Military Spying

http://www.theolympian.com/2009/09/12/968262/army-e-mail-sent-to-police-and.html

Army e-mail sent to police and accused spy
Threat Assessment: Anti-war group was topic

JEREMY PAWLOSKI; The Olympian | • Published September 12, 2009

In November 2007, Fort Lewis e-mailed its threat assessments concerning the activities of an Olympia anti-war group to both the Olympia Police Department and John Towery, a man now accused of spying on the anti-war group.

Towery, a civilian Fort Lewis employee, might have been the one who gathered the information about the anti-war group, known locally as Olympia Port Militarization Resistance (OlyPMR), according to one of its members.

The threat assessments were sent by Fort Lewis to Olympia police in the days before and during OlyPMR’s protests at the Port of Olympia in November 2007.

OlyPMR member Drew Hendricks is one of the activists who helped unmask Towery. He said Towery began attending OlyPMR meetings in spring 2007 under the name John Jacob.

The Olympian was given thousands of pages of e-mails Friday that Towery and the Olympia Police Department received from Fort Lewis. Olympia released the e-mails in response to public-records requests from The Olympian for all of the city’s public records that mention Towery.

The threat assessments sent by Fort Lewis to Olympia police in November 2007 contain specific information about OlyPMR’s activities, including OlyPMR’s intentions and what type of police radio scanner the group used to monitor troop movements in planning their protests.

“That’s highly likely,” Hendricks said when asked whether Towery might have been providing information about OlyPMR in the threat assessments that were sent to Olympia police.

The threat assessments were sent to Olympia Police Cmdr. Tor Bjornstad in e-mails from the head of Fort Lewis Force Protection. Fort Lewis Force Protection is a group of military and civilian employees who support law enforcement and security operations to ensure the safety of Fort Lewis and its soldiers, Fort Lewis spokesman Joseph Piek has said.

Piek said Friday that he can’t comment on whether the information in the threat assessments came from Towery.

“We haven’t seen these e-mails, and we can’t comment or speculate on the source of the information in the e-mails while the investigation is ongoing,” he said.

Piek has said that Fort Lewis is conducting an inquiry into whether Towery spied on OlyPMR.

Fort Lewis spokesman J.C. Matthews shed some light on the ongoing inquiry in an e-mail to The Olympian on Friday.

“Right now, the primary concern continues to be ensuring a comprehensive investigation is completed that determines the facts and makes solid recommendations regarding those findings,” Matthews wrote. “This is a complex issue, and the public has a right to expect our best effort. When the investigation is complete, we will provide as much information about the finding as possible. Our goal is transparency.”

OlyPMR members oppose the Iraq War. In November 2007, they attempted to block the transport of Stryker vehicles and other military equipment used in the war from the Port of Olympia back to Fort Lewis.

The e-mails released by Olympia in response to the records request include messages copied to Towery from the Washington Joint Analytical Center.

The WJAC is a clearinghouse of sorts of anti-terrorism information and sensitive intelligence that is gathered and disseminated to law enforcement agencies across the state. The WJAC receives money from the federal government.

The substance of nearly all of the WJAC’s e-mails to Olympia police officials had been blacked out in the copies provided to The Olympian.

The other category of e-mails released by the city are the threat assessments sent by Fort Lewis Force Protector Thomas Rudd to Army personnel around the time of the November 2007 protests. Towery and Bjornstad both were sent copies.

An e-mail sent Nov. 14 has the subject line, “Force Protection Intelligence Update:” and continues, “As of 900, 14 Nov. protesters continue surveillance of the port and appear to be focused on determining rail movement plans. Protesters are comprised of two main groups; the Olympia Port Militization (PMR) and the self-described anarchists calling themselves the Port Liberations Front (PLF), and various other groups, and individuals who align themselves with these groups or take individual actions based on their beliefs ... .”

The e-mail continues, “If protesters decide to continue efforts to block line hauls or rail movements, tactics will continue to include the use of makeshift barricades, ‘sleeping dragons’ (chains protected by plastic pipes), and more decentralized staging at intersections along viable routes from port to I-5.”

Some of the information in these “intelligence updates” appears to have been widely available in media reports. Other pieces of information do not appear to have been reported by the media and must have been gathered by other means. For example, part of a Nov. 5 e-mail by Rudd reads, “Surveillance of the Port began this morning by local activists and the arrival of the USCG Marine Safety and security team at 0830 was posted to local independent media web pages. ... Believing they would be shot, protesters will not conduct any activity that puts them in a direct confrontation with USCG personnel. This belief should deter them from attempts to enter Port property until the Ship/USCG assets have departed.”

An e-mail sent by Rudd on Nov. 15 states that “Local protesters have been using a radio shack ‘PRO-63’ scanner to monitor law enforcement and other communications.”

In a phone interview Friday, Bjornstad said he had no idea who gathered the intelligence that was distributed in Fort Lewis’ threat assessments. He added, “I had never heard of this Towery guy until this whole thing popped up.” Bjornstad said that when he received Fort Lewis’ e-mails in November 2007, “I just read them and deleted them. Nothing I read in any of those ever changed our approach to anything.”

Bjornstad said he assumed that the person who wrote the intelligence updates was at OlyPMR’s meetings at the Olympia Free School in downtown Olympia. The meetings were open to the public, although Olympian reporters were barred from attending OlyPMR meetings in November after showing up and announcing their intent to listen in and report on the proceedings. Bjornstad said that because the meetings were open to the public, it’s difficult to accuse anyone who attended them of “infiltrating” the group.

Yale Law School faculty member Eugene Fidell has said in a previous interview with The Olympian that a military employee infiltrating OlyPMR and spying on members could violate the Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law that prohibits the use of the Army for conventional law enforcement activities against civilians.

On Friday, Piek discussed the intense and detailed planning that goes into any movement of military personnel and equipment. A movement to or from Fort Lewis to a foreign country is considered “one long military operation,” he said. He added, “We have to take a look at what are the obstacles, what is the situation as we plan an operation. … We have an enormous responsibility to the community that we do movements safely.”

Piek declined to discuss whether threat assessments are part of that preparation, but he added, “we don’t just line up the vehicles and head out.”

Jeremy Pawloski: 360-754-5465

jpawloski@theolympian.com
http://www.theolympian.com/2009/09/12/968262/army-e-mail-sent-to-police-and.html