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. 

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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.

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The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Colorado (ACLU) today released documents revealing that the Colorado Springs Police Department has collected intelligence information on the free speech activities of peaceful critics of government policy and has sent its information directly to the Denver Police Department for inclusion, with other information about First Amendment activities in Colorado Springs, in the controversial Denver Police Spy Files.

"Earlier this year we learned that individuals cannot attend a peaceful rally in Denver without fear that their names will wind up in a criminal intelligence file," said Mark Silverstein, ACLU Legal Director. "Now it appears that peaceful protesters in Colorado Springs are subject to the same kind of illegitimate political surveillance. At a time when the Pentagon is proposing an Orwellian data-mining program to track the most intimate details of our lives, how many more Colorado cities are keeping files on peaceful protest activities that have absolutely no connection to criminal activity?"

Last March, the ACLU disclosed that Denver police were monitoring peaceful rallies, conducting surveillance of peaceful protest activities, and keeping criminal intelligence files on the free speech activities of law-abiding advocacy organizations, in some cases branding them falsely in the files as "criminal extremist." An ACLU class action lawsuit challenging the Denver police practices is pending in federal court in Denver.

The documents released today come from the Denver police file on Citizens for Peace in Space, a Colorado Springs-based organization that seeks to ban the use of nuclear weapons. The group obtained its file from Denver in the course of a review and purge of the Spy Files prompted by the ACLU's disclosure of Denver's political spying last March.

"These newly-released files strongly suggest that Colorado Springs police officers maintain the same kind of spy files as their counterparts in Denver," Silverstein said. "The documents clearly show that Denver and Colorado Springs coordinated their surveillance of peaceful protesters to track the American Friends Service Committee and the Colorado Coalition to Prevent Nuclear War as their members drove from Denver to join a peaceful and lawful demonstration outside Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs in 1999."

One document, written by Denver Intelligence officer James Wattles, reports that 80 persons attended the peaceful demonstration. It lists the plate numbers of 30 participants' cars, along with corresponding names and home addresses (although the Denver Police Department blacked out the individual names before releasing the document.) According to the report, the Colorado Springs Police Department supplied the license plate numbers to the Denver Intelligence Bureau.

The final portion of the report reflects surveillance conducted in Denver earlier the same day at the office of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), one of the plaintiffs in the ACLU lawsuit. It states that four vehicles left for the demonstration and it notes that passengers included the AFSC director and a representative of Colorado Coalition for the Prevention of Nuclear War. Relying on the information supplied from Colorado Springs police, the report confirms that the same four vehicles arrived at the Colorado Springs demonstration.

"This document demonstrates that Colorado Springs police diligently recorded at least 30 license plate numbers and forwarded them directly to the Denver's Intelligence Unit," Silverstein said. "Someone evidently 'ran' the plate numbers through a law enforcement computer to obtain the names and home addresses that appear in this report. Neither police agency had any suspicion that criminal activity was involved. They had no valid law enforcement purpose whatsoever for this political surveillance."

"Colorado police agencies need to learn that a public gathering where individuals peacefully criticize government policy is not a crime scene; it is not criminal activity and it is not suspicious activity," Silverstein added. "On the contrary, it is activity that it protected by the United States and Colorado Constitutions."

Another document the ACLU disclosed shows that a Denver intelligence officer traveled to Colorado Springs to attend a conference at Colorado College about the dangers of nuclear proliferation. He then filed a report detailing the views expressed by the speakers and listing the peace activists he recognized in the audience.

In a third document, Denver intelligence officers report that AFSC and Citizens for Peace in Space sponsored a conference in Denver titled "Space, Nukes, and International Law." The report shows that Denver intelligence officers collected the license plate number of vehicles in the parking lot and then listed the corresponding names and home addresses in the Spy Files.

The ACLU released an additional Denver police document that reports that the Pikes Peak Justice & Peace Commission (PPJPC), also based in Colorado Springs, works closely with Citizens for Peace in Space and publishes a newsletter. The report lists PPJPC members and their addresses; lists the additional individuals responsible for editorial and distribution tasks connected with the newsletter; and lists 10 additional individuals that the report states are "associated" with the two peace groups.

"People should be free to attend an educational conference, work on a newsletter, join a peace group, or attend a peaceful rally without fear that their names will wind up in a police dossier," Silverstein said. "These documents make it clear that the Denver police have been building these Spy Files about First Amendment activities in Colorado Springs with the active assistance of the Colorado Springs Police Department. That raises serious questions whether the Colorado Springs police also maintain the same kind of political surveillance files on peaceful protesters that has prompted controversy, and a class action lawsuit, in Denver."

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