Utah Attorney General suspends state contract with Banjo in light of founder's KKK past

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Salt Lake Tribune

Utah Attorney General suspends state contract with Banjo in light of founder's KKK past

By Thomas Burr · Published: 4 hours ago
Updated: 2 hours ago

Washington The Utah Attorney General's Office will suspend use of a massive surveillance system after a news report showed that the founder of the company behind the effort was once an active participant in a white supremacist group and was involved in the shooting of a synagogue.

Damien Patton, who helped launch and now leads the secretive Park City-based startup Banjo, was part of the Dixie Knights of the Ku Klux Klan as a 17 year old and joined a leader of the group in a drive-by shooting of a synagogue in a Nashville suburb, according to a report by the online outlet OneZero citing transcripts of courtroom testimony, sworn statements and more than 1,000 pages of records produced from a federal hate crime prosecution.

Utah officials in 2018 had awarded Patton's company a sole-source, $750,000 contract to provide massive real-time surveillance of 911 calls, social media and traffic cameras. The company has also signed a $20.7 million contract with the state.

{snip}


Read more: https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2020/04/28/utah-attorney-general/

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Hat tip, Joe.My.God

Surveillance Firm Loses Utah Deal Over CEO's KKK Past
April 28, 2020

https://www.joemygod.com/2020/04/surveillance-firm-loses-utah-deal-over-ceos-kkk-past/
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The Utah Attorney General's office will suspend the use of a massive surveillance system after news reports surfaced that the founder of the company was once an active white supremacist and was involved in the shooting of a synagogue.

Link to tweet

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CEO of the surveillance firm we wrote about in Utah that is collecting a shitload of data from everyone was a KKK member

Link to tweet

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Turns out the CEO of Banjo, a tech firm we covered that is creating a vast surveillance system in Utah and also previously made fake apps to trick people into handing other social media data, was involved in the shooting of a synagogue; was a Neo Nazi

Link to tweet

[Major Nikon]

1. ...

[vanamonde]

2. As a resident of Utah, I am very glad to see this.

Occasionally the state does something right.

[47of74]

4. A stopped clock is right twice a day.

[dalton99a]

3. "also previously made fake apps to trick people into handing other social media data"

Good thing they exposed this asshole

Patton’s association with racist groups extended into adulthood; in testimony he provided against Brown, Patton admitted to fraternizing with skinheads while serving in the U.S. Navy.

Typos on records connected to Brown and Armstrong’s case — first a misspelling of Patton’s first name, Damien, as “Damion” in an initial affidavit of probable cause; then, in subsequent filings, spelling Damien as “Damian” — have helped prevent the discovery of Patton’s full biography for the past 30 years.

[not fooled]

5. "Banjo"?

Could he be any more obvious in referencing his worldview?

[link:|]

OK maybe he didn't mean that banjo player in particular but the Southern reference...geez .


And...why is Utah "creating a vast surveillance system?" That's the most troubling aspect of this story, to me.