The Milwaukee Police Department building downtown. (Photo | Isiah Holmes)
A lot happened in July at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in downtown Milwaukee. Donald Trump accepted his party’s presidential nomination. Local residents protested the RNC. Out-of-state police killed a man without a home in King Parkand the convention brought so much traffic to the gay and bisexual dating app Grindr that it crashed. These events and more were likely followed by the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) using a new tool to scan, scrape and search online activity.
In April, the MPD announced it was seeking an open source intelligence tool ahead of the RNC. In principle, anything that can be seen and accessed openly online qualifies as open source intelligence. Using the tool, the MPD planned to expand its online monitoring capabilities. What would have taken hours a few years ago could be reduced to minutes. By the end of May, MPD had settled on artificial intelligence (AI) software called Babel Street. The contract for Babel Street, which was not to exceed $43,673.50, was awarded on May 23.
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A Request for Proposal (RFP) document put together by Pewaukee-based technology brokerage firm Abaxent provides details about Babel Street. The document was obtained by Wisconsin Examiner through open records requests. Used by the US military, intelligence agencies and federal government, Babel Street allows users to expand their search to the farthest reaches of the world, collecting data beyond the traditional reach of [publicly available information] in a safe environment,” the RFP document said. “It opens the door to enriched and standardized [publicly available information] data from more than 220 countries.”
Not only can Babel Street search online content in more than 200 languages, it also uses ‘sentiment scores’ in more than 50 languages. A web page with a glossary of Babel Street states that sentiment analysis involves determining “whether a given text expresses positive sentiment, negative sentiment, or no specific sentiment (neutral).” The RFP document also claims that Babel Street’s use of AI “accelerates investigations and uncovers connections.”
An MPD spokesperson reiterated that point, saying in an emailed statement to Wisconsin Examiner that the software has “increased the speed of investigations.” The spokesperson said Babel Street is used by MPD’s Fusion Division. Social media research is an important part of Milwaukee’s Fusion Centerconsisting of both MPD’s Fusion Division and the Southeastern Threat Analysis Center (STAC). Originally created for homeland security, the Fusion Center today performs several functions: operating the city’s Shotspotter gunshot surveillance system, monitoring a Milwaukee County camera network, conducting ballistics tests, accessing confiscated phones taken by agents, or processing information from cell towers. .
The Milwaukee Police Department building downtown. (Isiah Holmes | Wisconsin Examiner)
Within the Fusion Center, analysts from the Virtual Investigations Unit monitor social media, investigating not just people, but entire social ecosystems. Babel Street “locates key online influencers, allowing researchers to explore networks from a powerful starting point,” the RFP document said. “Quickly uncovering and unlocking their web of relationships provides crucial information within minutes.” All that data is then connected to advanced visualizations such as maps, algorithmic scores or graphs. “Visualized mapping reveals influencers having the greatest impact on organizations, senior leaders and world events,” the document explains. “Advanced algorithms score and prioritize critical online entities to measure this influence, bringing obscure identities that make up their network to the fore.”
Babel Street can track the growth of the online influence emanating from a person or group of interest to the police. Researchers can also set real-time updates that alert them to new developments online, as well as “persistent” monitoring. “A persistent Document Search on an identified threat actor continuously monitors filtered topics the actor is publicly engaging with,” the RFP document said. “By establishing persistent collection through user-built filters/queries, users can not only increase their data access and insight, but also automate the pricing aspects of the analysis.”
Contract B20203, purchase order PUR20203 (RNC Open Source Tool – Abaxent answer)_redacted
City of Milwaukee Purchasing Division documents obtained through open records requests.
Babel Street uses a wealth of online information to gather intelligence for the police. An aspect of the software known as ‘Synthesis’ enables MPD to ‘understand the profile of key influencers based on characteristics, such as person/organisation, location, occupation, interests, areas of influence and communication style, which are automatically tagged for millions of accounts using an AI model, while still allowing the city to manually tag.” Babel Street allows MPD to combine keyword searches with geofencing, alerting the department to posts within a specific geographic area. MPD’s new open source intelligence tool also makes it possible to extract data from the dark web: parts of the internet that are not indexed in search engines and require specialized internet browsers to locate.
A Milwaukee police car outside the municipal court downtown. (Photo | Isiah Holmes)
Law enforcement’s ability to map online connections between people with privacy concerns ahead of the RNC. Early AprilThe American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) warned that using an open source intelligence tool would allow MPD to more effectively track and profile people exercising their constitutional rights. David Maass, director of research at the EFF, told Wisconsin Examiner that open source intelligence tools are “designed to produce ‘results’ even when there is no evidence of a nefarious plot.”
Many police reform activists in Milwaukee also remember the 2020 protests, when police took action heavily dependent on social media to keep an eye on demonstrators. However, collecting and sorting all that information takes time, especially if a department only has a limited number of analysts available. “Analysts no longer manually check multiple data sources to identify changes,” the RFP document said, “while Babel Street Insights continuously and automatically collects, records and alerts users when new information is available, dramatically increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of each information increases. analyst.”
The March on the RNC in Milwaukee. (Photo | Isiah Holmes)
However, all that information should also be checked to ensure it is accurate. “Intelligence often requires vetting to determine whether it is reliable or not,” the MPD spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement. “Additional investigation would be necessary given all the intelligence.”
MPD said it does not monitor Babel Street’s involvement in investigations, either during the RNC or afterward. There is also no standard procedure for MPD’s use of the software, a spokesperson told the Wisconsin Examiner. “This software is used to investigate crimes or to assist in mitigating threats to pre-planned large-scale events,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement. No decision has yet been made on whether to renew the MPD’s contract for Babel Street.
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