Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said it’s probable the entire state Department of Justice will be audited to see if its staff members profiled Oregonians based on race.
Earlier this year, at least one DOJ investigator collected tweets from at least one person using the Black Lives Matter hashtag. The digital surveillance included Erious Johnson, who is the head of the Oregon Department of Justice Civil Rights Division.
New documents released this week show that state policy requires employees investigating social media accounts to get written permission from their supervisors.
"If there is any issue of profiling in my office, I want to be aware of it. I want to understand how these types of searches are conducted," Rosenblum told OPB.
The documents released Friday show the Department of Justice came close to signing a $16,000 contract for software that would have made it easier to profile social media based on race.
A spokesperson for the agency said that the contract wasn’t signed, and the software wasn’t purchased.