitter’s (later X under Elon Musk) terms of service, which explicitly prohibit software developers from using platform data to monitor “sensitive events such as protests, rallies, or community organizing meetings.” Neither X nor Dataminr responded to requests to explain how real-time protest monitoring complied with these policies, suggesting either platform acquiescence to surveillance activities or ineffective enforcement of stated privacy protections. Civil liberties advocates emphasized that government monitoring of lawful political demonstrations—particularly those supporting Palestinian rights during a controversial military conflict—creates a chilling effect that deters civic participation and disproportionately targets marginalized communities expressing dissent from U.S. foreign policy. The surveillance demonstrated that despite repeated exposés of Dataminr’s role in monitoring Black Lives Matter protests and abortion rights demonstrations, the company continued expanding its First Amendment surveillance infrastructure with apparent impunity, serving police departments nationwide in tracking political movements challenging government policies.