spies are back
Undercover cops monitoring peace
protesters, documents show
By A.C. Thompson
The San Francisco Police Department has been monitoring a
radical Web site, using undercover officers to spy on antiwar protesters,
and apparently collecting personal information about political
dissidents, the Bay Guardian has learned.
A confidential police memo, part of a dossier obtained under the Sunshine
Ordinance, acknowledges that at least some of the activities appear to
violate the department's own rules.
The internal SFPD documents and a new audit performed by the city's
police watchdog agency, the Office of Citizen Complaints, indicate the
department has been gathering intelligence on the militant wing of the
antiwar movement since last fall. Taken as a whole, the documents suggest
some SFPD commanders may have orchestrated a secret spying program
without the knowledge of top police officials.
"Undercover surveillance was requested and conducted at anti-war
demonstrations on October 26, 2002, January 18, 2003 and February 16,
2003 without proper authorization by the Chief of Police," the OCC
audit states.
Approval for the operations went up as high as deputy chiefs David
Robinson and Greg Suhr, both of whom are under indictment for their
alleged involvement in the Union Street beating scandal, documents show.
Directed by Lt. Kitt Crenshaw, a group of four officers assigned to the
Violent Crimes Task Force – a unit that normally handles gang killings –
carried out the undercover operations. Dressed as protesters, the squad
videotaped the demonstrations and marched along Market Street in the
large antiwar parades as well as in the smaller, riotous
"breakaway" marches. They also made a handful of arrests for
vandalism.
Jonah Zern, an Oakland substitute teacher, was one of two people busted
by the squad during the raucous splinter march that snaked through
downtown Jan. 18. "All of a sudden the undercover cop jumped out and
started beating me up," Zern said. "Then uniformed cops started
beating up the undercover guy, apparently thinking he wasn't an
officer."
The cops quickly figured it out and hauled Zern and another man, Jeremy
Rochelle, down to the county jail at 850 Bryant St., charging both men
with an array of felonies. Two days later the protesters were released
without bail, and all charges were eventually dropped.
The police squad also logged on to the local Independent Media Center Web
site (sf.indymedia.org), a hub of leftist news and discussion. Attached
to one police report is a posting on the site by a local activist group,
Direct Action to Stop the War, calling for "EMERGENCY MASS
NONVIOLENT DIRECT ACTION & PROTEST" on the day the bombs start
falling on Baghdad.
The task force's paper trail hints at what may be a broader spying
program. One memo says that prior to the Oct. 26 march, "information
received by (FOB) Field Operations Bureau revealed that the potential
existed for criminal activity" to occur at the protest. Another memo
states, "Individuals and groups opposed to United States actions in
Iraq are planning possible criminal activity." Other reports
confidently identify "East Bay" anarchists as the major force
behind the splinter marches and worry about the threat posed by queer
shit-disturbers in the Gay Shame and Pink Rage groups.
When interviewed by the Bay Guardian, Crenshaw denied keeping tabs
on dissidents outside of protest situations. "We've never tried to
infiltrate groups," he told us. "We don't gather intelligence
or spy on people. We receive information from average citizens, news
sources."
In a two-page message he sent to Capt. Paul Chignell, Crenshaw described
"First Amendment activities" as a "guise" used by
some radical groups to "conduct their contemptuous acts against
corporate and government structures."
The SFPD established strict guidelines on surveillance after S.F. cop Tom
Gerard, a former Central Intelligence Agency operative, was caught spying
on Bay Area leftists in 1992. Working with the Anti-Defamation League,
Gerard had compiled dossiers on some 7,000 radicals.
According to the SFPD's spying rules, which remain in place today, police
must receive written permission from the "Commanding Officer of the
Special Investigations Division, Deputy Chief of Investigations and the
Chief of Police" before mounting a surveillance operation. In the
files we reviewed there's no mention of the appropriate command staff
being involved in the recent undercover operations.
Lt. Morris Tabak, head of the Special Investigations Division, said he
thought Suhr, Robinson, and Crenshaw had inadvertently transgressed
department rules. "People make mistakes, and I hope that's what this
was," he told us, adding that the guidelines in question are
"lengthy" and "confusing."
The rules also bar the police from collecting "information of
personal nature that does not relate to a criminal investigation."
In its audit the OCC found reason to believe this edict had been
violated.
E-mail A.C. Thompson at
[EMAIL PROTECTED].
http://www.sfbayguardian.com/37/24/x_news_war.html
