At a news conference held today at the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado (ACLU), Legal Director Mark Silverstein presented documentary evidence that the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (“JTTF”), contrary to its public statements, has been collecting information about the peaceful protest activities of Colorado residents and the constitutionally-protected activities of law-abiding advocacy groups.

“The FBI is collecting information about nonviolent protesters and law abiding organizations whose issues are as varied as animal rights, protection of the environment, labor rights, United States military policies, social and economic justice in Latin America, and the treatment of Native Americans,” Silverstein said. “Their advocacy and expressive activities have nothing to do with terrorism.”

The Colorado ACLU also announced that under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), it had filed a formal request on behalf of 16 organizations and 10 individuals to obtain additional documents about the monitoring of their expressive activities by the Denver Division of the FBI and the Denver-based Joint Terrorism Task Force. The FOIA request is part of a nation-wide ACLU campaign, launched today, to uncover the full extent of FBI political surveillance. The national ACLU and at least a half-dozen additional state ACLU affiliates filed similar requests for FBI documents today.

According to the ACLU, all of its 26 clients have documentary evidence or strong grounds to believe that the FBI has obtained information about their nonviolent expressive activities. The evidence presented at the news conference includes the following:

• Documents the ACLU obtained in the Denver Spy Files litigation include a binder kept by the Intelligence Unit of the Denver Police Department (DPD). One tab is labeled “Colorado and local links: JTTF Active Case List.” The pages in that section consist of printouts made in April, 2002, from the web sites of a number of the ACLU’s clients, including the American Friends Service Committee, the Colorado Campaign for Middle East Peace, and The Human Bean Company.
• A written report stating that in April, 1999, JTTF agent Tom Fisher monitored two peaceful demonstrations in Denver protesting the bombing of Serbia and obtained information about planning for additional protests.
• A two-page fax that the intelligence unit of the Colorado Springs police department provided to JTTF agent Tom Fisher. The fax lists the license plate numbers, and the names corresponding to them, of participants in a nonviolent protest outside a convention of a lumber industry association. Environmental groups had organized the peaceful demonstration to protest timber industry practices. The fax cover sheet indicates that the JTTF Agent Tom Fisher asked for the list of names.
• Five separate emails from the DPD Spy Files. Each was originally sent by political activists about upcoming First Amendment activity, such as a rally about Palestine, an animal rights protest, a possible rally in Aspen, an announcement for Transform Columbus Day, and a schedule of events. Although these emails were originally directed to supporters and potential participants, law enforcement officers received them electronically and forwarded them, not only to the DPD Intelligence Bureau, but also to the FBI.
• An FBI “Intelligence Bulletin” sent to law enforcement agencies in October, 2003, titled “Tactics Used During Protests and Demonstrations.” The Bulletin asked police to “be alert” to “possible indicators of protest activity.” It urged police to “report any potentially illegal acts to the nearest FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force.” According to Silverstein, the Bulletin represents “a standing invitation to inform the JTTF about constitutionally protected organizing and advocacy as well as plans for symbolic nonviolent civil disobedience.”
• Documents indicating that intelligence officers from at least two dozen Colorado law enforcement agencies trade political intelligence information at bimonthly meetings of the Multi-Agency Group Intelligence Conference (MAGIC). MAGIC documents state that meetings are “limited to sharing of information on extremist groups.” Agendas for these meetings, however, reveal that subjects of discussion have included peaceful protesters and law-abiding organizations, such as the American Friends Service Committee and Amnesty International. Silverstein said that the ACLU of Colorado wants to find out whether JTTF agents, operating under recently-relaxed guidelines, now attend or receive briefings about information exchanged at MAGIC meetings.
• The ACLU also presented evidence that Bill Sulzman, a former Catholic priest active with Citizens for Peace in Space in Colorado Springs, is falsely listed in an FBI database as a “member of a terrorist organization.”

“This evidence of political surveillance raises questions whether the FBI’s anti-terrorism unit unjustifiably regards dissent or criticism of government policies as potential terrorist activity,” Silverstein said. “That poses a tremendous risk of chilling individuals and organizations from taking part in the free exchange of viewpoints that is the basis for our democracy. We don’t want to go back to the era of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, when Americans feared that speaking out would result in an FBI dossier.”

More on the ACLU's FOIA requests to JTTF

Relying on the Colorado Open Records Act, the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado (ACLU) filed suit today against the City and County of Denver, seeking disclosure of a document that sets out the terms of the Denver Police Department's participation in the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF).

The Denver JTTF, one of over five dozen similar task forces around the country, is run by the FBI and includes full-time agents on loan from participating federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. Denver supplies two officers from its Intelligence Unit who work full-time for the FBI task force. One of the Denver police officers has been with the JTTF since 1998.

"The Denver Police Intelligence Unit's relationship with the JTTF is an important public issue," said ACLU Legal Director Mark Silverstein. "Last Spring, Denver settled the Spy Files lawsuit and agreed it would stop collecting information about peaceful protesters who have no connection to criminal activity. The FBI, however, is not bound by the same restrictions, especially now that recently-relaxed FBI guidelines make it even easier for the agency to gather information on peaceful political activity. This raises the question whether Denver intelligence officers assigned to work full time for the JTTF must abide by Denver's new intelligence policy, or whether they are permitted to operate under the FBI rules that are much less protective of civil liberties."

According to Silverstein, documents released to the ACLU during the Spy Files lawsuit, some of which are posted on the ACLU of Colorado website, demonstrate that the JTTF has been collecting information about peaceful protest activities that have nothing to do with terrorism or any other criminal activity. "These documents show that the JTTF has been gathering the same kind of information that the Denver Police Department is now prohibited from collecting," Silverstein said.

Denver's Public Safety Review Commission (PSRC) also raised questions about the Denver Police Department's relationship with the JTTF in a preliminary report issued on August 21, 2003. The PSRC noted that in a public hearing about the Spy Files in April, then-City Attorney Wallace Wortham said that Denver Police Department intelligence officers who are assigned to the JTTF are not bound by the new intelligence policy that forbids spying on peaceful protesters. Chief Whitman, however, told the PSRC the opposite.

According to the lawsuit filed today, the ACLU requested that Denver Police Chief Gerald Whitman release the Memorandum of Understanding between the Denver Police Department and the FBI that sets out the terms of Denver's participation in the multi-jurisdictional task force. The response came from the City Attorney's office, stating that Chief Whitman had determined that the requested document is a criminal justice record the disclosure of which "would be contrary to the public interest."

"Chief Whitman is getting very bad advice from his lawyers," Silverstein said. "In other cities around the country that participate in the Joint Terrorism Task Force, the memoranda of understanding have been treated as public records and freely disclosed to the public. Disclosure does not harm the public interest. On the contrary, disclosure serves the public interest."

Today's lawsuit, ACLU of Colorado v. City and County of Denver, was filed in Denver District Court by ACLU cooperating attorney Bruce Jones of Holland & Hart. 

more on this case

The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Colorado (ACLU) announced a settlement today of its landmark lawsuit challenging the Denver Police Department’s practice of monitoring and recording the peaceful protest activities of Denver-area residents and keeping criminal intelligence files on the expressive activities of law-abiding advocacy groups, some of which were falsely labeled as “criminal extremist.”

“Denver has agreed to put an end to its decades-long practice of monitoring and keeping files on peaceful critics of government policy who have no connection to criminal activity,” said Mark Silverstein, ACLU Legal Director. “The end of this political spying enhances the professionalism of the police department and is a victory for the First Amendment and for the civil liberties of all people in Denver.

“This agreement is particularly significant at this time,” Silverstein continued, “when the White House falsely claims that Americans must sacrifice their civil liberties if they are going to be safe from terrorism. As this agreement demonstrates, effective law enforcement does not require giving up our Constitutional rights.”

“Denver has committed itself to a wholesale reform of the police department’s intelligence unit,” said Lino Lipinsky, of McKenna Long & Aldridge, who litigated the Spy Files case as an ACLU volunteer cooperating attorney. “Under this agreement, the Denver police will focus on catching criminals instead of tracking how individuals choose to exercise their First Amendment rights.”

The litigation over the Denver “Spy Files,” which sought changes in policies and practices rather than monetary damages, began shortly after the ACLU revealed the existence of the files in March, 2002.

The settlement agreement provides that the Denver Police Department (DPD) will, for the first time, adopt an official policy on intelligence-gathering that will be distributed to all officers. The new policy:

• Forbids the intelligence unit from collecting or maintaining information about how individuals exercise their First Amendment rights, unless that information is directly relevant to criminal activity and there are specific facts indicating that the individual is involved in that criminal activity.
• Applies to all forms of collecting intelligence information, including photographing and videotaping demonstrators, recording license plate numbers at peaceful rallies, intercepting email, and using undercover officers to infiltrate organizations that organize peaceful protests.
• Limits the intelligence unit to collecting information about serious criminal activity and expressly forbids collecting information on individuals who are suspected of nothing more than nonviolent civil disobedience that amounts only to a misdemeanor offense.
• Establishes limits and strict procedures governing the dissemination of information from the criminal intelligence files.
• Specifies internal safeguards, such as training, supervisory review, and thorough documentation of an audit trail.
• Requires quarterly and then annual audits by an independent agency whose reports will be submitted to the Public Safety Review Commission.

In addition, the settlement agreement also provides that Denver will:

• Purge all of the existing intelligence files that do not meet the rigorous criteria of the new policy.
• Permit individuals and organizations, for a 90-day period, another opportunity to obtain copies of their purged intelligence files. The DPD had stopped honoring such requests at the end of January.
• Provide letters from the Chief of Police to the subjects of all purged intelligence files, stating that the police have no information that justifies maintaining a criminal intelligence file.
• Provide notice of the purge to other law enforcement agencies that may have received information from Denver’s intelligence files.
• Submit to quarterly audits for the first year and subsequent annual audits, with the auditor initially selected, for the first two years, jointly by the Plaintiffs and the Mayor;
• Pay the plaintiffs’ attorney’s fees and costs, in an amount to be determined by the Court.

The agreement calls for the lawsuit to be “administratively closed” for 12 months before being formally dismissed. During that period, the ACLU could move to re-open the lawsuit if the audits show that the DPD is violating the new intelligence policy.

Attorneys representing both sides of the lawsuit appeared in open court before Magistrate Judge Craig Shaffer this morning to confirm the outlines of the agreement for the record. Before taking effect, however, the settlement must be submitted to United States District Court Judge Edward Nottingham for approval.

According to the ACLU, one unresolved issue is what will happen to the Spy Files after they are purged from the Denver Police Department’s files. “The Colorado Historical Society is interested in keeping the Spy Files as an historical record, with safeguards to protect individual privacy,” Silverstein said. “When the City of Chicago resolved a similar lawsuit in the 1980s, the Chicago Historical Society took custody of the famous Red Squad files. But Denver officials want to destroy the Spy Files after one year, thus preventing the public from ever finding out the full extent of the Denver Police Department’s political spying.”

Plaintiffs participating in the ACLU’s lawsuit are Sister Antonia Anthony, Vicki Nash, Stephen Nash, and three organizations: the American Friends Service Committee, Chiapas Coalition, and End The Politics of Cruelty.

more on spy files class action

<to spy files overview