Minneapolis police officers used fake social media accounts to surveil Black residents and organizations with no public safety purpose, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights found in a 2022 investigation, and a Minneapolis City Council member said at a recent community panel that the pattern shows how far technology has outrun local oversight.
Council Member Robin Wonsley, state Rep. Athena Hollins, anti-war activist Anna Madison and attorneys from the ACLU of Minnesota and the Electronic Frontier Foundation spoke at the “Technofascism Community Panel on the Rise of Mass Surveillance and AI in the Twin Cities” at the North End Community Center in St. Paul. They warned that surveillance and artificial intelligence are developing faster than the local laws meant to restrain them.
The state investigation reviewed Minneapolis police activity from 2010 through 2020. It found officers used covert accounts to seek access to the online profiles of Black individuals, elected officials and groups such as the Minneapolis NAACP and Urban League, and that one fake account posed as a Black community member to message the NAACP. The city has disputed the finding.
“We actually found was our police department couldn’t handle Facebook,” Wonsley said. “They use Facebook to track Black residents, even sitting Black council members, to try to intimidate and harass them.”
Wonsley also questioned why the police department turned to Zencity, an Israeli AI firm, to help it comply with the city’s settlement agreement with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights.
“The fact that our police department sought out that particular vendor to help us be in compliance with a settlement agreement that happened because they violated the rights of Black and Brown and Indigenous folks is ridiculous,” Wonsley said. “It was just about two weeks ago that my office finally got confirmation from the mayor’s administration that they eliminated the funding for that contract, and that is why it’s so imperative that we do have organizing.”
In a statement, Jennifer Lor, press secretary for Mayor Jacob Frey, called Wonsley’s comments “disingenuous.” Lor said the City Council approved the three-year, $500,000 contract with Zencity on Oct. 13, 2023, that the contract expired earlier this month and that the city has no plans to renew it. She said multiple city departments, not only the police department, used Zencity to survey residents’ opinions on various projects, and that the contract has always been publicly available through the city’s online legislative records.
Beyond the police department, panelists described a mix of victories and setbacks. Minneapolis activists won a 2021 facial recognition ban, helped stop a Skydio drone contract and secured limits on rental pricing algorithms. St. Paul activists pushed the city to remove its own Flock license plate cameras. At the state level, lawmakers passed a first-of-its-kind ban on AI “nudification” software, which a federal appeals court recently paused while a challenge proceeds. They also banned political deepfakes and barred insurers from using AI to deny claims.
Other efforts failed. Bills that would have barred companies from using algorithms to raise prices or alter worker wages died in committee, and a measure on workplace AI displacement did not pass. The Minneapolis City Council failed to override a mayoral veto of a self-driving car ordinance, and St. Paul activists are still asking the city to disclose its Skydio contract.
On the broader problem, John Boehler, policy counsel for the ACLU of Minnesota, said local governments increasingly avoid public scrutiny. He said Dakota County structures its contracts to stay under the threshold that would require a public hearing, and that officials point to older hearings because bringing the public in tends to sink proposals.
Boehler also described meeting with Skydio officials before the company’s 75-day free trial proposal became public. They floated using drones for zoning and roofing inspections. “We said that’s illegal,” Boehler said. “There’s a state law that says what you can use drones for.”
“Our leaders are not ready. Now we’re trying to play catch up in a regulatory standpoint,” Wonsley said. “These tech companies and these other industries still have been able to exert substantial influence over our elected officials to believe that data centers and autonomous vehicles are somehow going to make lives better in our cities.”
Hollins said companies exploit those gaps. “A lot of companies act in bad faith, and they are incredibly sneaky and savvy at getting around regulations that we put in place,” she said. “It is this constant churn of trying to play catch up with companies.”
She said bipartisan agreement on data privacy has weakened. “For a long time we were on the same page about data privacy, and now suddenly we do not find ourselves on the same page,” Hollins said. “I have noticed a sea change from Republicans, frankly.”
As for what to do, Hollins urged residents to keep pressure on lawmakers. “We need regular people from every sort of political background to come to the Capitol, to write into their legislators, to write to their city council members, and say, ‘This is not something that we want in our city. This is not something I want in my neighborhoods,’” she said.
Boehler said opposition to invasive technology is not limited to the metro. He cited Itasca County, which has a 287(g) agreement to cooperate with the federal government on immigration enforcement but does not want Flock cameras in its communities.
Clint Combs is a freelance journalist and contributing writer for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder. He welcomes reader responses at combs0284@gmail.com.