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CounterPunch
October
31, 2002
Red Squads Redux:
Portland Activists Mobilize Against the FBI's Joint Terrorism
Task Force
by DESIREE HELLEGERS
and LAURIE MERCIER
The September 19 renewal hearing for the Portland
Joint Terrorism Task Force (PJTTF) marked another important
skirmish in the national struggle to resist the Bush administration's
assaults on civil liberties. The renewal of the formal agreement
between the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) and the FBI came within
days of a headline story by the Portland Tribune,
which unearthed thousands of "red squad" style police
files on progressive activists, some compiled as recently as
1986. After four-and-a-half hours of testimony, overwhelmingly
by groups opposed to the partnership, Mayor Vera Katz and city
commissioners unanimously rubberstamped the agreement in the
face of unassailable evidence of PPB-and FBI--abuses. The hearing
threw into relief the willingness of this liberal city government
to collaborate with corporate interests and the Bush administration's
domestic war on dissent. It also demonstrated the strength and
persistence of an ad hoc coalition of local activists that played
a little known role in the Portland city government's well-publicized
refusal last year to cooperate in the interrogation of thousands
of Middle Easterners.
The recent disclosures of decades of
police surveillance in Portland mirror developments in Denver,
where the ACLU has filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of
several groups--including the American Friends Service Committee
and the Chiapas Coalition--which were among more than two hundred
groups and thousands of individuals investigated by the Denver
police. The parallel struggles highlight the importance of inter-city
strategizing among activists concerned about police spying and
the growing reach of the joint terrorism task forces, which now
exist in 56 cities.
Denver and Portland were among a handful
of cities that drew media attention last year for their resistance
to post-September 11 "national security" measures.
Within days of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon,
Portland activists persuaded one of four city commissioners to
vote against the renewal of the PJTTF. Although the task force
agreement was ultimately renewed, arguments against it compelled
city officials to uphold state law, even in the face of Justice
Department pressures. Since 1981, Oregon law has barred police-INS
collaboration and police surveillance in the absence of criminal
activity. In March 2002 Denver activists got their city council
to pass a non-binding resolution to limit the enforcement of
the USA Patriot Act. Sabin Portillo of Denver Copwatch noted
that Portland's resistance to Ashcroft's dragnet of Middle Eastern
men buoyed Denver activists. "It gave people a little bit
of courage-of hope," said Portillo.
The Portland city council first formalized
the FBI-PPB Joint Terrorism Task Force partnership in 2000, on
the heels of the WTO protests in neighboring Seattle. In a September
e-mail to concerned activists, Katz claimed its genesis in the
1997 collaboration between the PPB and FBI "investigating
and preventing criminal threats to the Nike World Master Games,"
in the city where the multinational corporation is headquartered.
However, the task force first came to public light when Dan
Handelman, of Portland Copwatch, happened to be present at a
September 2000 city council meeting. Handelman was surprised
to learn that the PJTTF agreement, which broadly targeted "right"
and "left wing" activists for investigation, was slated
for routine renewal as an emergency measure. Ultimately Commissioner
Charlie Hales convinced the council to temper the original language
before it sanctioned the FBI-PPB arrangement.
The following September, as activists
geared up for the first public PJTTF renewal hearing, the hijacked
planes slammed into the World Trade Center. One city commissioner
advised activists in a lobbying meeting that they would be committing
political suicide by contesting the PJTTF agreement. But by
the September 26 hearing, a broad coalition, including the Oregon
ACLU, had emerged to resist the renewal. Activists jammed the
chambers of the city council, offering a collective course in
the FBI's historical role in repressing political dissent.
At last month's renewal hearing, the
mayor, commissioners, and Police Chief Mark Kroeker again faced
a roomful of angry citizens, still recoiling from the police
paramilitary response to protesters during Bush's August visit,
and many waving copies of the Portland Tribune expose
of police spying. Kroeker's power point presentation before
the packed council chambers provided strong evidence of the role
that corporate interests are playing in shaping the PJTTF agenda.
Under the heading "community supporters," almost all
of which were forest products corporations, he quoted an Oregon
industry spokesperson who lauded the PJTTF as "a perfect
example of the corporate approach to information sharing that
needs to occur across agency jurisdictions to bring all terrorist
activities to justice." Listing "terror crimes in our
region," Kroeker highlighted nine environmentally-related
property crimes going back to 1996 and encompassing both Washington
and Oregon. Numbering among the "terror crimes," none
of which involved human injuries, were the destruction of "experimental
grass seeds at Pure-Seed Testing facility," an arson fire
that destroyed a lumber company office, and a nationally publicized
arson fire that destroyed 37 SUVs at a Eugene dealership. Tim
Crocker, of the Portland Business Alliance, testified in favor
of the PJTTF claiming that Oregon faces a higher threat of "ecoterrorism"
than any other state.
The conflation of ecotage with national
terrorist threats is significant in this region where environmental
activists seemed poised to become heroes to mainstream Oregonians
for their landmark success in effecting the cancellation of the
controversial Eagle Creek timber sale. Spearheaded by the Cascadia
Forest Alliance (CFA), the campaign to save Eagle Creek included
three years of coordinated tree sits, road blockades and periodic
demonstrations. It drew national attention when local activist
Michael Scarpitti, aka Tre Arrow, scaled the U.S. Forest Service
building in downtown Portland and spent eleven days on the building
ledge to protest the timber sale.
In the weeks immediately preceding the
2002 renewal hearing, the PJTTF made a series of highly publicized
arrests, including three members of Portland State University's
Students for Unity, who were charged in connection with the almost
year-old arson of Eagle Creek logging trucks. At the time of
the arson, support for the tree sit was mounting. Wyatt Wildewoode
of CFA noted that the fire "hurt the cause more than it
helped it." "It's not unlike the FBI to do something
like this," observed Wildewoode, invoking the car bombing
of activist Judi Bari. With the accused activists still awaiting
trial, and each facing up to eighty years in prison, Kroeker
showcased the arrests as evidence of the effectiveness of--and
need for--the task force.
Labor organizer Bob Marshall was among
the first to analyze the chilling effect that the PJTTF would
have on organizing efforts. Citing repeated incidents of police
surveillance of Powell's Books workers during their organizing
drive in 2000, Marshall remarked before the 2001 renewal hearing
that unions viewed the PJTTF as "another gauntlet thrown
by corporate America." At the 2002 hearing, Leal Sundet,
of ILWU Local 8, testified that Bush had already threatened to
label and prosecute western longshore workers as "economic
terrorists" if they called a strike.
If Chief Kroeker's power point presentation
provided strong indications of the role that the PJTTF will increasingly
play in protecting corporate interests from activists' challenges,
it also raised the specter of terrorists among members of the
local Muslim community. Along with the Eagle Creek arrests,
Kroeker touted the recent high-profile arrest of Sheik Mohamed
Abdirahman Kariye, the religious leader of Portland's largest
mosque, the Islamic Center of Portland. An electronic device
at Portland International Airport detected trace amounts of TNT
on Kariye's luggage. When Kroeker highlighted the arrest to justify
the task force renewal, some activists shouted "innocent
until proven guilty." Indeed, on the Monday following the
Thursday council hearing--and the renewal of the PJTTF agreement
and budget--Assistant U.S. Attorney Kent Robinson announced that
the FBI's tests of Kariye's bags had come back negative for the
presence of TNT. Kariye, however, remains in custody on Social
Security fraud charges with no indication that the PJTTF will
discontinue its involvement in the "case."
In his testimony before the City Council,
Kayse Jama, himself a member of the Islamic Center of Portland,
spoke to the heightened fears of members of the Muslim community
in the face of Kariye's arrest. Jama voiced his concerns with
being targeted by the PJTTF and possible reprisal for his testimony
before the City Council: "I am a Muslim. I am also a Black
man. I am also an immigrant." Jama, who fled political violence
in his native Somalia, noted that people in his community now
feared calling the police over any issue, believing that they
could be arbitrarily detained, prosecuted and/or deported without
due process.
The war on terrorism and threatened war
against Iraq have heightened citizens' concerns that their own
security-and liberties-could disappear in the rapid advance of
war hysteria. Henry Sakamoto of the Japanese American Citizens
League called attention to Ashcroft's ominous proposal to create
camps to incarcerate those deemed "threatening." Jack
Tafari, a leader of Portland's homeless tent city Dignity Village,
told how the PJTTF in the last year had spied on the villagers.
Dignity residents, he said, were concerned that these police
files would haunt them in the future. "We don't support
terrorists," Tafari calmly stated.
The equation of property crimes, immigration
violations, and labor and other political dissent with terrorism,
as several activists noted in their testimony at City Hall, demonstrates
even more fundamental problems with Ashcroft's joint terrorism
task force initiative. Professor Tom Hastings, on the faculty
in the Conflict Resolution Program at Portland State University,
noted that the FBI's broad definition of terrorism might easily
apply to disciplined non-violent civil disobedience. Barbara
Dudley, a professor in Portland State University's Mark Hatfield
School of Government, observed that "Terrorism has become
the new catch-all label for dissidence."
Although the three commissioners ultimately
joined the mayor in supporting the PJTTF renewal, they clearly
acknowledged the power of the activist community in hedging their
own justifications for renewal. In emphasizing their support
of abortion providers to explain why they supported the PJTTF,
commissioners ignored the testimony of Tia Plympton, representing
the National Organization of Women. In opposing the task force,
she insisted that a variety of law enforcement and legal remedies
exist to protect abortion providers. Moreover, she argued, the
PPB and FBI in the past had dismissed evidence of threats to
abortion clinics, at the same time both agencies had infiltrated
and investigated NOW along with a host of other pro-choice women's
groups.
While the mayor and city commissioners
continue to insist, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the
contrary, that existing oversight of the PPB is adequate, they
acknowledged during the hearing that PPB officers involved in
the PJTTF are accountable only to the FBI, which is exempt from
civilian review. Katz, however, attempted to assuage citizens'
concerns by suggesting that Senator Ron Wyden could review the
files. She reiterated the claim at a press conference following
the hearing, claiming that because Wyden serves on the Senate
Intelligence Committee, "The Oregon delegation has the power
to review the files." Within a few days of the hearing,
the Tribune reported that Wyden does not, in fact, have
direct access to investigation files, though as Wyden staffer
Josh Carden noted, "The FBI briefs the committee on its
activities." In anticipation of the hearing, Commissioners
Erik Sten, Dan Saltzman, and Jim Francesconi drafted a self-indicting
letter to Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller requesting
some minor oversight of PJTTF files. In the letter, they note
that "residents of Portlandare vigilant in their defense
of civil liberties, and this vigilance poses difficulties to
the wholesale reaffirmation of the work between the FBI and the
Portland Police Bureau."
Despite the compelling testimony by citizens
and activists, the Council, in announcing its decision to vote
in favor of the PJTTF renewal, steered the focus away from substantive
arguments to chide some in the council chambers for repeatedly
heckling the council. The council's closing remarks attempted
to delegitimate the testimony of dozens of groups, including
the ACLU, the Sierra Club, League of Women Voters, Physicians
for Social Responsibility, and AFSCME, which represented thousands
of constituents. In its coverage of the renewal hearing, The
Oregonian gave Katz the last word. "I'm surprised at
the fact a lot of people were talking about freedom and democracy
but would not allow other people to speak, but showed rude and
crude behavior."
During the hearing, Kroeker received
word that he had failed in his bid to return to Los Angeles as
the Chief of Police. According to The Oregonian, Katz
expressed her relief that he would be staying in Portland, and
indicated that "Highest on her agenda for the chief is to
figure out how best to manage the 'escalation of protests' in
Portland."
While the Portland city council has yet
to acknowledge the significance of the Tribune's disclosures,
the Denver mayor recently convened a three-judge panel to review
their city's police spy files. Activists, however, are critical
of the limited scope of the panel review, which did not include
anti-terrorism investigations. Steve Nash, a plaintiff in the
Denver ACLU lawsuit, confirmed that to date Denver has had no
public JTTF renewal hearings. "I've seen nothing in the
press about it. I've heard nothing from the police about any
kind of renewal process. Sometimes they do public things that
aren't very public. They may have something like that here as
well and we weren't sitting at the right meeting." Portland's
experience demonstrates that once made public, JTTF hearings
may serve as critical forums for gauging local governments' commitments
to civil liberties in the post-9-11 era.
Desiree Hellegers and Laurie Mercier teach at Washington
State University Vancouver and are working on a book about Portland
social movements.
Mercier can be reached at: mercier@vancouver.wsu.edu
Hellegers can be reached at: helleger@vancouver.wsu.edu
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